{"id":441,"date":"2009-07-02T00:32:34","date_gmt":"2009-07-02T07:32:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.law.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/?p=441"},"modified":"2009-08-18T08:48:50","modified_gmt":"2009-08-18T15:48:50","slug":"5-years-when-i-paint-my-masterpiece","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/2009\/07\/02\/5-years-when-i-paint-my-masterpiece\/","title":{"rendered":"5 years; (when i paint my) masterpiece"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In Malcolm Gladwell&#8217;s worth-reading <em>Outliers<\/em>, he makes the case that developing expertise in anything requires 10,000 hours.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a rule; the ten-thousand hour rule.\u00a0 If you work 2,000 hours in a year, that means it takes five years to become an expert.<\/p>\n<p>There are lots of examples of this in practice; to me, it seems roughly right.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>For example, in late medieval Europe, this rule seems to apply to the guild craftsman system, vestiges of which still remain.\u00a0 You apprenticed to a master for a period of time, typically three to five years, living with him like a son and learning the trade.\u00a0 You might start out sweeping the floors and taking care of the tools, but you progressed to working alongside the master or, if he had a large workshop, journeyman craftsmen, but always under the supervision of the master.\u00a0 After your apprenticeship you were sent out into the world as a journeyman yourself, with your reputation at least initially dependent on the reflected prestige of your master.<\/p>\n<p>This guru-disciple relationship was formally regulated by the craft guild that the master belonged to; only masters could have apprentices and only masters belonged to the guild.\u00a0 In order to get master status you have to submit a &#8216;masterpiece&#8217; to the guild.<\/p>\n<p>[Edit: See also Ira Glass on<a title=\"Ira Glass: Creative Excellence Takes Time\" href=\"http:\/\/www.openculture.com\/2009\/07\/ira_glass_on_why_creative_excellence_takes_time.html\"> spanning the gap between taste and ability<\/a>.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In Malcolm Gladwell&#8217;s worth-reading Outliers, he makes the case that developing expertise in anything requires 10,000 hours.\u00a0 It&#8217;s a rule; the ten-thousand hour rule.\u00a0 If you work 2,000 hours in a year, that means it takes five years to become &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/2009\/07\/02\/5-years-when-i-paint-my-masterpiece\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[134,646],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education","category-words"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8jQA6-77","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1116"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=441"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":491,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/441\/revisions\/491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.blogs.harvard.edu\/cqtwo\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}