This seems to be key time generally to be able to be professional and successful in any field.
I had never heard of it until I came to the U.S. At that time, I unfortunately had nothing much to do in the office even though I came here to do, and I had much time to do something after work. So I tried to read books which I had wanted to read since long time but I had not read due to lack of time. In order to find something interest books, I used to hang out in book stores daily and do web surfing to find them. A good point of bookstores is obviously that we can actually read books there whenever we want to read, but an issue of finding interesting books at bookstores is too many books there, and we usually can find best seller books which are usually recommended and arranged in a book shell by book store clerks, although your smart phone can help you find past bestsellers.
The easiest way to find them is to search bestseller lists in the web, for example, The New York Times. A great point of these lists is that bestseller books are generally categorized into specific field, for instance, politics, business, self-improvement, science, heath, history, etc. At that time, I had interest in business and self-improvement books, so I did search by focusing on these topics, and happened to find a book, "Outliers".
Truth be told, I haven`t read this book and I don`t know much about detail, but I have read about online reviews much and got the outline of this book which reminds me of my experience through my job. I would like to write about it. The book is about 10,000 hours rule, and an author, Malcolm Gladwell, have investigated that exceptional performance in any field comes both from generic heredity and heavy effort by interviewing famous athletes, entrepreneurs, and people who is doing well at their own field. Regarding this experimental rule, another person, Anders Ericsson, seems to propose same thing separately. Anders`s paper is available for free on line so it`s worth going through it once. I put the link at the bottom on the page.
Let`s look at 10,000 hours in other words. If you spend 3 hours per day, then 10,000 hours is going to be achieved by 10 years. If you spend 9 hours per day, it is going to be 3 years. "3 years" is very important to me because it makes sense from my experience.
My job is analog circuit design in semiconductor industry. I can say that I was able to do the job better than other colleagues after 3 years since I began to learn the design. My major was pure theoretical physics when I was in a university both for bachelor and master degrees, so when I joined the company, I did not have background for the design and electrical engineering background. What I had at the time were basic behaviors of RCL (resistor, capacitor, inductor) with ohm law as well as electromagnetic knowledge in terms of pure physics. My company employs on-the-job training for new fresh employees. It is called OJT in short, and one senior is supposed to be assigned for one fresh employee for one year to teach whatever is necessary for doing jobs. Fortunately, I could work under one superior senior who is 2 years older than me, although he already left the company for personal reason. I did not have spoiled idea that my senior teaches me everything, and I had an idea that I tried to learn faster and contribute him and the company soon. In order to do them, I had studied the design whenever I had time and wherever it was. If I look back the past, I am sure that no other colleagues who joined the company at the same time had studied it harder than me. My senior was very kind, and he is very good at teaching intuitively and qualitatively with mathematical back ground. Consequently, I could feel growth almost every day. After one year passed, I kept studying harder because I felt that I still needed to learn a lot. Throughout job experiences and study, I could feel that I could do design well by myself before just 3 years passed. If I look back the past, I spent 9 hours averagely on it every day including weekends. This experience make me feel that 10,000 hours rule makes sense to me. I was very luck actually by surrounded by many respectful peoples, so my experience is owing to them much.
At last, let me tell you one thing. In Japan, there is one quote since long time ago which is strongly correlated with 10,000 hours rule. When I check it on line Japanese to English dictionary, it gave me "Perseverance prevails". This does not make sense to me a little bit, so English does not seems to have direct translation of it. Let me give you example of the quote. If you begin to do something new, you have to keep doing it for 3 years patiently, then a result comes out. (3 years is necessary for you to keep doing it until a result with which you feel satisfied comes out)
Link to the paper
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/DeliberatePractice(PsychologicalReview).pdf
Let`s look at 10,000 hours in other words. If you spend 3 hours per day, then 10,000 hours is going to be achieved by 10 years. If you spend 9 hours per day, it is going to be 3 years. "3 years" is very important to me because it makes sense from my experience.
My job is analog circuit design in semiconductor industry. I can say that I was able to do the job better than other colleagues after 3 years since I began to learn the design. My major was pure theoretical physics when I was in a university both for bachelor and master degrees, so when I joined the company, I did not have background for the design and electrical engineering background. What I had at the time were basic behaviors of RCL (resistor, capacitor, inductor) with ohm law as well as electromagnetic knowledge in terms of pure physics. My company employs on-the-job training for new fresh employees. It is called OJT in short, and one senior is supposed to be assigned for one fresh employee for one year to teach whatever is necessary for doing jobs. Fortunately, I could work under one superior senior who is 2 years older than me, although he already left the company for personal reason. I did not have spoiled idea that my senior teaches me everything, and I had an idea that I tried to learn faster and contribute him and the company soon. In order to do them, I had studied the design whenever I had time and wherever it was. If I look back the past, I am sure that no other colleagues who joined the company at the same time had studied it harder than me. My senior was very kind, and he is very good at teaching intuitively and qualitatively with mathematical back ground. Consequently, I could feel growth almost every day. After one year passed, I kept studying harder because I felt that I still needed to learn a lot. Throughout job experiences and study, I could feel that I could do design well by myself before just 3 years passed. If I look back the past, I spent 9 hours averagely on it every day including weekends. This experience make me feel that 10,000 hours rule makes sense to me. I was very luck actually by surrounded by many respectful peoples, so my experience is owing to them much.
At last, let me tell you one thing. In Japan, there is one quote since long time ago which is strongly correlated with 10,000 hours rule. When I check it on line Japanese to English dictionary, it gave me "Perseverance prevails". This does not make sense to me a little bit, so English does not seems to have direct translation of it. Let me give you example of the quote. If you begin to do something new, you have to keep doing it for 3 years patiently, then a result comes out. (3 years is necessary for you to keep doing it until a result with which you feel satisfied comes out)
Link to the paper
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/blogs/freakonomics/pdf/DeliberatePractice(PsychologicalReview).pdf
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