I'm writing this just as a reminder and a resolution to myself on how to approach things, especially my studies and my work.
I think that the most important part in learning something is (surprise surprise) to learn from your own errors; the problem, at least for me, is that most of the times when I'm learning a new topic, i don't even stop and try to understand my mistakes, i just go on and on without thinking about it, like a hamster running in his wheel, after a while, eventually, the patterns emerges, and my intuition starts to build up, but there is a much faster way to do this, stop, and try to individuate what I could do better. Unfortunately, for me this is hard to do, it's hard to stop, it's hard to take a step back, it's hard to even elaborate on what I'm doing wrong, and it's hard to have the discipline to do it over and over.
I studied at university for five years, with decent results, applying this "method" of learning only from time to time, but most of the times it was more of a banging my head against the wall kind of process, and i know for sure that if this method had been applied more frequently, as of now, i would know a lot more things, i would code better, play chess better, and i would have deeper and more critical opinions.
I also think that in order to learn, we need to "put in the work", like in the physics meaning of the word "work", we need to spend energy, sweat, calories, and suffer a bit before grasping new concepts, it's not enough to read something, we need to confront ourselves with the problem, take down our misconceptions about it bit by bit, and spend time with it without understanding, the problem is that this can be done in a chaotic and unstructured way, or in a smart way, always thinking about optimization. As of now I'm on the chaotic side 100%, and changing how you approach stuff as an adult it's not easy, but I think it's worth at least a serious try.
From now on I will just impose to myself that for each and every task I'll take on in my working and studying life (too early to say I'll do it for everything) , I'll apply more critical thinking, more scientific method, more methodical precision in the process, and for every 45 minutes of learning/working on something, there will be 15 minutes of thinking about what it is that i read, if i understand it, if i would be able to explain it to someone else, if i find it interesting, and if there is a different way to do it, and if there is, at least try it and evaluate if it's going better or worse.
