Math major from Germany, interested in a bunch of stuff. Find me on limerott.com
Congratulations on your success! A few questions that came to mind (I don't expect you to answer all of them):
I liked tip 7 the most. Reminds me of a quote from a chessmaster (Maurice Ashley): "The most important insight in chess is that the other person is more important than you are"
Strong upvote. Success doesn't limit us. Success changes us. It is what we become that limits us.
Live free of attachment and you will always be free.
For me, I have found a microadjustment to your microadjustment helpful: Instead of drinking a whole cup of coffee, which causes unnecessary stress and heart racing for me, I only drink about 1/8th of a cup or even less at the same concentration. I have found that while this still has strong positive effects (more motivation, higher focus), it avoids most of the negative effects -- especially if it's taken in the morning.
Thank you for this post. The personal experience certainly seeps through in your recommendations (which is a good thing).
I would like to mention another area: nutrition. A good chunk of your productivity depends on how well you eat. It also affects how well your body can fight the chronic condition. It also gives you another variable to play around with (do I feel better if I eat carbs?).
However, I don't think it is as simple as "eat your veggies". People with chronic illness should have a solid understanding of the nutrients the body needs to function properly (for example, the role of protein is often underestimated). They should also set up systems that allow them to fulfill these requirements in a quick and effective manner, without spending too much time and energy (e.g. through supplements, protein shakes, cooking in bulk). It is also wise to experiment with different diets and observe their effects on one's health (e.g. ketogenic, raw, protein-heavy).
One caveat though: it is easy to get caught up in optimizing nutrition and delude oneself into thinking that the next supplement will lead to a breakthrough. But it is important to get the fundamentals right.
Do you visualize the icosahedron as one object or do you split it up and consider each separately, but reminding oneself that it is actually one object?
My answer to your visual thinking riddle is: breath in through your mouth and breath out through mouth + nostrils. But I can't decipher your anagram!
First of all, if you can solve it without visualization, I think that this is preferable, precisely because it is faster. There is no need to force oneself to visualize everything.
To visualize something, you need to create a map from the formal domain you are studying to visual transformations. In other words, you need to understand "what the formula" mean (or at least one way of looking at them). Do you know what it means visually to multiply one complex number to another? If you don't, you will be stuck doing calculations. If you do, then you can visualize it and quickly come up with the solution.
From my experience, some people naturally tend towards visual thinking, while others don't. But if you consistently try to apply it, it will become natural at some point (it may take some time, don't give up prematurely).
One area where a lot of visual thinking is necessary, but that is relatively easy to visualize, is graph theory. Try to prove that a (connected undirected) graph has an Eulerian cycle (i.e. a cycle that contains every edge exactly once) if and only if all of its vertices have even degree.
Say you have two distinct points x and y. Consider all points whose distance to x is the same as to y. What can you say about the location of these points in terms of the line connecting x and y?
Try to solve any geometry puzzle with only your mind and you will be forced to do visual thinking.
I really appreciate you looking this up. Now it is clear that these claims are controversial.
Nevertheless, the question still is what learning ability refers to: Is it the ability to comprehend learning material that explains the topic well, or is it the ability to come up with the simple explanations yourself? It seems that the OP refers to the latter. The first kind probably has lower variation. Also, this means that when measuring learning ability, you should ensure that all involved people have access to the same "source". I would be interested in hearing the OP's thoughts on that.
I couldn't find it quickly, but I think that I read this on codehorror.
This reminds me of focused/diffuse thinking.
Focused thinking is rule-based, mechanical, goal-oriented, precise, strictly sequential, logical, works in small steps.
Diffuse thinking is creative, open-ended, creates long connections, produces leaps of insight that are impossible in focused thinking.
The best example of this is solving math problems. Paradoxically, it requires to alternate between these two modes frequently and fervently -- something that people generally struggle to do. After all, most people either think like bureaucrats (like me) or they think like artists. But in this case, and in any other complex endeavor, you need both.
Different life phases require different focused:diffuse ratios. The primary variable for that is slack.