Doing well in your courses: Andrej's advice for success (2013)

> It has happened to me several times that I was stuck on some problem for an hour in the night, but was able to solve it in 5 minutes in the morning.

If you really try to solve a problem and then put it away for a day or two, you'll often find that your brain has done some good background processing on the problem.

I've experienced it multiple times and one of our professors recommended it as a "trick of the trade". But you have to do an serious attempt to solve the problem before you can send it to the background thread.

When I was cramming for a test the day before I would use an accelerated version of this. I would work on something difficult for maybe an hour or so, then go do something fun for a few minutes that required focus. Going for a walk just left me continually trying to work on the problem while I walked.

Back in the day I would play pool (had access to a pool table nearby). These days, I'd go play a video game that took skill and focus. I'd do this for maybe 10 or 15 minutes and hit that problem again. It didn't always work, but sometimes time pressures caused me to fall into a mental rut and when you're in one all you can seem to do is dig deeper.