Thinking books · Learning how to learn · Barbara Oakley, 2014
A Mind for Numbers — the big ideas
How to learn subjects you believe you are bad at, written by someone who switched into engineering late.
Free — no account needed to read
The big ideas
It describes two modes: focused attention for working a problem, and a diffuse, unfocused state where connections form. Getting stuck and stepping away is part of the method, not a failure of discipline.
Procrastination is treated as an avoidance response to the anticipated discomfort of starting, not as a character flaw — which suggests a different fix.
Chunking: building a piece of knowledge into a single retrievable unit through practice, so working memory is freed for the harder part.
Practise it — no need to have read it
Take an idea you think you understand. Write it for someone who has never met it, using no technical words. Mark exactly where you had to go vague.
A hint: That vague spot is the gap. Go back to the source for that part only.
Where it shows up in real life
- Learning a technical subject
- Getting unstuck
- Subjects you have decided you are not built for
Described in our own words with the source named — never quoted, and not a substitute for reading the book.
Thinking methods from this book
- Explain it plainly — Finding the holes in your understanding by explaining without jargon.
- Retrieval instead of rereading — Practising getting information out, rather than putting it in again.
The thinking it builds
- Thinking Foundations — Notice how your own mind is working