{"id":8262,"date":"2012-01-01T19:01:18","date_gmt":"2012-01-01T18:01:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/?p=8262"},"modified":"2023-01-06T10:31:09","modified_gmt":"2023-01-06T09:31:09","slug":"tim-ferriss-recipe-for-hacking-any-topic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/tim-ferriss-recipe-for-hacking-any-topic\/","title":{"rendered":"Tim Ferriss’ recipe for hacking any topic"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is from an old but good interview with Tim Ferriss on his blog<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Avi:<\/strong> Do you have a generic method for hacking some advanced skill set. You seem to have hacked so many advanced topics that you must have a method to your madness!<\/p>\n

Tim:<\/strong> Well, I do have a method and it\u2019s really a series of questions more than anything else. It\u2019s almost a Socratic process but I would say that, first and foremost, I have to have a very clear, measurable objective, whether that\u2019s in language acquisition or in power lifting.<\/p>\n

The common element is measurement, so you need to know when you have succeeded and how to measure progress to that success point, whether that\u2019s a 500 pound dead lift or a 50 kilometer ultra marathon or getting to the point where you can do, let\u2019s say, a single lap in an Olympic pool with 15 or fewer strokes. These are all real examples. The number of footfalls, meaning stride rate, per minute in endurance training and how long I can sustain that for say with a goal of 20 minutes at a time. Or a 95 percent fluency in conversational German as measured through different metrics. Again, all real examples.<\/p>\n

So the first is measurement<\/strong>. I have a clear idea of what success looks like and how to measure it.<\/p>\n

Secondly, I will look at the most common approaches<\/strong>, which are, oftentimes, the lowest common denominator but have some thread of efficacy. I will ask, \u201cWhat if I did the opposite?\u201d I\u2019ll look at the established common practices, the established dogma, and ask myself what if I did the opposite.<\/p>\n

If it\u2019s endurance training, let\u2019s look at Iron Man training, and the average is 20-30 hours of training per week for people in the upper quartile. What if I limited that to five or fewer hours per week? What would I have to do? How could I make this type of training work, or perhaps be more effective, if I had to focus on low volume instead of high volume? The same could be said of weight training. The same could be said of language learning.<\/p>\n

If someone says it takes a lifetime to learn a language or it should take 10 years, what if I had to compress that into 10 weeks? I know it\u2019s \u201cimpossible,\u201d but what if? And if they say that vocabulary comes first because we should learn as we did when we were a child, which I completely disagree with \u2013 it\u2019s entirely unfounded \u2013 what if you were to start with a radicals (Japanese\/Chinese) or grammar instead?<\/p>\n

So, flipping things on their heads and looking at opposites can provide some very surprising discoveries and shortcuts.<\/p>\n

Thirdly, I look for anomalies<\/strong>. For any given skill, there\u2019s going to be an archetype of someone should be successful at that skill. If it\u2019s swimming, for example, it would be someone with the build of Michael Phelps. They would have a long wingspan, relatively tall, big hands, big feet and large lung capacity. So, if I can find someone who defies those anatomical proportions \u2014 say, someone who\u2019s 5\u2032 5\u2033, extremely heavily muscled, like 250, who is still an effective swimmer \u2014 I want to study what the anomalies practice because attributes can compensate for poor training. I want to find someone who lacks the attributes that can allow them to compensate for poor training.<\/p>\n

Typically, you find much more refined approaches when you look at the anomalies. That\u2019s true for any skill I have looked at, whether that\u2019s programming or otherwise. So, let\u2019s just take computer programming. If the common belief is that someone should start with language A, then progress to framework B and then progress to language C, if I can find someone who skipped those first two steps and is regarded as one of the best programmers in language C, I\u2019m going to look closely at how they developed that skill set. In some cases, it correlates to their use of analogies and background from music or natural languages (for example, Derek Sivers or Chad Fowler )<\/p>\n

Then I would say, lastly, is a set of questions related to rate of progress<\/strong>. So I don\u2019t just look at the best people in the world; I look at people who have improved upon their base condition in the shortest period of time possible.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s say I\u2019m looking at muscular gain. I would certainly interview the person who\u2019s, let\u2019s say, 300 pounds and 7% body fat, but there\u2019s a very good chance that I\u2019ll learn more from the person who\u2019s put on 50 pounds for the first time in their life in the last 12 months. So, I always try to establish the rate of progress and, when that person has plateaued at different points, for what duration. I find that exceptionally helpful also for finding non-obvious solutions to problems.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is from an old but good interview with Tim Ferriss on his blog: Avi: Do you have a generic method for hacking some advanced skill set. You seem to have hacked so many advanced topics that you must have a method to your madness! Tim: Well, I do have a method and it\u2019s really … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"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":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[4,14,42],"tags":[300,296],"class_list":["post-8262","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-health-fitness","category-philosophy","category-psychology","tag-processed","tag-published"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/prY0k-29g","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":15734,"url":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/15734\/","url_meta":{"origin":8262,"position":0},"title":"Tim Ferriss’ tonic for procrastinative loons","author":"Limbic","date":"November 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Great advice from Tim Ferriss: Personally, I suck at efficiency (doing things quickly). 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It can be quite fascinating to see what had your attention years ago. This one, last edited in March 2009, is just collection of notes for a post, but there were some gems from Kevin Kelly]\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Devops"","block_context":{"text":"Devops","link":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/category\/it\/devops\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15690,"url":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/eristic\/","url_meta":{"origin":8262,"position":4},"title":"Eristic","author":"Limbic","date":"July 9, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"\"Eristic, from the ancient Greek word Eris meaning wrangle or strife, often refers to a type of argument where the participants fight and quarrel without any reasonable goal. The aim usually is to win the argument and\/or to engage in a conflict for the sole purpose of wasting time through\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Language & Writing"","block_context":{"text":"Language & Writing","link":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/category\/humanities\/language-writing\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":25333,"url":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/the-progressive-electoral-quandary\/","url_meta":{"origin":8262,"position":5},"title":"The progressive electoral quandary","author":"Limbic","date":"April 13, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"I thought this quote from Hera made out of clouds in Pe\u0161\u010danik made an interestinhg point about progressives in Serbia feel they have no reliable political representation: \"A citizen of Serbia who is in favor of urgent amendments to the Constitution, recognition of Kosovo, NATO membership, strengthening of Vojvodina autonomy,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Miscellaneous"","block_context":{"text":"Miscellaneous","link":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/category\/miscellaneous\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8262","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8262"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8262\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8262"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8262"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.limbicnutrition.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8262"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}