Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result is insanity. 10,000 hours of practice might be better thought of 10,000 hours of experimentation. Each repetition, you try something. If that doesn't work, you vary something slightly, repeat and observe the outcome. You then take that result and make another change, and repeat the whole process. If you just dedicated 10,000 hours doing the exact same thing, the exact same way, you're insane to expect anything other than the exact same result. Athletes don't spend 10,000 hours throwing a pass the same way, taking a shot the same way or swining a bat the same way. They make adjustments based upon (usually) microexperiments. There might be film involved or coaching (for the elite, there is definitely at least those 2 things).
Point is, there is far more to the superficial "10,000 hours will make you an expert" than pure repetition.
For an athlete, once the "ideal" motion has been identified, there is value in repetition insofar as to commit that motion to muscle memory, instinct and passive response instead of actively having to "tell" your body to do some specific set of motions.
Otherwise the only option is a hammer.
Only option? I beg to differ. My preferred method is thermite.
I went through this at my new employer this month. I started this past December and our code signing cert expired this month. Thing is, I noticed back in around February/March timeline that this was going to happen, so I filed a ticket and added a personal reminder to tick off last month. Took us close to 2 weeks to get a new cert from our vendor (they were questioning our identity for some reason). By the time I got the new cert, it was 2 days before I went on vacation. I thought I had everything setup correctly and merrily went on my vacation. Turns out the wrong type of cert was sent and shit blew up after our old cert officially expired. Unlucky coworker had to pick up the pieces.
So, the moral here is, even if you do plan ahead an try and coordinate these things, sometimes it still blows up, and you still end up with unhappy customers.
Software production is assumed to be a line function, but it is run like a staff function. -- Paul Licker