10,000 Hours

Day 163 / 366

I was looking at an online coding test today, it was basic coding logic questions written in Python. I have been coding in Python since 2014, so I would say I am pretty good at it. But I surprised myself at how fast I was able to solve all those questions. And then I remembered something that I had read a while back in the book “Outliers”.

The author suggested that to become an expert in any field, you need to spend at least 10000 hours doing it. Be it a sport, or playing the guitar, or writing. There is no way more certain than just putting in an enormous amount of hours practicing a skill in order to master it.

How much is 10000 hours?

Let’s do some basic calculations.

Suppose you do something 5 days a week, 5 hours a day.

That would give you around 1300 hours in a year.

And in 9 years, you will easily cross 10,000 hours.

So given that I have been coding in Python almost every weekday (and many weekends as well) I can confidently say that I have spend more than 10,000 hours in it.

What’s something that you have spent more than 10000 hours on?