Forget the 10,000 hour rule— what if it’s possible to learn the basics of any new skill in 20 hours or less? Take a moment to consider how many things you want to learn to do. What’s on your list? What’s holding you back from getting started? Are you worried about the time and effort it takes to acquire new skills—time you don’t have and effort you can’t spare? Research suggests it takes 10,000 hours to develop a new skill. In this nonstop world when will you ever find that much time and energy? To make matters worse, the early hours of prac­ticing something new are always the most frustrating. That’s why it’s difficult to learn how to speak a new language, play an instrument, hit a golf ball, or shoot great photos. It’s so much easier to watch TV or surf the web . . . In The First 20 Hours, Josh Kaufman offers a systematic approach to rapid skill acquisition— how to learn any new skill as quickly as possible. His method shows you how to deconstruct com­plex skills, maximize productive practice, and remove common learning barriers. By complet­ing just 20 hours of focused, deliberate practice you’ll go from knowing absolutely nothing to performing noticeably well. Kaufman personally field-tested the meth­ods in this book. You’ll have a front row seat as he develops a personal yoga practice, writes his own web-based computer programs, teaches himself to touch type on a nonstandard key­board, explores the oldest and most complex board game in history, picks up the ukulele, and learns how to windsurf. Here are a few of the sim­ple techniques he teaches: Define your target performance level: Fig­ure out what your desired level of skill looks like, what you’re trying to achieve, and what you’ll be able to do when you’re done. The more specific, the better. Deconstruct the skill: Most of the things we think of as skills are actually bundles of smaller subskills. If you break down the subcompo­nents, it’s easier to figure out which ones are most important and practice those first. Eliminate barriers to practice: Removing common distractions and unnecessary effort makes it much easier to sit down and focus on deliberate practice. Create fast feedback loops: Getting accu­rate, real-time information about how well you’re performing during practice makes it much easier to improve. Whether you want to paint a portrait, launch a start-up, fly an airplane, or juggle flaming chain­saws, The First 20 Hours will help you pick up the basics of any skill in record time . . . and have more fun along the way.

Life in the 20s is exciting and entertaining. In this phase, one usually tastes more autonomy than ever in life. New people are introduced and new dimensions of life are opened up. You start to figure out your uniqueness and the qualities that make you special. Yet, this is also the age when everything can go wrong. You might step into well-known pitfalls and struggle for the rest of your life. You might make your life difficult by creating complex equations with other people only to find out that such people never mattered. You might not know the basics of managing your own finances, and struggle with money problems for the rest of your life. You might have the potential to forge a great career, but mess it up because of wrong priorities. In cricket terminology, you can be the best batsman in the world, but if you do not know who the bowler is or what his bowling specialties are, you will struggle to play well. In the 20s, you are the batsman and life is the bowler. In order to be the best batsman, you have to know the bowler inside out. This book attempts to give you insights on life in the 20s, so that you can make the best out of it. The eight chapters of this book collate the most important lessons of life in the 20s, in a concise, easy-to-read language.

This Friends themed lined journal is a perfect birthday gift for any Friends Tv Show Fan. Looking for a gift? Great activity journal? Daily diary? Or just Friends stuff? Better than a card, this journal can be used as a diary, to write notes, create stories, draw, whatever takes your imagination. Matte Finish Cover Blank Off White Lined Paper 110 Pages 6x9 Inches Perfect for: Birthday Gift Christmas Present Travel/Car Activity Notebook

Everyone wants to have a beautiful life, a good job, a wonderful partner and family. However, not everyone is ready to pay the hidden costs. The question is not “what do you want from life?” but rather “what are you willing to sacrifice in order to get it?” The more you desire, the more work you have to put into it. Your ambitions should be reflections of your actions. What kind of suffering do you choose? Are you ready for the non-stop work required to put together your own business? Are you ready to experience all the rejection, ignored phone calls and disapproval so you can eventually find the partner that you really want? Are you ready to hurt a lot of people and disappoint thousands to finally fulfill your dreams? Everything comes with a price. When you are twenty you think it’s enough to just want something a lot. Everyone wants things and yearns for them. What makes all the difference is taking action. Only real effort counts. Small steps, trials, failures. What if months and years pass and we are no closer to our goals? Then we have to ask ourselves the question: is our goal just an impossible fantasy? This book is about small steps and failures. 100 things you need to hear when you turn 20.

This Master-Plan gives you the incalculable new power to dominate, command and manipulate people around you! Add new STRENGTH to your WILL! Get new AUTHORITY in your MANNER! New POWER to COMMAND! New-won MASTERY of LIFE! DON’T put off for one more day your decision. Take this book into your life now. Start the automatic success-process working in your own career and personal life as well. You could be—right now—enjoying the glittering rewards life brings to the Man of Power...wealth, good living, a happy family, hosts of admiring friends and subordinates, the prestige and social success given to the Man of Power! USE this step-by-step plan today and watch your life become a golden road to success as you begin to use your new-won POWER...INFLUENCE...and CONTROL OVER THE PEOPLE AROUND YOU! A classic in the Do-It-Yourself genre.

Fun novelty notebook Small / journal / notebook to write in, for creative writing, planning and organizing. Would make a perfect gift for 21st Birthday Perfect Size at 6" by 9" 120 pages Softcover bookbinding Flexible paperback

The start of the twenty-first century has brought with it a rich variety of ways in which readers can connect with one another, access texts, and make sense of what they are reading. At the same time, new technologies have also opened up exciting possibilities for scholars of reading and reception in offering them unprecedented amounts of data on reading practices, book buying patterns, and book collecting habits. In From Codex to Hypertext, scholars from multiple disciplines engage with both of these strands. This volume includes essays that consider how changes such as the mounting ubiquity of digital technology and the globalization of structures of publication and book distribution are shaping the way readers participate in the encoding and decoding of textual meaning. Contributors also examine how and why reading communities cohere in a range of contexts, including prisons, book clubs, networks of zinesters, state-funded programs designed to promote active citizenship, and online spaces devoted to sharing one's tastes in books. As concerns circulate in the media about the ways that reading?for so long anchored in print culture and the codex?is at risk of being irrevocably altered by technological shifts, this book insists on the importance of tracing the historical continuities that emerge between these reading practices and those of previous eras. In addition to the volume editor, contributors include Daniel Allington, Bethan Benwell, Jin Feng, Ed Finn, Danielle Fuller, David S. Miall, Julian Pinder, Janice Radway, Julie Rak, DeNel Rehberg Sedo, Megan Sweeney, Joan Bessman Taylor, Molly Abel Travis, and David Wright.