A Mind for Numbers summary

As we go through our daily activities, we switch back and forth between the focused and diffuse modes. We’re in one or the other, but we’re never consciously in both at the same time.

Switching between them is important for our learning process – it allows for understanding and problem solving.

The human mind has extraordinary capacities. Did you know you have an innate ability to see forests, so your mind doesn’t have to process each individual tree?

This mental ability is called chunking. It’s an important part of learning, and we use it in our first steps toward gaining expertise in math and science.

Imagine how much pain your calf muscles would be in if you didn’t practice for a big marathon until the night before. Similarly, if you procrastinate, you can’t compete in math and science, either.

Procrastination is tempting, and it’s important to prevent it. It’s something we can all easily succumb to, because it offers temporary relief from an unappealing present. We procrastinate on things that are boring, difficult, or make us feel uncomfortable.

The management specialist David Allen once said, “To a great degree, the highest-performing people I know are those who have installed the best tricks in their lives.”

There are many simple but effective mental tricks you can use when learning.

We learn and recall information much more easily when the information is meaningful to us. This means your memorization process can become an exercise in creativity.

Suppose you want to remember Newton’s second law: f = ma. This law relates force to mass and acceleration. The letter f could stand for flying, m for mule and a for whatever comes to your creative mind (apples?)! So if you want your mule to start flying faster, you have to feed it more apples.

It can be intimidating to work alongside other people, especially if they understand new concepts more quickly than you. However, “average” students sometimes have advantages when it comes to work ethic and creativity.

Gifted people often have their own set of challenges to face. For one, smarter people often have a longer working memory. This is the part of our memory that handles whatever we’re immediately and consciously processing in our mind.

Testing isn’t just about measuring how much we know. It’s an extraordinarily powerful learning experience in itself. Studying and preparing for exams are highly important.

Testing improves our ability to retain what we’ve learned. It doesn’t merely assess learning, it facilitates it. This is called the testing effect.