Everybody has probably heard a phrase along the lines of “if you want to master a skill, it will take 10.000 hours”. After hearing that, you probably thought “who has that much time on their hands?”. And rightly so, since this is more than a year, given you work every day. However, you do not have to become a master to be good at something, especially with all the digital helpers we have at our disposal.
If you want to beat the stress of the VUCA-world with digitized tools, you will find yourself needing much less than ten thousand hours. Let’s say you picked a skill you want to learn to help you perform better professionally. If you start the process with lengthy research and watching hours of videos, it might take the old 10.000 hours and leave you frustrated before you fill that pensum. The key is to strategically pick the digital tools that can boost your learning experience and thus create the perfect digital learning environment for you.
Not only will your productivity increase and your skillset broaden, doing this also helps you to become mentally relaxed. Find the appropriate tools and information directed exactly at the knowledge gap you aim to address. That alone probably saved you a couple thousand hours. Use the tools little by little on a daily basis and adequately postprocess and implement what you have learned – another set of a thousand hours is taken off the clock. The productive learning surroundings which you will have created for yourself are going to crystallize into a better cognitive performance and a selective learning experience centered around your personal needs.
In turn, this will free up time and mental capacity to soak in what you have learned in a sustainable way. And the time saved can be used to think about what to learn next.