The Magic That Is 10,000 Hours

“You have to write ten books before you can publish one.” 

I’ve heard this adage and various versions of it many times, but it wasn’t until I read Malcolm Gladwell’s Outliers that I finally understood what it really meant.  In the book, one of the issues Gladwell discusses is the 10,000-Hour Rule, which states that in order to truly master a skill, an individual must put in 10,000 hours of meaningful practice, regardless of natural ability.

He cites a study by psychologist K. Anders Ericsson in the early 1900s.  The violinists at Berlin’s Academy of Music were divided into three groups.  Students in group one could become world-class soloists, those in group two could play professionally, and those in group three would not likely make a living from their playing.

All of these students had started playing at approximately five years old, and at that age practiced two or three hours a week.  At around eight, the differences started to emerge, when those who would end up in group one started practicing more than the others.  By the time they were twenty, they’d each racked up—drumroll please—10,000 hours of meaningful practice.  Group two had totaled about 8,000 hours, and group three had totaled 4,000.  Ericsson found similar results with the pianists.

The thing he didn’t find was naturals—musicians who were so naturally talented that they could attain higher levels with less practice.  (Gladwell debunks the myth of the natural by showing how Mozart, widely known as a child prodigy, didn’t compose his earliest masterwork—No. 9— until he had been composing for ten years.  His truly great pieces came after twenty years.)

Ericsson also didn’t find any grinds—people who practiced more, but couldn’t break into the higher levels.  Of course, there is a baseline to consider, since these students all had what it took to attend an elite music school.  The thing is, once they proved they had sufficient talent to meet the baseline, hard work separated them.

Gladwell then quotes neurologist Daniel Levitin:  “In study after study, of composers, basketball players, fiction writers, ice skaters, concert pianists, chess players, master criminals, and what have you, this number comes up again and again.  Of course, this doesn’t address why some people get more out of their practice sessions than others do.  But no one has yet found a case in which true world-class expertise was accomplished in less time.  It seems that it takes the brain this long to assimilate all that it needs to know to achieve true mastery.”

So that’s why you have to write ten books first!  But then I wonder what counts as practice, how someone can get those 10,000 hours, and what the "baseline" is for writers.  These will be the subjects of my next few posts, so stay tuned.