80/20: Pareto's principle

The fear of sounding stupid stops us. In reality, you can learn anything if you wish to with a little daily practise over a repeated period of time.

It is not humanly possible to practice all in a twenty-hour stretch.

A distributed practice learning method is achievable. It would roughly mean 45 minutes of practice for a period of thirty days in a row.

For instance, writing every evening for 30 minutes can give you a reward of a 25 000-word book in a 5 - 6 week period.

Remove any obstacles that may distract you from practicing your sub-skill. Television is the biggest culprit, followed by smartphones.

Learning something new will come with some frustration. That will be a time to safeguard yourself from any distractions so you remain focused on learning the skill.

• Break the skill into various small parts, remembering that every big skill is a collection of many sub-skills.
• Identify the essential sub-skills needed to give you the maximum advantage.
• Practice the most important part that you have discovered, using the 80:20 principle in your learning.

You don't need to become an expert before you start to learn any sub-set of the major skill. You just need to learn enough, so you can self-correct when you make mistakes.