How to Learn Anything...Fast

A common misconception is that “it takes 10,000 hours to learn something.” This fallacy originally entered the public consciousness via psychologist K. Anders Ericsson’s studies of people who are leaders in their fields, such as chess grandmasters. These maestros, Ericsson found, excel by undergoing 10,000 hours of deliberate practice over the course of a decade. Yet most people who want to learn something new don’t aim to be world champions. In fact, if you follow the right process, you can become proficient at any new skill in just 20 hours, or 40 minutes every day for a month. To learn something quickly, take these five steps:

1. Define what you ...