1.

Case Study: How I Got the Highest Grade

in my Discrete Math Class
2.Why I Never Joined Facebook
3.Fighting Procrastination
4.How to Ace Calculus: The Art of Doing
Well in Technical Courses
5.How to Solve Hard Problem Sets Without
Staying Up All Night
6.Use Technical Explanation Questions
When Studying For Technical Classes
7.The Quarantine Method for Producing
Better Work in Less Total Hours

Case Study: How I Got the Highest Grade in

my Discrete Math Class
November 25th, 2008 47 comments

A Hallway Encounter
During my sophomore year at Dartmouth I took a course
in discrete mathematics. The tests were not calibrated to
any standard scale, so it was difficult to judge how well
you were doing. On the midterm, for example, scores
around 50 to 60 out of 100 were at the top of the class,
whereas for the final those would be failing.
Rewind, then, to the end of the winter quarter, and imagine my surprise in the following
scenario. Its the day after the final. Im walking through a hallway when I encounter the TA:
Yougot the highest grade, he said.
On the final? I asked, somewhat surprised.
No, for the entire course.
This was hard to believe. The course had 70 students. Three of them were from Eastern Europe
where, educated in the old Soviet-style talent-tracking system, they had already studied this
subject in high school!
I didnt think of myself as a math person. Before this class, I had shown no particular talent for
the subject. I was trying to just hang in there with a decent grade. My victory, as we like to say
here on Study Hacks, was tactical.
In this post I will explain how I achieved this feat, and how following similar strategies can help
you dominate even the most thorny technical courses
No Tolerance For Lack of Insight
At the high-level, my strategy was exactly what I spelled out in my How to Ace Calculus post of
two weeks ago: learn the insights. But I want to dive into the details of how I accomplished this
goal for this specific class. Think of this as a case study of the insight method in action.
Here was my specific strategy:

Proof Obsession: Discrete math is about proofs. In lecture, the professor would write a
proposition on the board e.g., if n is a perfect square then its also odd then walk through a
proof. Proposition after proposition, proof after proof. As the class advanced, we learned
increasingly advanced techniques for building these proofs. I soon developed a singular
obsession: I wanted to be able to recreate, with pencil and paper, and no helper notes, every

single proof presented in class. No exceptions. Lack of understanding of even one proof
wouldnt be tolerated.
My Obsession in Practice
Heres how I learned every proof.
1. I bought a package of white printer paper.
2. As the term progressed, I copied each proposition presented in class onto its own sheet of
paper. I would write the problem as the top of the sheet and recreate the proof, from my notes,
below.
3. I tried to do this every week copying the most recent material onto its own sheets though
I often got behind.
4. While doing this work I would sometimes okay, many times realize I didnt quite
understand the proof I had copied in my notes. In these cases, I would break out the textbook,
or do some web searching for the problem, to see if I could make sense of what I was writing
down. This usually worked. In the worst case scenario, I would ask the professor or the TA for
help. Not understanding the proof was not an option. I wasnt practicing transcription; I knew I
had to learn these.
5. About two weeks before each exam I started scheduling sessions to aggressively review my
proof guides. I always worked on the second floor of the Dana Biomedical Library on the
outskirts of campus. (Think: dark, concrete-floored stacks, with desks tucked away at then end of
long rows, each illuminated by a single, bright incandescent bulbstudy heaven.) I did standard
Quiz and Recall: splitting the proofs between those I could replicate from scratch and those that
gave me trouble, and then, in the next round, focusing only on those that gave me trouble, and so
on, until every sheet had been conquered.
By the day of the exam, you could give me any problem from the course and I could rattle off the
proof, without mistake and without hesitation.
Lots of Work, but Not Hard Work
In retrospect, its not surprising I did well in this class. Most of the other students even the
Eastern European students started studying for the exam 48 hours in advance, trying,
frantically, to review as many of the high-level techniques as possible. Not surprisingly: a lot of
details were missed. They knew the basics. But they lacked mastery.
Consider, by contrast, my approach. If you add up the time I spent copying out the proofs on the
white paper, add in the time required to track down help for the proofs I didnt understand, and
then throw into the mix the time spent reviewing, the total is somewhat staggering. To try to do
the same a few days before the exam would have been literally impossible.
This doesnt mean, however, that my life was hell. If anything, this was a relaxing term. The
secret was that I inlined my work throughout the term. I never spent more than 2 hours at a
time working on these proofs. I never stayed up late. I never ground through material. I kept
attacking it fresh, with high energy, time and time again.

There are two lessons I hope you take from this case study:
1. Conquering a technical class requires a massive amount of work. There is no short-cut. If
youre pulling high school bullshit and trying to wait until a few days before to learn everything
you slept through in class, then youre screwed. You need to grow up and leave that behavior in
the past.
2. Conquering a technical class doesnt have to be painful. The key is to define your challenge
learn every insight come up with a plan for winning the challenge e.g., in my case,
using proof guides to learn every single proof and then putting the plan into motion with time
to spare. No cramming necessary.
Know thy enemy and it becomes a lot less fearsome
Related Articles About Technical Classes

Study Hacks Blog Decoding Patterns of Success

Why I Never Joined Facebook

September 18th, 2013 63 comments

Facebook Arrives
I remember when I first heard about Facebook. I was an undergraduate at Dartmouth College. At
the time, the service was being made available on a school-by-school basis, and, one spring day
in 2004, it finally arrived at our corner of the Ivy League.
Many of my friends were excited by this event. They were surprised when I didnt join.
What problem do I have that this solves?, I asked.
No one could answer.
They would, instead, talk about new features it made available, like being able to reconnect with
people from high school or post photos. But my lack of ability to connect with old classmates or
to publicize my social outings were not problems I needed fixed.
Every product and service ever invented offers new features, Id respond, but what problem
do I have that Facebooks features are solving? Why should this product, of all products, earn my
attention?
Again, no one could answer.
After a while, I stopped asking this question, and just moved on with my life without a presence
on Facebook. Ten years later, I still have never had a Facebook account nor any social media
account, for that matter and have never missed it.

I have close friends. I still have lots of readers and still sell lots of books. And Ive preserved my
ability to focus, allowing me to make a nice a living as a theoretician.
A Personal Philosophy for Adopting Tools
This brings me to a broader point: in an age of personal technological revolution, we all need a
more explicit philosophy for adopting tools. Without this clarity, we run the risk of drowning in a
sea of distracting apps and shiny web sites.
My philosophy to only adopt tools that solve a major pre-existing problem has served me
well.
I use e-mail, for example, because the ability to communicate asynchronously with people
around the world is quite important for my work. E-mail solves this problem.
I dont use Twitter, however, because the ability to have short, casual interactions with many
people I dont know well is not that important to my work.
And so on.
If you adopt this particular philosophy which I recommend youre effectively raising the
bar when it comes to what you tools you adopt. Just because a product or service offers some
new feature should not be enough for it to demand your time and attention. Save this scarce
resource for tools that make a strong case for how they solve real problems you already have.
Make Silicon Valley earn your interest, not take it for granted.
Or not. This is just one way of looking at a complicated problem. I am, of course, eager to hear
your disagreement: please post any complaints on your Facebook wall.

Study Hacks Blog Decoding Patterns of

Success Posts on Tips: Fighting
Procrastination
Is Allowing Your Child to Study While on Facebook Morally Irresponsible?
June 10th, 2010 89 comments

The Stanford Consensus

My technology habits are eccentric. I use an old fashioned, non-Internet connected Samsung flip
phone with a postage-stamp size screen. Im not on Facebook or Twitter, and my RSS reader is
an emaciated husk, subsisting on a small number of feeds, mainly the blogs of friends. Long ago,
I configured Gmail to automatically mark every message as read when it arrives in my inbox,
frustrating my attempts to perform distracting quick scans for new messages during the day.
The rational foundation of my eccentricity is the increasingly alarming research coming out of
Stanfords Communication between Humans and Interactive Media (CHIMe) lab. Pioneering
researchers from this lab are converging on a scary consensus. Its long been understood that
youre less productive when youre constantly switching your attention; that is, the claimed
benefits of multitasking are false. Researchers at the CHIMe lab, however, have found that the
impact of electronic multitasking goes beyond the momentary sense of distraction, it can
also create permanent changes in the brain.

As reported in a recent New York Times article, subjects who were identified as multitaskers did
a significantly worse job on experimental tasks that required them to filter out irrelevant
information even though they werent multitasking during the experiment.
Other tests at Stanford, reports the same article, showed multitaskers tended to search for new
information rather than accept a reward for putting older, more valuable information to work.
Or, as Clifford Nass, a communications professor at Stanford, summarized: the scary part for
[multitaskers] is they cant shut off their multitasking tendencies when theyre not multitasking.
This is why I invest so much effort in isolating myself from electronic distraction. In my two
fields, theoretical computer science and writing, the ability to focus on hard things for long
uninterrupted periods is my most valuable currency. If I lose this ability, I might also lose my
livelihood.
As the computer scientist Donald Knuth once said, Email is a wonderful thing for people whose
role in life is to be on top of things. But not for me; my role is to be on the bottom of things.
The Danger to Students
Thats the rational explanation for my behavior. If you want the emotional explanation, however,
turn your (perhaps distracted) attention from Stanfords CHIMe lab to my blog e-mail inbox.
Read more

The Upside of Deep Procrastination

April 29th, 2010 40 comments

Earlier this afternoon I read an e-mail from a sophomore at Yale.

Ive always been a good student and I know that Im smart and capable, but lately Ive been
having such a hard time, she began.
Im having trouble completing assignments, even though I have sufficient time. I avoid seeking
out help, preferring instead to just freak out alone in my room.
This student recognized her trouble as deep procrastination the exceedingly common student
affliction of losing the will to work.
While responding to her message, I had an interesting realization: deep procrastination, though
scary, represents something important and perhaps even exciting. It marks that key
transition where the momentum of this is what you need to do the momentum that carried
you through high school and into college begins to wane, leaving you to discover a new
source of propulsion not just new, but also more durable and more personal.
Its important to side step the self-help cliches in this situation. Its unlikely that youll unearth a
burning lifes mission hidden conveniently just below the surface of your psyche. What you seek
is more fundamental: an acceptance that doing things well is hard, and always will be, and

that you need to spend more time than you thought was necessary deciding which such
hard things gain rights to your attention.
None of this is easy. All of it is exciting.
With all of this in mind, I had no magical solution to offer this worried sophomore. I could only
suggest that she take a step back and reduce the frantic Yale pace, maybe for just one semester,
leaving space for her new propulsion to build a head of steam.

How to Ace Calculus: The Art of Doing Well

in Technical Courses
November 14th, 2008 104 comments

Tangent Troubles
Calculus is easy. Or at least, it can be. The key is how you digest the material. Heres an
example: when youre first taught derivatives in calculus class, do you remember it like this

Or do you intuit this image

As I will argue in this post, for any technical course be it calculus, physics, or
microeconomics the key between an A and a struggle comes down to this distinction.
Below Ill explain exactly what I mean and reveal how top technical students use this realization
to consistently ace their classes.
How Every Technical Class is Taught
Technical classes have a simple structure. In each lecture, the professor presents a series of
concepts. Depending on the difficulty of the material, she may cover anywhere from one to more
than a dozen. For each concept, the professor will derive the result from concepts you already
know and/or provide an example of the concept in practice.
Thats it.
This simplicity is good. It will make it easier for us to develop a strategy to conquer the
material
The Magic of Insight

What do you do with the concepts being spewed by the professor? Most students dutifully copy
them down along with their accompanying examples. For example, if its the first week of
calculus, you might record the standard derivative equation I reproduced above.
This is fine, but its not enough.
In addition to capture, you need to develop insight.
What do I mean by insight? That click in your brain the moment when the tumblers of your
mental locks align, the door swings opens, and an intuitive sense of what and why come flooding
out. Forget the equations you copied from the blackboard, Im talking about developing an
understanding deep down in your bones.
For our example of the derivative, this might mean having a solid mental grasp of this image:

A derivative at a given point is just the slope of the tangent line that kisses that point. Even more
intuitively: it can be though of as the steepness of the graph at that point. Thats all. The
complicated equation from above is just a way to calculate a specific number that describes this
steepness.
If you understand this graph really understand it you understand the insight behind
derivatives. If all you know is the equation from above, then youre screwed.
Insightful Studying
I am now ready to reveal the big dark secret about technical class studying: If you want to do
well in a technical class all you have to do is develop insight for every single concept covered
in lecture.
Thats the whole ballgame.
Thats how every high-scoring technical student does it.
Theres no shortcut.
Its the only way.

Heres what I commonly observe: the students who struggle in technical courses are those
who skip the insight-developing phase. They capture concepts in their notes and they study by
reproducing their notes. Then, when they sit down for the exam and are faced with problems that
apply the ideas in novel ways, they have no idea what to do. They panic. They do poorly. They
proclaim that they are not math people. They switch to a philosophy major.
Without insight you cant do well.
How to Develop Insight
Developing insight can be hard. (Though it gets easier with practice.) Especially when youre
given a dozen new concepts per lecture. The implication: you have to invest a lot of effort
during the semester not just right before the exam to keep up with a technical course.
Every one of those concepts described in lecture has to be translated from symbols on a
blackboard to a shiver-inducing deep comprehension. Its not easy, but at least the challenge is
now well-defined.
Here are some tips that can help:
1. If you have a hard time understanding the material as the professor presents it, prep the
concepts before class by reading the textbook.
2. Ask questions when the professor loses you. Often their answer can knock you back on track
to insightful understanding.
3. Ask the professor or TA for clarifications immediately following lecture.
4. Try to review your notes as soon as possible after class to cement insights while the
information is still fresh in your brain.
5. Always go to office hours. But before you show up, spend time with the troublesome concepts
trying to build insight. Figure out exactly where you get stuck. This will help the TA or
professor give you targeted, useful advice. Never just say: I dont get it.
6. Keep a running list of every concept taught so far in the semester. Mark the ones that you
have an insight for and the ones you dont understand. It helps to see clearly exactly what
insights you still need.
The Practice Factor
Once youve developed an insight for every concept in a technical course, the final step before a
test is to do a small number of practice problems for each to practice applying it. (This is where
the mega-problem sets of Straight-A come into play.)
Heres the crucial observation: if you skip the insight-generating phase, no amount of
practice problems will help you side-step exam disaster. If its a week before the exam, and
you lack insights on most of the concepts: youre out of luck.
Its Not Easy, But Its Also Not Complicated
Its hard to do well in technical courses. But its not complicated.

During the semester, you have to see yourself like a lone soldier trying to fight back the tide of
encroaching concepts. Do everything you can to build insights in the heat of battle. Become
obsessive about conquering concepts.
Once youve turned your attention to the real battle needed to do well in technical classes, you
can invest your time and energy exactly where its needed.
And if not, theres always philosophy

Monday Master Class: How to Solve Hard

Problem Sets Without Staying Up All Night
October 8th, 2007 28 comments

I Have all the Time in the World

Last weekend, I sat down for a cup of coffee with Jake from
College Chronicles fame. We were discussing a computer science
course that was giving him trouble. The problem sets, as is often
the case, were killer.
Is the problem that you cant find enough time to work on
them, I asked.
No, replied Jake. I have all the time in the world, the problem
is I dont know how to start.
The Problem Set Problem
Problem sets defy many of the strategies we use to tame academic work. When youre given a
reading assignment, for example, you can estimate, within 10 20 minutes, how long it will take
you to complete. You can then break up that work into reasonable chunks and get it done. No
problem.
Problem sets offer no such consistency. A given problem might take you ten minutes. On the
other hand, it might devour an entire day and still yield no progress. This inconsistency is the
bane of students, like Jake, stuck in technical classes.
How do you solve hard problem sets in such a way that they can be integrated into a structured,
low-stress study schedule? In this post I will present a four step process. The process is an
elaboration on the advice given in Straight-A. Its a mixture of the results of my research for this
book as well as personal experience, having fought these beasts over the past seven years.
A Four Step Process for Solving Hard Problem Sets
The motivating idea behind this strategy is simple: your brain can only work productively on
a hard problem for 1 -3 hours before needing to reboot. To reboot your brain, so more
productive work can be accomplished, requires a significant break. Preferably overnight.
Heres a four step strategy built around this idea. It mimics the work schedule of the typical highscoring technical student.
Step 1: Pick Off the Simple, Prime the Hard
Your first block of work should occur early in the week. Set aside 2 3 hours, in the morning.
Make this the first thing you do that day (when your energy is at its highest). Your goal is two-

fold. First, you want to solve easy problems. Your strong focus will help you avoid stupid
mistakes. Second, you want to tackle at least two hard problems. You probably wont solve
them. This is why they are hard. But you can do something almost as important: prime them.
To prime a hard problem is to discover exactly why you cant solve it. Pick an obvious
approach even if you suspect it wont work and start working through the problem until
you get stuck. Identify why you are stuck. Ask what you need to figure out to make progress.
What is it that makes this hard? Then take a break
Step 2: Think in the Shower
For the next 2 3 days, think about how to get around the obstacles you discovered while
priming. Dont do this formally, in the library, with books around you. Instead, do this while
walking around campus. While waiting for class to start. In the shower. I used to solve my
Algorithms take home exam problems, for example, while jogging.
This is when breakthroughs occur. If you end up with a great insight, take 20 minutes, next time
you can spare it, to sit down and write it down formally. If needed, prime a new hard problem so
you can keep making progress as your wander campus throughout the week.
If you encounter ambiguities in the problem description that are giving your trouble, send
concise questions to your TA requesting clarification. You dont want these details to slow down
progress any longer than they need to. (You might end up e-mailing your TA many times early in
the week. This is okay so long as the questions are specific and concise. Dont wait until office
hours. By then, its too late.)
Step 3: Meet with your Problem Partner
A team effort is crucial for problem sets. But it has to be the right effort. Dont meet with a
large group. These are rarely efficient. Most of the time is spent griping about the class.
Usually, there is one kid in the group who actually did the work, and, in the end, everyone copies
off of him. Avoid this. The smart kid is often wrong, and likes the group because it boosts his
self-esteem. Not to mention that your lack of understanding will come back to tag you on the
exam.
The other extreme is to work alone. I see this a lot at MIT. Too many movies like Good Will
Hunting got people thinking that to be smart at math means you should be able to stare at a
problem for 5 10 seconds and then instantly solve it. Sorry. Doesnt work that way. I walk
past real geniuses every day people, for example, who are my age and are also tenured
professors and guess what: it takes them a long time to solve hard problems; and they work
with other people. The ideal configuration for a problem set is a single partner who is at
roughly your ability and is willing to meet earlier in the week.
Meet with this partner for 2 3 hours to discuss progress made so far. Check your answers on
the easy problems. Trade insights on the hard problems. Make new, collaborative attacks on
those that still resist solving.
Step 4: Finalize the Problem Set at Office Hours

Show up early to office hours. Arrive understanding exactly why you are stuck on the small
number of problems (hopefully) on which you are still stuck. Translate this into a small
number of highly specific questions. Ask the TA these questions right after he or she arrives.
The key here and I base this on my own TA experience is to avoidsimplying saying: I
dont know how to do this problem, help! Thats frustrating. Instead, you need targeted
information that shows the effort youve expended. For example: Ive been trying approach
XX, its promising, but I keep getting stuck with YY, can you point me in the right direction?
Bring your laptop to office hours and work on finalizing these problems right there. If small
questions or ambiguities pop up as you make progress, the TA can be asked on the spot. Aim to
leave office hours with a completed problem set. Notice, this is much different from most
students who arrive at office hours with very little done. You are arriving with most of the work
done, and are just filling in the details.
In Conclusion
Repeated fresh attacks are how hard problems are solved in the real world. Problem sets teach
you this skill. The issue, however, is that professors often forget to convey this strategy to their
students, many of whom still believe that the high school style, big push tactic for finishing work
is still applicable. So keep this advice in mind. Until youve approached a problem fresh, 3 4
times, you havent really yet tried to solve it.

Monday Master Class: Use Technical

Explanation Questions When Studying For
Technical Classes
September 4th, 2007 6 comments

[Sorry for the one-day delay in this weeks Monday Master Class. I was down in New York City
for the holiday weekend. Those of you students who regularly tune into WABC on Sunday
mornings (e.g., none of you), may have seen me pitching some back-to-school advice.]
Most students who take technical courses figure out, rather quickly, that reviewing their weekly
problem sets is crucial when preparing for a test. In How to Become a Straight-A Student, I take
this one step further by discussing how to construct Mega Problem Sets (MPS), which include,
in addition to your weekly homework, selected examples from your lecture notes. If you can
answer the problems in every MPS, then you are more than prepared for your upcoming test.
Right?
Rewind to the summer of 2005, the period in which I wrote the bulk of the manuscript for
Straight-A. I was chatting with a high school student about her A.P. chem class. She was having
trouble. Having recently worked on the MPS chapter, I gave her the above advice.
I tried that, she said. It didnt work!
After a little more explanation, the issue became clear. She had practiced and practiced until she
could answer every single problem set problem without hesitation. But when the test came, and
she was faced with new problems, she was stumped. As it turned out, in her zeal, she had simply
memorized the steps of her specific sample problems. Without understanding the underlying
concepts, this did little to prepare her to tackle new problems on a test.
From this experience was born
The Technical Explanation Question
When constructing a MPS, you should add, in addition to the sample problems from problem
sets and lecture, questions that ask you to explain the major concepts. When studying, you
should lecture these answers out loud as if youre teaching a class. If possible, get a private study
room with a whiteboard.
Here are some types of technical explanation questions (TEQs) you might consider adding:
1. Explaining a general step-by-step process that is repeated in many sample problems. For
example, in a calculus class you might have several examples of taking derivatives using the
chain rule. Add a TEQ that asks you to explain how the chain-rule works.

2. Defining specific rules. Following our calculus example, we all remember that many wellknown functions have specific derivatives that must be learned. A good TEQ might have you list
each from memory (e.g., List six common functions and their derivatives.)
3. Annotating a complicated example. Given a complicated example of a certain type of problem,
a good TEQ might have you provide detailed annotation on each step; explaining the logic
behind each.
4. Reviewing rules for use. In many technical courses, a big part of the challenge is figuring out
which technique to apply to a given problem. A good TEQ might have you discuss the criteria
for choosing from a set of different techniques for a certain type of problem.
Adding TEQs seems like it will extend your study time. But, in the final accounting, they
probably will help you learn the other sample problems faster, making up for the addition. More
important, they provide the foundation for consistent high performance in challenging technical
courses.

Study Hacks Blog Decoding Patterns of Success

Monday Master Class: The Quarantine

Method for Producing Better Work in Less
Total Hours
September 15th, 2008 7 comments

Excavating Crap
In a 2004 interview, author Neal Stephenson noted the
following about his writing process:
I did figure out that I tended to write good stuff first thing
in the morning. So I had all this free time in the rest of the
day that I had to occupy with something other than
writing. Because if I sat and [continued to write], Id
just bury the good stuff Id written in crap and have
to excavate it later.
Neal discovered when he could write well. He also
discovered where: as revealed in the same interview, he
works in a basement alcove, surrounded by artifacts
relating to the manuscript in progress, recording his
words believe it or not with a fountain pen.
He then quarantined his creative efforts to this highly
productive window.
His key insight: continuing to work beyond these optimal conditions could actually make
things worse forcing him to return later to clean up the unfocused crap produced when his
mind wasnt fully in the game.
From Writers to Students
I tell you this story because I think the same insight can drive you to become a more efficient
student. Like Neal, you probably have some scholastic equivalent to his early mornings in the
basement alcove; an environment in which your mind is really ready to rock. Following his
logic, you could conclude that if you want to produce the best quality results with a minimum
number of total hours, you should quarantine your work to (only) these high-octane
windows.
The only modifier is the tricky part. It asks you to accept the idea that working beyond your
peak conditions might make things worse creating weak paper writing, or confusing your
understanding of an assignment in a way that will require more time down the road to fix.

Work Without Pain

The obvious appeal of this approach is lack of pain. There are few sensations more souldeadening than pseudo-work. By contrast, when youre firing on all mental cylinders, and riding
that Cskszentmihlyi high, even the most convoluted assignment can fascinate.
A problem, however, lurks. The average college student has a lot of work; more than maybe can
be finished in a few hours each morning. I recognize this shortcoming. But I can recommend
some common sense advice that can bring you closer to the dream of a Stephenson-style
quarantined work flow:
1. Increase the size of your quarantine periods by staying rested, exercising, eating well and avoiding
energy sapping distractions like the Interweb.
2. Decrease the amount of work you have to accomplish by embracing Radical Simplicity. Less
courses. Less majors. Less activities. Kick ass at a very small number of things.
3. Decrease the time required for your work by obsessing over the efficiency of your technical habits.
4. Increase your efficiency by caring, like Neal, about your location and the artifacts that surround
you. Theres a difference between working in a dorm study lounge with your Internet-connected laptop
open, a chewed Bic, and an old notebook, and working in the rare books room, armed with a Black n Red
and a Mont Blanc StarWalker.
5. Start everything early. You might think that today requires many hours of work because you have two
reading assignments and a problem set due. But if you had started those last weekend, when you had
nothing else on your plate, you wouldnt be in this trouble now.

Youve heard many of these ideas before: location matters, time of day matters, energy matters.
But I think Neals anecdote smashes them together beautifully, and then finishes things off with
the novel twist about the danger of working beyond your quarantine.
Lets review:
Point one: working when youre not at your peak makes things worse.
Point two: accordingly, you should organize your student work schedule to quarantine your
efforts to (only) peak-inducing environments.
Simple. But if Neals writing output is any indicator, also devastatingly effective.

1.
2.
3.
4.

How to Ace Calculus

How to Solve Problem Sets without Staying Up All Night
The Quarantine Method
Use Technical Explanation Questions when Studying for Technical Classes