The way to become good at solving problems is to solve problems.
Rule 1: Don’t Give Up on Hard Problems Too Easily
Hard problems often feel impossible at first. That feeling is not evidence that they are beyond you - it is usually just the beginning of real understanding.
Rule 2: Prove or Create Things to Truly Understand Them
Don’t just consume ideas passively. Reconstruct them, derive them, prove them, or build them yourself.
“What I cannot create, I do not understand.”
Rule 3: Always Start with a Concrete Example
Before thinking in abstractions, anchor the idea in one specific case. A good example gives intuition, exposes structure, and makes formal definitions easier to grasp.
Rule 4: Don’t Fool Yourself
One of the easiest mistakes is to mistake familiarity for understanding.
Explain things clearly, ask “dumb” questions, and force yourself to make each step explicit. Clarity is a defense against self-deception.
Rule 5: Practice Deliberately, Not Vaguely
Deliberate practice means working directly on the specific parts you are still weak at - with focus, feedback, and repetition.
Improvement does not come from mindless repetition. It comes from repeatedly training at the edge of your current ability.
Getting better requires strain. Real growth usually feels effortful, because you are forcing your mind to do what it cannot yet do comfortably.
The goal is not just to work hard, but to work precisely on the bottleneck.
How to Actively Cultivate Deliberate Practice
Define one small, specific skill to improve.
Don’t say, “I want to get better at quantum computing.” Say, “I want to understand difficult theoretical building blocks intuitively.”
Turn it into a focused training block (30-90 minutes).
Pick one theorem, concept, or argument from a QC / variational / QML paper, such as expressivity, barren plateaus, concentration bounds, or the parameter-shift rule.
Work on the part that actually challenges you.
Do not spend the session reviewing what already feels easy. Spend it on the exact step where your understanding breaks down.
Force active output.
Re-derive the argument, explain it aloud, redraw the logic, or reconstruct the proof from memory. Passive rereading feels productive, but usually is not.
Get feedback quickly.
Check whether your explanation is precise, whether your derivation is correct, and whether you can solve a related variation without help.
Repeat until the weak point becomes natural.
Then move to the next weakness. Deliberate practice is not random effort - it is a continuous attack on your current limitations.