The Long Way

I’ve been struggling with understanding research papers recently. I’m working on a project that requires a fair bit of theoretical intuition, but all of it had gone over my head thus far. A few days ago, however, I started diving into papers and writing everything down. I worked through each proof and convinced myself of the core mathematical arguments in all of the prior literature. I even bought a new iPad for note-taking in order to double down on investing in this particular habit.

In the past few days my understanding of my research project has skyrocketed. Turns out there’s no shortcuts to actually doing the work. I skimmed the papers, had Claude summarize the math, and thought I could get away with just that. But the real understanding only came when I did the math myself. Even if I still don’t fully grasp the intuition, just reproducing the knowledge gives me a level of clarity that merely skimming could never match. In the case of learning, the most efficient use of my time is actually approaching it the long, boring way.