I recently realized that I have missed all along an ingenious way to do math. This might sound naive or even stupid, but I really never knew! My way of doing math had never any form of discipline. I always stupidly believed that chaos can always result into pattern. My table is always messy, my notes are always scattered and I jump from sheet to sheet when I scribble my ideas. An absolute heaven for the pure lover of chaos! Well, I discovered a new way to improve my math. And it’s not really to clean the mess I just described.. I have not yet become wise enough to realize that. I realize a form of scheduling when I do math, and surprisingly it is delivering me good results.
So here is my recipe which I think is working very nicely for me: I spend alternating days doing reading and then creating new math or questions from what I read without much relying on anything new. So for instance on a Monday I read a paper I really liked (“like” means three things for me: 1. I like the subject 2. The paper is not more than 15 pages long if the topic is terribly new 3. I do not need more than 5 references to learn new things needed to understand the paper). I cram and prep on this paper as if it was my exam almost the whole day. The next day which is a Tuesday, I don’t read almost anything at all. I begin imagining myself writing a new paper based on questions I ask about the paper I read the previous day. If the paper still remains interesting I continue .. otherwise I just ditch the whole thing all-together.. I keep on pushing myself asking new questions not in the paper or even if it was in the paper, I probably did not completely understand the paper thoroughly. In general, I get a whole new understanding of the whole topic and either I understand the paper much thoroughly or I am in fact even ready to publish an extension to the paper or even a new topic not directly related to the paper.