http://www.ted.com/talks/tim_ferriss_smash_fear_learn_anything.html

Tim Ferriss is a productivity guru. Through his self-experimentation and determination he has discovered his limits. His two books The Four Hour Work-Week and The Four-Hour Body demonstrate his ability--through analysis--to break down goals into efficient experiments. The concept behind his experimentation is Parkinson’s law--work expands so as to fill the time for its completion. Thus, if only give four hours to complete a task then it would be possible to get all the work done in four hours, but the challenge is figuring out how. In Tim’s TED lecture, he discusses his techniques for completing goals within a timeframe.

His first goal was to swim better (first conquering his fear of water). He challenged traditional methods of swimming by instead observing the swim techniques of effective swimmers. He disregarded the methods instructors said were right but did not work and, instead, experimented to find what worked for him. By analyzing the himself he become more efficient. Instruction is useless without analysis of methods.

He then became a world class tango dancer within a couple months of learning tango by applying an implicit approach rather than an explicit one. Tim observed other tango dancers to determine the techniques that made tango dancers great. He found that implicit instruction of the methods (the style and technique of individual tango dancers) was more enhancing than the explicit (textbook approach to methods). Thus, we learn that learn something new requires us to know ourselves. We must approach a new task with style as well as with analysis.