
Do Something New Every Three Years - nreece
http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/12/do-something-ne.html
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tremendo
I can relate about wanting to move on after mastering an activity. Sadly, in
many cases it doesn't take the fabled 10,000 hours or otherwise becoming an
expert. When what you do is in essence the same thing a lot of other people
do, when you're not blazing the trail, staleness is reached much more quickly,
and with it the need to rock the boat a little. Hm, I wonder why this has been
in my mind the last few months...

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0112358
The comment in the blog about 10,000 hours for expert performance is well put.
The research supports 10,000 hours but 10,000 hours in deliberate practice
rather than mere repetition. The effort of such practice can only really be
sustained for about 4 hours a day. Thus 10,000 hours takes 10 years if done 5
days a week, 50 weeks a year. Just doing the same job for 3 years (even
putting in 60 hour weeks) will not reach expert levels.

See:
[http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracti...](http://projects.ict.usc.edu/itw/gel/EricssonDeliberatePracticePR93.pdf)

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jcromartie
My recent layoff turned into a great opportunity to do this. My professional
life is taking a strange new turn, and I like the direction it is headed.
Enterprisey corporate development was getting _really_ stale after a few
years.

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jeeringmole
Resonates with advice from David Patterson and Richard Hamming:
[http://www.cra.org/Activities/workshops/academic.careers/200...](http://www.cra.org/Activities/workshops/academic.careers/2002/patterson.pdf)
(see pages 22, 33, and 34).

