

How to Solve Hard Problem Sets Without Staying Up All Night - zaa
http://calnewport.com/blog/2007/10/08/monday-master-class-how-to-solve-hard-problem-sets-without-staying-up-all-night/

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jessriedel
> your brain can only work productively on a hard problem for 1 -3 hours
> before needing to reboot

This is very different from my experience. For advanced math or physics
problems, it general takes at least a couple of hours to assemble the relevant
mathematical structure in your head. Only once you are familiar with the
"setting" can you really start to work.

I've heard similar things about writing code.

If I took a break every 2 hours, I'd never get anything done.

~~~
grogers
While that is true, sometimes stepping away from the problem will let it
coalesce in my head and give clarity to what I wasn't making any headway on
earlier. If you aren't getting anything done, working longer is probably not
the path to victory. But if you are in the zone, you can sometimes work for
hours straight and zip through.

~~~
jessriedel
Agreed.

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sofal
I solved most of my graduate algorithms problems while lying in bed in the
morning, lying on the couch, or in the shower. I simply do not understand how
some people can concentrate on problems like that while jogging. My thoughts
while jogging are primarily about how much jogging sucks and how I just gotta
keep going. If I could solve a technical problem in my head while exercising
then either the problem is really easy or I'm not getting very much exercise.

~~~
brianlash
_If I could solve a technical problem in my head while exercising then either
the problem is really easy or I'm not getting very much exercise._

Remember that walking is technically exercise. 5 miles walking is 5 miles
jogging is 5 miles running, at least as far as your heart is concerned.
Calorie burn is roughly equal too.

I won't pretend to know anything about you (You might run laps around me!) but
if you think jogging sucks there's a chance you're making some classic
mistakes re: not investing in slow base miles, not developing 'cellular
piping' so your body can efficiently wick away waste, etc...

This topic strikes a chord with me because I hated running a few years ago. A
marine friend of mine knocked it into my head that I was going about it all
wrong, and I finally came around (kicking and screaming) to his way of
thinking. I read Galloway's book
([http://books.google.com/books?id=3kqUP3upHQ4C&printsec=f...](http://books.google.com/books?id=3kqUP3upHQ4C&printsec=frontcover&dq=galloway+on+running&hl=en&ei=wAW0TPXPMsKC8gb5lOnaCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-
thumbnail&resnum=2&ved=0CDcQ6wEwAQ#v=onepage&q&f=false)) changed my approach
and started running for pleasure. Now I log 20 to 30 miles a week for
recreation, and formerly 'breakneck' paces feel comfortable (I think the
charge from that natural pace is a positively excellent time to let the
endorphins supercharge your thinking). And for the record I'm not blazing
fast... my 5k PR is 20 minutes and change. But again speed doesn't really
count for beans; It's really about following the fundamentals and letting the
miles take care of themselves. BONUS: The boost to my fitness helped me earn a
qualifying time for my fire department's Rapid Intervention Team, which was
really gratifying.

You don't need to kill yourself to see awesome benefits from running, and I
truly believe (moderate) physical exertion can plausibly yield higher order
thinking.

~~~
crc32
can you expand on "'cellular piping' so your body can efficiently wick away
waste"?

~~~
brianlash
Sure. The act of running creates waste, typically in the form of dead blood
cells and lactic acid. It's natural, but if the muscle cells are ill-prepared
to properly dispose of the waste it can create inefficiencies in the form of
poorer performance.

It's important as a runner that you have a solid "highway system" of muscle
fibers that can handle the waste throughput of your regimen. The most popular
way competitve runners achieve this is by running lots of slow* comfortable
base miles over several months. Increasing mileage 10% a week will break the
cells down, while planned rest allows the body to regenerate 'heartier' cells
capable of handling greater and greater loads. In the most relatable sense
that burn you feel when you work out will start happening later and later; In
physiological terms you've "increased your lactic threshold." The advantages
of building an aerobic base transcend the muscle highway concept and seem to
have really solid implications for cardiovascular health. Just something to
think about.

*slow is relative and implies that you're running about 2 minutes off your tempo pace. A little huffing/puffing is okay, but it should feel natural to hold a conversation. Maintaining this slow pace - even when you feel you could run faster - is the hardest part of base building and therefore that piece which seems to pay the best dividends (for those who are disciplined).

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carpdiem
You should also work while standing up.

There's a reason why academics prefer whiteboards and chalkboards to pen and
paper. It's because they feel genuinely more productive and creative while
working on them. I personally think that it comes down to improved blood flow,
and it's one of the key tricks that my friends and I used to earn physics
degrees from Caltech. We'd go camp out in empty lecture halls late at night,
filling chalkboard after chalkboard with scrawl, and only sit down to copy
finished problems in their final form.

~~~
billswift
I like standing up while reading and doing more free-form work like exploring
ideas. But for concentrating on specific problems or focused study, I _need_
to be sitting down. I just can't concentrate my efforts as well when standing.

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zeteo
"When you’re given a reading assignment, for example, you can estimate, within
10 – 20 minutes, how long it will take you to complete."

As long as it's not a scientific paper...

~~~
wwortiz
Or a bad engineering textbook, god I hate Wiley publishing.

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da5e
Meat of the article: "Repeated fresh attacks are how hard problems are solved
in the real world. ... Until you’ve approached a problem fresh, 3 – 4 times,
you haven’t really yet tried to solve it."

~~~
btilly
There is more meat. Such as that you can't focus for extended periods of time.
It is important to schedule time to work, preferably in the morning. It is
useful to have a study partner around your level, but generally not useful to
have a large study group. Get started early.

Those are all important points.

~~~
ericd
And strangely, they actually all run counter to my experience. For hard
problems, I generally work best alone in long blocks of time at night.

~~~
da5e
Good point. This recent HN item speaks to that.
<http://www.stevestreeting.com/2010/09/04/work-2-0/> The interruptible
programmer

------
endtime
> 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.

I agree with everything he said, but in my experience, the part I've quoted is
at least an order of magnitude more important than the rest. And don't forget
the "roughly at your ability" part - if you work with someone much smarter,
you may just get more confused and you certainly won't feel like you're
contributing much; if you work with someone much less smart, it's a waste of
time (which is not to say that helping people isn't a nice thing to do - it
just won't help you complete the problem set).

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samdk
This mostly matches up with my own experience. I always start several days
early, and I always work with one or two other people if at all possible.

Starting several days early gives you a few days to think about a problem if
you need it and ensures you don't have to pull any really late nights.

Working with people means that you won't get stuck on the easy problems if you
didn't understand everything perfectly or forget one crucial fact/lemma exists
(which I find is otherwise a real danger). It also gives you people to bounce
ideas off of for the really hard problems,

The other thing I always do is to do my problem sets in two stages. In the
first stage (which I do with other people), I figure out how to solve the
problem and outline how I'm going to write it up. In the second stage (which I
do alone and after solving everything), I write the problems up. As I do this,
I walk through how we did the problems when we first solved them, and very
often find mistakes we made.

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chime
There's also the <http://www.c2.com/cgi/wiki?FeynmanAlgorithm> (it's a pretty
good C2 post).

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p4r4d0x
>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.

There's really a lot of substance to this remark. I work with another guy in
my class frequently and often come away feeling as though I've free-ridden
somewhat.

But after looking more closely the results we get, it becomes apparent they
are the product of our combined efforts and wouldn't have been achievable
alone. The verbalisation is also highly conducive to understanding intuitively
- a principle Salman Khan talks about and I can't agree with enough.

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shalmanese
I gotta ask, is this a really dedicated & not too bright student or a crazy
hard curriculum? Most educational problems are not this hard.

~~~
araneae
Ha! I didn't get my degree in engineering, but most of my friends did and this
describes many classes they took in their field. _Especially_ applied
engineering physics.

I had two friends in AEP that were problem set partners, and they spent so
much time working together her now-fiancé didn't ask her out for ages because
he thought her problem set partner was her boyfriend.

And no, these kids were not dull buds. The girl is currently a grad student at
MIT, and the not-boyfriend problem set partner is a grad student Harvard.

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starpilot
One tip I'd add: don't limit asking for prof/TA help to office hours. Knock
and ask politely, and most (all, in my experience) will gladly answer
questions on homeworks or lectures. Many seem to appreciate the chance to have
a break from their work to talk with a student.

~~~
endgame
When I was tutoring, I was glad to have students who cared enough about the
work to attack it in advance.

------
known
Sometimes I found solution in my dreams.

