20 hours. All you need is 20 hours.

Many recognise the vitality of skills, hobbies and general interests in our daily lives, from the sports we enjoy, to the music we listen and even to the 3x3 and 4x4 Rubik's cubes we can solve. However, few take action and wholeheartedly pursue these ideas to develop genuine real-life-applicable skills that give them the opportunity to build skillsets, qualities and values that will set them up for a fulfilling career.

With the school holidays in full swing, take time off the Switch or the PlayStation and focus your time and energy on learning a new skill or hobby — writing (like I do here), a new language, solving cubes and even practicing an instrument you have always wanted to play.

How do you know what skills to pursue and which ones to avoid?

As Josh Kaufman, the author of famous works like “The Personal MBA” and “The First 20 Hours” puts it, it is instrumental to first gauge your interests and what you, without the consideration of any external biases, are most interested in learning.

That being said, the skills that serve as a “means to an end”— for a canvas artist, learning the art of Adobe’s Photoshop and Illustrator — should be considered as they may widen your career opportunities in the future. While learning the skill may not be fun, if the end results are appealing, find yourself interested in it anyway.

In regard to putting in 20 hours (1 hour for each day of the holidays, or alternatively, 40 minutes/day across a month) of dedicated time toward practicing this skill, consider whether you are willing to adjust your schedule because you want to learn this skill. If you don’t see yourself being able to do this, consider pursuing another skill.

What platforms and services can assist you in practicing your skill?

While there may be thousands of skills worth learning, I’ll go through the most popular ones and how you can achieve them.

Learning a language:- One that is popular throughout the world of social media is the entirely free app Duolingo.

Duolingo approaches learning a language differently from most schoolteachers and tutors would, as it offers an “addictive” and accessible outlook similar to many phone games. Combined with artificial intelligence, it uses a game-like structure — equipped with streaks, points and levels — to make learning languages fun and motivating during that 20 hour period.

Duolingo serves nothing short of a language experience that schools would, and it has been scientifically proven that those who completed 240 hours of language study (i.e. 4 semesters of schooling) had similar test scores to those who completed 120 hours through Duolingo.

I’ve been using Duolingo to actively work on and consolidate my French, and it’s been personally a fun experience. The use of streaks and gamifying the journey has made it addicting in a good way. The action of becoming bilingual or even a polyglot immerses you into a culture and lifestyle outside of your own, providing you with a different lens on life itself. It will also diversify you from your peers and make you a highly valued individual. 

Video editing:- A comprehensive program that offers professional video editing is DaVinci Resolve, which, from a consumer perspective, has overtaken Adobe as the best video editing service. While there are no distinct programs that offer this, there are free, up-to-date Youtube courses (Casey Faris) that offer in-depth teaching and mastery in just 4 hours which cover the basics for the FREE version of Resolve.

DaVinci Resolve has been a personal favourite of mine when I took up video editing. It was very obscure at first, much like the complexity of Premiere Pro, but once you get the hang of it through practice it became easy. I used Resolve quite a lot, and it was very efficient and effective to getting me to my end goal of video production, which I was highly interested in getting into simply because it was a hobby I wanted to pursue.

Learning an instrument:- Yousician is an outstanding application when it comes to learning instruments from scratch. Like Duolingo, it offers a gamified approach with interactive lessons for instruments like guitar, bass, ukulele, piano and voice. Yousician boasts over 9000 lessons within its courses and up to 2000+ songs to learn.

My personal experience of Yousician was fascinating. I used the app when I first began to play the trumpet, an instrument I still play, and it helped my development and my improvement over time. Being part of an ensemble band and orchestra provides you with a chance to contribute to something greater than yourself while also forging discipline and collaboration, two very important life skills. 

Writing and blogging:- Writing through platforms such as Medium or Empower Young Voices is a great way to express your ideas and thoughts on the world while also, in real time, gaining insight into current affairs and ongoing events that you would otherwise gloss over. Blogging is a great way to express your views and even document your journey through an adventure or just life in general. Exposing yourself through 20 hours of this “skill” using the app allows you to develop a community (like I have, which I’m trying to grow) and build your personal image.

Blogging and journalism has given me an outlet on the life I currently live. In the society we are in today, our lives are so action-packed that we do not have time to reflect, consider and prepare for the future. We are so indulged in our quota of work and play that we are disillusioned to life outside our bubble. Writing like this gives me a vice for reflection and gives me better insight into current affairs that I am interested to learn more about. 

Web design:- Tying into that theme of building either your personal image or the image of others, web design is a pioneering skill, and one which, if you are proficient in, can assist your career in the future. Platforms like Wix and Squarespace offer free URLs to build your website on, with an easy-to-access interface along with a plethora of different styles and fonts.

Web design is an incredibly important skill and hobby to learn. The skill is in high demand in today’s online society, and is thus a highly profitable income source. I’d highly recommend taking this skill up, as I had, and try to master it. Ultimately, learning tech-based skills like this will set you up for a more specialised and future-proof job. 

Twenty hours may not make you a master of these skills, but they will make you dangerously good. Good enough to use, improve and keep learning your skill. So, pick a skill, set your timer, and see where those 20 hours can take you.