The first 20 hours help us get past the initial barriers of learning and develop a level of competency that will move us past the novice stage.  After 20 hours we may not be masters but will be comfortable performing the basics of a new skill. The 20 hours is not the most important part of learning something rapidly. What is more important is how you use those hours. The key to improving in the first twenty hours is putting in focused time, planning what you need to learn and organizing how you will learn.

When you start a new exercise routine, it is important to pay attention to proper form and understand basic movement patterns. Proper form means holding the body in the best possible alignment during any exercise.  Pinching the muscles of the upper back while keeping the chest high, bracing the abdominal muscles and squeezing the glutes helps keep the body stable during exercise. Learning how to squat, hinge, lunge, push, pull, press and twist properly will help set the foundation for later progress in your workouts.

Once you have decided what you want to learn, deconstruct the skill into the smallest possible sub skills. In the squat movement for example, the sub-skills you need to learn are how to sit back as though you are reaching for a chair, keeping the knees behind the toes, maintaining a flat or neutral back, how far to point your toes out and how far apart to place your feet so you can squat to a parallel position.

Practicing these sub-skills and receiving immediate feedback for at least the first 20 hours aids in achieving competency in a new skill.  

Starting to learn a new skill may be frustrating initially, but successful people push past the frustration barrier. A large amount of progress can be experienced by creating and committing time to practice, removing distractions and embracing the initial confusion and discomfort that comes with learning a new skill.

20 hours is an approximation of how fast you can learn a new skill. Some skills take less time and some take more to reach your target level of acceptable performance.  The first twenty hours will take you from newbie to novice in many areas of skill acquisition and provide a foundation for future learning or mastery.

Choose a new skill that you would like to learn.  Do some research to tease out the main concepts and sub-skills you will need to achieve success.  Commit to 20 hours of dedicated practice and see how far you can go learning a new skill in a short time.