How To Think

MIT’s Ed Boyden has a good cheat-sheet on how to think:

• Synthesize new ideas constantly.
• Learn how to rapidly learn.
• Work backward from your goal.
• Always have a long-term plan.
• Make contingency maps.
• Collaborate.
• Make your mistakes quickly.
• Write up best-practice protocols.
• Document everything obsessively.
• Keep it simple.

Some of this stuff should be kept implicit, including his particular conversations-notes strategy, but its an excellent rundown. Sometimes I think he class he wants to teach should be the sole focus of of an undergraduate program.

-Shlok
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