Tuesday, November 18, 2008

2.8 Years to Go

Erin, from A Dress A Day (the reason I've worn only dresses & skirts to work since February) linked to an article which says that the difference between being amazing, good and mediocre is how much you practice: it takes 10,000 hours to be great, 8,000 to be good, and 4,000 to be mediocre. (I think I've read those numbers somewhere before, but where?)

So, let's do a little math... say I've knit an hour a day since college (I knit in college too, but the combined effects of less money and more studying meant I didn't knit anywhere as much), and way more on weekends, vacations, and long plane rides... say my extra weekend and vacation knitting averages to an extra 4 hours per weekend day (which seems reasonable, since weekend days I didn't knit are balanced by marathon knitting sessions when traveling. Also, I'm trying to be conservative in this estimate, hard as that may be to believe!).

Regular daily knitting: 365(days/year) x 1(hours/day) = 365(hours/year)

Binge knitting: 52(weeks/year) x 2(days/weekend) x 4(hours/day) = 416(hours/year)

365 + 416 = 781 knitting hours/year

That's 7,810 hours over 10 years, leaving 190 hours to go to 8,000, and 2,190 to 10,000.

At 781 hours per year, that will take 2.8 years.

And I will need to buy more yarn, since I "only" have about a 6-month supply at my current rate of knitting (in my measured stash, at least).

Speaking of which, it occurs to me that I should probably start counting handspun, now that I've spun yarn on purpose to make a pre-selected project (the Montana Tunic) even if I did have to change the gauge.

So that's another reason to get knitting!

3 comments:

Laurie said...

The other thing that was noted in the 10K hour study is that you have to have purpose and intent to improve throughout the hour count. Otherwise, the guy lifting beers in the local bar would be a beer expert without even trying. So intention is a biggie.

Makes me wonder if mindless knitting counts in that.

Anonymous said...

Love this idea! Hey, what are you doing online? You had better get back to your knitting!

knitseashore said...

I think your knitting abilities are already pretty great!