Are You Spending Too Much Time on Math Problems?

In this video I talk about spending time on math problems. How much time should you spend? This is a hard thing to answer. Do you have advice for others? If so, please leave a comment below.
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Thank you:)

[AussieInspiredDavidZ]

My rule is: if a math problem takes more than 2 days for you to solve, then it is a rabbit-hole hell problem. If you really wish to solve it, try spending 30 min. A day every day solving it until you finally get it right. Or, spend one day out of your week just focused on that one problem. Either way works. But, don't spend an ENTIRE week and fixate on that one problem you just don't get. Make time for the others and come back to it later.

[darkthrongrising]

I just want to let you know your videos help me a great deal. Ive always loved Mathematics but Im super duper ADHD. I dont take meds for it aside from THC for associated anxiety. My mind just goes berzerk every time I try to focus. When I watch one of your videos, for some reason Im immediately focused on Math, I have a similar collection to yours but it was just collecting dust but after I watch my first video of yours that all changed, now when I need to get focused on Math your vids are my go to, your enthusiasm gives me the dopamine hit I need every time and I get really excited and ready to dive in and go for days and days. I appreciate your channel, its the one I watch the most. Thanx pal, youre alright.

[aurora.radial]

Great video, thank you for real! Sometimes I let myself be drawn into too much thinking, when I should actually be working, or studying something useful

[duetothefacthat]

Thanks for the video, I actually do this many times, even though I know it's wrong. I'm a physics student at a good university in my country and I spend a lot of time solving problems. Actually I know the fresh mind thing you mentioned but personally at those times I think "if I spend one more hour I'll find a solution", I don't know, I feel like a more hardworking person, you know at those time I think that "every successful person should spend their much time and put their lots effort for thinking and solving.", maybe I misunderstood the Feynman, or you or someone else, but I'm sure that lots of people think like that. But one time my teacher said "Kids don't do that and just remember, I know you all play video games and you crashed after some levels and you can't pass that level, sometimes trying once more can be a solution but as the level progresses it doesn't work, but after trying for a day you can pass that level without any difficulty."

[mndpapr]

6:24 I personally know that I’m wasting my time when I walk away from my desk chair feeling completely drained by a problem after like an hour. It’s important to find the balance between narrowing your focus and knowing when to momentarily walk away and let your subconscious mind take over and work with the conditioning that you’ve already been through. Breadth and depth is the name of the game with any kind of language

[jdmlong]

I had a Calc 3 chain rule problem yesterday burn a good 2 or 2 and a half hours. But it was definitely not spending my time wisely. All of my issues were with entering long-ish functions into an online platform and making little mistakes, but when the screen gives you the red X it's hard not to think you just don't understand. I should have moved on and taken another look later, but sometimes it's just like the problem has insulted you, slighted you by burning that much of your time, and you need to strike a return blow by finishing it. Not a healthy way to think about it, but sometimes it's hard not to.

[martinhawrylkiewicz]

Great video. I am currently studying the book you recommended, How to Prove it by Daniel Velleman (currently on chapter 5 - functions ) and some of the problems in each section can be quite tricky. Whenever I get stuck and just don't know any reasonable approach, I circle the number to the problem in my book and write down tricky. And move on to the problems I can solve. Later on I can always revisit the "tricky" problems with a fresh perspective.

[dannyryan]

On the stepping away from a hard problem and letting it percolate. I’m a big believer in this, I think it’s our unconscious brain that does the work (all the time). So by just exposing yourself to the problem and putting all that information in your brain. It’s often when you’re then off doing something else and not even thinking about (or sleeping) that your brain makes a load of connections that help you solve it. I don’t do maths by the way I’m a programmer but reckons there’s a lot of overlap here

[saviour_.]

Lots of love from Australian Sir
Could you go through an Australian high school paper one video please?
I would like to see your take on the difficulty of the HSC "extension 2 maths" paper. It would be greatly appreciated if you could, thanks heaps Sir, Fred

[BhaijaanBhajrang]

Lots of love from India sir ❤❤❤

Pls bring a university level mathematics course


A small request from your student❤❤❤❤

[arctic]

Note to self: Think about the problem for about 20mins, if you can't figure it out, move on. 30min-1h for solving the problem. Maybe comeback to it later.
For an assignment, read all the questions, and solve the ones you can easily do, and leave some that you can't

[ryandau]

I've been struggling with my Euclidean geometry math course, theorem proofs. I get stuck on questions, even got stuck for 3 hours on a proof for regarding inequalities and perimeters of triangles. getting stuck on those "simple" problems is problematic. If its not understood, it seems as if I'm not learning, but I'm not learning by struggling through one problem instead of moving on and trying new theorems. its a tightrope balance trick.

[dtonysun]

Thanks on this as I should probably do better on productivity; my opinion is with some experiences 1-2 hours for a medium-level, abstract problem. In reality, I had spent once for instance three to four total hours on one problem on connected sets, because I needed to look at definitions of topological space, set union/intersection axioms, etc., and I needed to write them down alongside with my solution as notes. But, for time and efficiency, if I can come up or look up in a book/tutorial a sketch of a proof, and summarize most theorems and assumptions needed for a particular problem, then it can be reduced to under an hour or two.

[MrAmadeus]

This man is the next Sam Sulek. Working out and car vlogs.

[songokussj]

Was sitting down till 18:30 on a friday trying to proof the associativeness of adding ordinals, while everyone else was going out ...

[dejabu]

Break up for a while is very useful, I do that when I have hard time getting over a problem, I like to take my time, I’m self learning person, if I can’t solved it and isn’t critical for the subject that Im learning, then I put it aside into a notebook, and move on otherwise I’ll try more or get some help as a last resource but most of the time like 95% of the time I find the solution by myself within 6 or 7 days never go further than that, but even if you don’t solve it the action of trying already help you, imo

[jonw]

I think I should increase the time I spend on one hard math problem to two hours because I am much slower than the average person. For the average person, 30 minutes to 1 hour seems like a good time limit.

[His_Story_is_Fashion]

My eyes were sore from certain derivative applications problems/Related Rates. I logged in 10 hrs(not all sitting there) for a homework assignment. And I haven’t even gotten to integration yet, which I’ve heard is much more difficult. Need to get better lol

[PaladinLeeroy]

This is what scares me about higher math because I have never spent more than minutes on any math problem in my life (I’ve taken up to calc 2)

[toony]

I can relate with this but for physics.