Reassess after recess

I always followed this one rule during a Mathematics examination- never check the solution to the question immediately after solving it. I would solve 4–5 more equations and then recheck the calculations of the first 2. And so on and so forth for the rest of the questions.

For the purpose of this musing, I call it the ‘reassess after recess’ method. (although I’ve been using it for over 20 years without any name or even being actively aware that I was using it at all)

When I discovered this method as a kid, I was fascinated by it. It was probably the first time I used behavioural science to my advantage, without being conscious that I was doing this of course.

This method helped me bring down my mistakes to 5% or less. I want to clarify that I am not talking about simply reviewing or reassessing anything that you do. The focus is on the ‘recess’

Here’s my logic to it: If you have just finished doing an equation where you wrote 2+7=8, chances are if you review it immediately, your mind will skip noticing this as a mistake. You’d think that this is such a basic thing that you can’t get wrong and you’d probably overlook it even in the process of revisiting your solution. Hence, you think what you did was correct and move on. Haven’t you had any instances where you know something that you just did has some mistake but you just can’t figure it out? It’s because your mind is acting like a know-it-all and not reviewing the task with full integrity yet.

However, the chances of catching these small mistakes we make in math and everyday life are much higher if you give your mind enough time to forget what steps you took and the reason for it. It takes as less as 5 minutes and doing a different task for you to notice mistakes like these. The crux of this method is that you can’t solve mistakes from the same frame of mind that you were in when you made those same mistakes.

You can get as creative in using this method as you want- Emails, work, packing, cooking, cleaning, content creation, data work, gardening, you name it and of course while solving Math.

Hope you find this method as useful as I have in the last 20 odd years.