10,000 Hours to Mastery

I listened to the Freakonomics program on productivity.  They mentioned that it takes 10,000 hours to mastery. That seems like a reasonable estimate to master programming.  Considering that we work 2,000 hours a year, it will take 5 years if you were able to focus on developing your programming exclusively at work.  Unfortunately, I will have to achieve the majority of this on my own time, so 2-4 per evening may take 6-7 years to achieve mastery.  There is the second problem that the 10,000 hours to mastery requires a level of intensity.  While watching videos provides a framework, mastery requires active development and engagement in learning.  It means working with the skills, but also pushing to the next levels of skills and expertise.  Writing the same lines of code each day does not achieve mastery and would not take more than six or seven months.  I am starting a spreadsheet to track my goals and accomplishments on this 10,000 hour journey.  I am not under the illusion that it will be easy and will more than likely take more than 5 years.  The greatest challenge to mastery will be focus.  It will require focus and intensity.  I will blog on the progress of this journey.