Hacking skills - a shortcut to building new skills

There are skills in life for which to develop mastery one really needs to dive into it and dedicate a lot of time and effort (and perhaps find a really good teachers).
But then there is also a big range of small quick skills that can be build quick and effective - if we just boost our learning a bit and stop procrastinating with it :)

HACK #1 - DO FIRST 20 HOURS

Skills such as the one described in Josh Kaufman' s TED talk and a book "First 20 hours":

But don't get stuck with the theory too much now - the whole point of his book is:

1. deconstruct the skill into sub skills (the smaller, the better) that you need to develop,
2. learn what is required for each subskill (learn just as little as you need in order to be able to start practicing in a smart way and to be able to measure or know if you are progressing)
3. notice and remove any obstacles to practice (such as avoidance cause of fear or any sort of excuses)
4. practice, practice, practice - whenever and wherever you find the time and opportunity, just take any chunk of time to keep on practicing

HACK #2 - START! in 4 easy steps

Often the biggest obstacle to this new skill development is just a simple hesitant to start, some sort of sluggishness and pretending that it is so much more complicated than it really is, and a bit of inertia that is so natural to our humans when we need to start of something new or get out of our comfort zone.

Key to solve this? Easy 4 steps :)

1. Know what the path is
   Gather all the important information that will make you ready to start - make the path ahead of you clear and simple.

2. Smart small
   Find the smallest possible substep through which you can jump into action.

3. Kick into action as soon as possible
   Get into doing as soon as you can - action motivates to more action.

4. Surround yourself with people who support you
   Find an accountability buddy or community to support you on our journey.

Key?
Get through "first 20 hours" of your new skill development in a quick or consistent way - make a plan to tick those off as soon as possible, and the action will breed action, and your motivation will grow on it's on.

HACK #3 - BUILD A HABIT; OR SET 30-DAYS-CHALLENGE

Great way to do this is to create a predictable "schedule" or plan on how to develop the new habit - a great way to learn more about this is the book The Power of Habit (another good TED talk here: ) - but don't worry, you don't need to make it that complicated - the key to new habits is to make them consistent and related to always the same trigger - that means or to plan them for always same time, or same place, or connect them to something that is your habit already (such as brushing your teeth ;)).

Easy shortcut to habit boosting is to use 30 days challenges as a consistency and motivation boost - and remember, the key is to also surround yourself with right accountability buddies or community.

Here you can here more ideas about 30-days challenges
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but again, don't procrastinate now until you have time to watch the ted talk (or don't procrastinate by watching the TED talk hehe) - the concept is very simple: choose something (preferably small and fairly simple, such as skill subset) that you will challenge yourself to do it Every Single Day for 30 days.

HACK #4 - CHOOSE SOMETHING TO LEARN... NOW :)

Now, which easy going skills would you like to develop next? How about starting off already today? :)

Hey, and don't forget to have fun with it :)

p.s. just remember, it makes sense focusing on one skill or one 30-days-challenge at a time ;) multitasking doesn't really help here :)))