Focusing Your Unconscious Mind: Learn Hard Concepts Intuitively (And Forever) 

10:10 "These problems were invented by people, and you're a people, so you're capable of inventing them too" hit me hard

I love how one of the world's best competitive programmer is giving us useful information through video for free!

This is how I survived everything, college, professional career, etc. I always tried to use my intuition for solutions. I learned this from playing a lot of video games of many genres. I always try to learn and improve. I also like hard puzzle games. Games like "The Witness" are a good example of that intuitive learning. Even "Elden Ring", because of the learn as you go type of feel in the design choices.

This stuff 100% works. I’m in a lazy streak, but for years, this is how I thought about things. Basically, I would just have eureka moments throughout the day while doing completely unrelated tasks to what I was learning, because my brain was always working on the subject in the background without me having to actively think about it. Connections were being made between the information I was trying to learn and seemingly unrelated tasks, or sometimes it would just hit me for no apparent reason. Things just seem to click. This guy explains it perfectly, and I’m going to reapply these things to my life to get back into mental shape. Seriously, if you want to learn faster than you ever have, you have to do this. Edit: And it works for all subjects. Forgot to mention that. When I’m in full nerd mode, I just want to learn everything, and this is exactly how it’s done. And it can absolutely be learned. I wasn’t always like that. Hence why I’m in a lazy streak right now lol my own nature got the better of me after a while. But it was a LONG while. I think maintaining emotional and mental health are the most effective way of avoiding burnout or just relapsing into old habits. Especially because it greatly affects “caring”, which if you watched the video, you know how important that is.

I love how this applies to a ton of things and not just competitive programming. Thanks for making this!

I nearly cried at the end. I wish more smart people would be kind enough to encourage learning like this. I’ve always wanted an education but could never afford it traditionally but I want to learn for myself in any way possible even if I don’t get a degree out of it

Great video! Please continue! Here is a video compiled into a written note for people who revisit the video **Core Principles** Generate as many insights (thoughts that help you understand more) as possible. Insight is gained from experience. Example of an Insight: - Knowing the purpose of a particular step for a concept - An example to illustrate a concept Treat learning like problem-solving Be sure to care. Break concepts down to small pieces. Understand some small pieces at a time Forget memorization! **How to Understand a Concept** 1. Start with the big picture (knowing what purpose it serves, but not the details or how it works). We assume that everything "inside the box" magically works out. The stuff "outside the box" should independently make sense (even if you don't know the details of how each part works) 2. Expand on details from the big picture. Once you understand a detail (see step below), continue to break down details until it is so fundamental it can't be broken down further. **How to Understand a Detail:** 0. Pick a detail to learn 1. Understand detail in context. Make sure you understand at every step how the pieces fits together. Why we do each step? What each step accomplishes? 2. Understand a single piece by itself (See step below) 3. Reinforce it (See step below) 4. Repeat **How to Understand a Single Piece By Itself** You are exploring possible avenues and ideas/hypotheses. **Put in the time and effort!** 1. You must care. What you learn reinforces one of your values or helps you achieve something you value. 2. Try to solve the problem by yourself (Inventing the piece). Understand the problem. What is it about? What does it accomplish/describe? What does it do? 3. If you can't invent, read and process the "solution". Think how the solution solves the problem. How does it fit in the big picture? What insight it offers to the rest of the concept? What inspired the solution? **How to Reinforce: Looking at the Concept from Different Angles** 1. Invent - invent/solve the concept by yourself 2. Practice - try to apply the concept to various things. Embed the concept into your reasoning 3. Explain - Understanding the concept well enough to explain it to someone else 4. Explore - think about various ideas related to the concept. Change some variables around.

Thank you so much! My whole life I was thinking about this form of learning and had thoughts that I might be slightly crazy or something but with years of refining it and having experience and practice I proved to myself that it's a mind tool aka schema and that it is ok... This literally enforced this side of my reasoning! Kudos to you!

Colin mentions that intuitive understanding means accepting a concept as a fundamental truth without needing to justify it, and that this hardwiring can be achieved through generating insights, treating learning like problem solving, and continually practicing and reviewing the concept. They also discuss the importance of actively engaging with the material and finding connections to other concepts, as well as setting goals and tracking progress. Overall, Colin is advocating for a structured and proactive approach to learning and understanding concepts deeply. Thank you for the video Colin, I do believe that this is an important concept that everyone should try to understand.

You are truly “a thinker’s thinker.” Thank you so much for articulating (thus reinforcing and crystallizing) so much of what I’ve ‘felt’ intuitively but have never been able to put into words Your understanding of problem solving is astounding.

Im a competetive smash player and its frustrated me how people are unable to explain concepts in an intuitive way to a point where i invented a similar way of learning to what you have. This video perfectly encapsulates my perspective on improvement and learning, thank you for making this

This is so much different and seems so much interesting than my (and that of 99% percent of people) method of learning which consists of just hammering theory and redoing the same questions over and over again without taking a step back. I love your perspective and will definitly try to apply it soon ! I hope i will remember to get back to you on my experience. Again thanks a lot for this video

I’ve been doing something very similar for a long time now and seeing someone lay it out in steps like this is insane. Reinforces the way I go about learning and I picked up some new things too. Badass video bro.

seriously insightful, and a point you made at the start about hearing information and understanding it "as a fact" helps to understand it better is something I've been doing for a few months now, and its proven helpful in my learning experiences. Great vid!

I like how simple you explained difficult concepts to understand when it comes to exploring something new to the person/user.

Awesome and detailed video :). I like how the ideas you carefully articulated are essentially ideas we kind of intuitively feel are important to learning a concept well ( ie "Give a damn", "practice", "invent it yourself", "explore", etc) but this video sort of solidifies why these ideas are so crucial to building intuition.

I've been quite proficient with my English throughout my whole life even though it is my second language.I didn't know the reason why as I barely study the subject at school, and thought that maybe I was gifted. Not until now have I watched your video that it becomes apparent to me that I've been doing all those steps with my English learning. I watched cartoon with and without subtitles from a young age so I didn't really understand it, it just hard-wired into my brain and became second nature. Your video was extremely informative to us to better learn about ourselves. I really appreciate it.

Huge thanks for providing those information for free, always wanted to program but everything is so overwhelming, not knowing where to start and if I actually have the IQ to be great. Those videos really help in give a sense of direction and some comfort. Huge love from Australia

Please continue doing what you're doing, you're single handedly building a better tomorrow for everyone listening to you

Thank you for creating this! Valuable, timeless, and transferable!

This method totally works, not just for programming btw! I started doing this from the second year of medschool and it completely changed everything, before that I thought I wasn't good enough for school, now I have one more year to go and my grades and understanding of concepts are almost perfect.

as a tutor, being able to explain/teach something has always been my personal indicator of my understanding on a topic. my favourite teachers in school were the ones who, when i asked a question they didn't know the answer to, would always take time to figure it out with me. i'm a software dev and i feel so seen by this video

I just used this method intuitively today to learn a concept and then I discovered this video. Its amazing how you are explaining the process in such details. 😊

Incredibly well explained concepts in 20 minutes of video. Well done man

I really put a lot of effort in taking notes from this video which is kind of unlikely of me & I really intend to make it a part of my study strategy because something about this video tells me about how profoundly useful it is if absorbed correctly yet so underrated . This guy is magic

Here's one thing I did when I didn't like a subject at first or it seemed too difficult for me: I skipped the boring/difficult parts looking for something I found interesting or useful to me. And there was my starting point for that subject. From there, I managed to accumulate knowledge of the content until I came to understand it, and even enjoy it.

The utility of this video is just as timeless as it is priceless thank you for your time and effort in helping everyone become an elite learner.

I love how to explain your content, somehow it makes me less depress. Somehow I felt motivated that I can still do significant to my life because with hardwork I can rewire my brain... Thanks you really.

I’ve always wondered why I’ve been able to think through and absorb concepts so quickly and you just articulated the way I have thought my whole life.

This the most effective explanation of first principles thinking..... I never really got what it was besides the 3-4 sentences people used to use to describe it. Glad to see such an informative video.

This is probably one of the best pedagogical videos I’ve ever seen. I’m gonna show this to all my students

Great video. Something like this happens to me naturally when I am on vacation or in a stress free period of time. We are bombarded (or bombard ourselves) throughout our daily lives with ‘just enough’ information needed to get multiple tasks done in work on time. I always love how much insight, ideas and, concepts that embed themselves into your memory and personality if you have some free time to think about them. Damn, I need to start finding a way to integrate this into my everyday life and not just when it’s easy.

I think that "inventing" is really helpful because you convince yourself that something is your own idea rather than someone else's.

I've always gone for this method in school intuitively, it explains why some kids can seem to do things effortlessly (me lol) some some are forcing the horrible short term memorization strategy. It's nice to see it all laid out before me, and well presented too, you're a great teacher!! Love your hair too 😂

This method is how I learn almost everything except a math and programming. THAT CHANGES TODAY.Thank you! 🎉Just earned a new subscriber.

this is the kind of person that people in the past thought that the humankind would turn into, a extremely smart and kind person. You inspire me to become a better individual, so thank you.

Your explanation is always at the top of quality.

A massive net positive impact for humanity was made by you making this. Gives me the warm fuzzies knowing the internet can still enable real progress. Ty!

I really like how you articulate the intuitive thinkers’ though process. In fact, it’s exciting! However, and I’m sure you’ve learned by now, the vast majority of people don’t think intuitively. I’ll keep your talk around as a reminder, greatly appreciate your work here!!

Great video, subbed I especially resonated with learning a concept in different ways and contexts. It. helps so much. That's maybe why when I watch a youtube video on something I was taught in university I think: "Oh yes, I finally understand it now! This video is so much better than my teacher". The other PoV on the concept was probably the largest contributing factor to me understanding it more, not that the video was that much better than my professor.

Thank you. Ive been struggling with starting my career and getting through college. Ive been feeling like the concepts in the classes are difficult for me to understand and apply, so I will try this approach next semester.

i’ve been thinking about posting some insights about a book i’ve been reading but the ecosystem of learning part you mention helped motivate me to do so. can’t go wrong with sharing information to your fellow brothers and sisters.

I feel like you're speaking my mind all this time. Mad respect man!

Excellent video, I feel like a lot of talented problem solvers learn this method by intuition, but it’s great to hear it described so well. I wonder if these techniques could be applied with chatgpt for higher prompt accuracy lol

Another thing you can do is: If there’s a certain rabbit hole or tangent in the problem that doesn’t really help, but is interesting to you, it’s sometimes good to go down it anyways (if you have enough time) While it may be off-topic, it will build care & confidence, improve current mood, develop skills you may use later, and might even circle right back to what you’re learning.

Funny, smart, free, helpful. You're amazing. Please don't stop

This, and the last video about intuition, are really really good. Thanks so much for them, they're immensely helpful for learning. I would say there's two possible additions that I like to play around with. Firstly the use of Anki to create digital flashcards. For example, a flashcard where the front is a question, and the back is your own simple-worded explanation of what the question means, how it relates to other questions, why it is important etc. And then another flashcard with the front being the question and the back being your simple-worded solution (or a part of it, if it's too long). I like this because for solution cards, when you have to do the flashcards, you're forced to understand and replicate your thought patterns to reproduce your understanding of the solution in a logical order. Secondly, I like to use models like ChatGPT to help me understand the problem and its solution if it's too difficult or time consuming. By formulating the correct questions to ask the bot, you're forced to think about what parts of the concepts you don't understand. There's also the fact that often unfamiliar or complex words are used in problems, so using the bot to simplify the English can allow you to focus on the concepts rather than being stuck frustratingly on being confused about the wording

This method really works. I watched the video twice, and the second time, my intuitively formed answer to the addition problem in the beginning was in fact five. Thank you so much!

Wow, there are no words strong enough to convey my gratitude for your video. As someone who is trying to learn multiplayer programming for Unity, I'm hard stuck in a place I have been trying to figure out for so many hours. Over 40 hours, for one simple problem I find no solutions/focumentations/help from ChatGPT, meaning I'm on ny own (maybe I should call for help on an online forum, on a second thought) it is really nice to hear the encouragement from someone like you, a master in peogramming. And what I like the most is that you don't do what many other people do, only letting your mind be a master at programming, you certainly let your brain consume and think from everything ans damn, you are so pedagogical. You're smart in so many areas, not only one single field, and I really appriciate that. Thanks! Will keep this video saved so I can come back again later!

amazing that, while he’s explaining this to us, he uses the method he’s explaining, he’s reinforcing it! great video

not a fan of programming, but these educational videos are so high quality, please make more!

The amount of quality, insights and the 'TIL's in this video is why this channel is one of my treasured finds of my coding learning journey! Thank you so much.. Will definitely repay you someday for the value you are offering me through your videos.🙇

I feel like this is the only way I have been able to learn in my life but not as organized. I feel like you have given me a cheat sheet for my brain and I’ll be forever thankful.

Bro!!!! Amazing!! Thanks for sharing this video. Your clarity of thought is amazing. Rarely I come across people having such clarity and ability to share their thoughts.

It"s interesting that I have been using this way of learning in the past with math and other things like that out of just sheer curiousity, but school just made me not interested - or teachers - so I just stopped. Then changing fields from Human Arts (which I did not like) back to science (Computer Science) I started using this again for Calculus and Discrete Math just naturally, and got good grades - because these courses were interesting to me. If you asked me to explain my learning method I couldn't and most of my peers just think I am magically good at math - I think it just has to do with my curiosity and the way I go around the concepts intruduced... Although I have to say I didn't fully understand your explanation of the details, but from the key concepts I can tell I naturally use something similar to this when I meet material that I am interested in and for what I use this I am always good at... What I don't use it for on the other hand... I have been reflecting just the past few weeks how to build this kind of "attitude" way of learning into subjects I am not so keen on learning (since the grade differences are staggering and I need scholarships), or where the teacher or uni outright discoureges this kind of learning... With this video and some reflection I think I can try to use it else where too... More consciously and not just "naturally" out of curiousity... And also not feel ashamed for it... (Cause in the past teachers often stopped me from engaging with concepts like this... And told me it's too chaotic and I should just "learn") So all in all Thank You Very Much ❤

I used to follow similar process when i was preparing for my college entrance exam, and it really works like magic the only thing is that it requires lot of hardwork and dedication..

Hello Colin, I just want you to know that your videos have really helped me a lot. I cannot emphasize on how much my thought process has been clarified and optimised applying the methods you mentioned. Anyway, thanks for sharing and have a great weekend!

My whole life I have struggled because of poor study rules despite having passion for learning. But now I am discovering myself. I have personally made these but you have put all together. Thanks you so much 😢

I'm not native English speaker and sometimes it's hard to understand some long English videos (that's why I usually don't watch them). But, this video totally worth my 30-40 minutes of life. My method to learn things is make them intuitive to write as notes. Your method is something I would totally use for math studying or geometry. For other stuff I probably would use less reinforcement and just write everything as notes (so I can reread it when I need it). It's worth mentioning that some things can be skipped to learn deep. Like I totally can understand how 3rd party framework works, but is it really useful? Probably not, because they changes quickly, so you can spend less time on reinforcement there. But would I black box math and spend less time on reinforcement? Sure I wouldn't, it's something fundamental that is won't be changed in decades. So don't force you brain learn something deep that not stable or not useful for you. Just keep fun, write notes and invent. I really wish that schools/colleges/universities were responsible for learning you how to learn.

Please do a video on how you use this to solve one of your problems/concepts youre trying to learn!

i love how your videos are well thought through, very engaging. visually and mentally thanks man keep it up

Love the stuff you're making m8. Useful, I'll be trying this and attempting to create variations. I hope your videos gain even more traction.

Understanding something well feels like common sense. You often forget that others do not have the same understanding.

As a teacher from a family of teachers and artists. Thank you for making this video. This is very simular to how I like to learn stuff, the only thing I would add is I've been practicing with diagonal thinking. Basically it's being able to relate two broad concepts by finding details in which they are related. Recently I've been doing this with the ways things are explained. Like you said, a human invented this and we as a human can too. That also means that human will tell stories about one complex concept and it will have similarities to how a seemingly unrelated concept in another field is explained. This means it can also have the same kinds of gaps in information or implied details because exact information cannot be perfect and perfect information can't be exact. Knowing the patterns of how people explain things allow you to better understand the gaps that are implied. Basically giving you more of the concept to work with even if you lack the prerequisites to normally come to that information. All this boils down to the idea I realized, that you basically said, being clever is a skill that you can improve on.

This is the cloest anyone has ever come to articulating my brain and how I conceptualise / process things. This feels surreal.

Thanks! Had discovered and started to experiment with this method of thinking before finding you. I am so happy someone else validates this way of thinking.

I didn't know Skrillex was so smart

Do you have advice for solving array and string based questions? I feel like there are so many different "tricks" that I need to know for those, as opposed to linked list, trees, and graphs.

I’ve always done this, you just put the concept into words and a chart. Thank you

Great video! I really appreciate you publishing the method you use to learn. Spaced repetition is a formal technique to help determine how often you need reinforcement, in case anyone is curious. Every time you try to pull the knowledge out of your head, you strengthen the connections. Finally, I could see the text in your video that you bet I wouldn't find. :) Again, great content!

Chances are most people watching this don't think ego's a good motivation for them. When it's actually the strongest because your ego is already naturally boosted when ever you gain a new insight. This effect is then multiplied by how much you care about the insight. You can even gain a taste for it.

I‘m a PhD student in CS an coincidentally I‘ve noticed that my method overlaps already quite a bit with what you explain 😮 So I am certain it works. The only problem I‘ve always had is the repetition part. I‘m good at understanding shit, but once the next problem dances along I start forgetting alllll the other stuff. Maybe I need to have a vocab trainer for math concepts XDDD

I spend too much time not watching more stuff like this. If Colin happens to see this I want to say thank you. So cool to see intellectual content.

This is an amazing video. If you adopt this way of thinking into every aspect of your life, not just work or school, you will be amazed how capable you are.

Rare to see this quality

i feel like the hardest part is to convince yourself that you actually care about it..especially if you study a lot of "boring" stuff

How the hell did i never come up with this? I knew about trying the problem without knowing anything helped a lot. But it wasn't enough. The way you made the video it's very clear. You've observed yourself and explained every action of it.

Thank you so much for sharing this! I wanna add one thing (I think you didn't mention) which is to try to find "generalizations", at least in math this is a powerful way of understanding things, math itself is based on finding a more "general truth that apply to everything" and while one such concept might not exist (it's 42) there are many concepts that if you noticed them can make you get familiar faster with even new topics because you can see the underlying pattern between what seems different on the surface. This takes more effort initially, but pays off in the long run. Throughout school I always struggled with math, and it really broke my heart, I loved math but I just couldn't understand much of it. Later on I decided to restudy everything from scratch, dedicated a whole year to it, and together with finding generalizations, the "invent" method was the key for me, don't just give a solution to a question, understand WHY and HOW the solution works. In my mind I called it the brute force method, test every scenario and possibility, almost like you're trying to break the concept, like a stress test for math, I often used the Desmos graphing site (highly recommend it!) To help me with this. Basically treat math functions like they're code functions, test every input, combine it with other functions, see how it behaves, you don't fully understand it yet till you can predict what it will do. I find this kind of exploration very fun.

Thanks so much for his video. Really glad accomplished competitive programmer taking time to educate the learning process which is very rare to find.

Thanks! Love this channel and the concepts. Please teach more about the unconscious and how it works. And please tell us more about the hidden message at 15:34 (I bet you can’t…find this?)

Your video was very helpful. I have a few questions: 1. What should be done about mathematical concepts that we have no evidence to reject or accept (i.e. their proof is beyond our level of understanding)? 2. My other problem: The thing about math is that I learn that concept separately or I already know it, but I have problems in the context. When learning mathematical concepts, examples are given to teach the concept itself, but when I use that mathematical tool in another context such as signal processing or computer science, I have a problem, I cannot use that mathematical concept in the context. 3. How can mathematical concepts be visualized? So that the mind accepts it as a fact?

I struggle with studying in university and I think it’s because of my learning methods. We have a lot of pressure here and I feel like I don’t have time to form concepts, so I try to memorise everything (which my brain isn’t hardwired for it seems). But after your videoI think I should give it a try even if the time will be the issue. I think that’s why I was the best at math in school, because for me every problem was a puzzle and every theorem and method that we used was a piece for solving it. And maybe that’s why I like zoology so much, cause the way it is explained to us fits to my concept of evolution and everything that wasn’t told directly I can fit myself. Thank you so much

The slickest subscriber plug ive ever experienced

bro are u the guy in my ap tech class who plays piano tiles in the back the whole time

For me personally, it would be easier to understand if there is a specific example of how you learned it (e.g learning Binary Indexed Tree), then maps each step to the diagram

This method of learning should be taught everywhere. In school questions like how does this fit into the big picture, relating it to other pieces of information you learn, and teaching students that most knowledge should be viewed holistically is basically nonexistent- because teachers mostly dont have time to try to establish a intuitive understanding of the subject, and instead just let the students fend for themselves. Especially in calculus, I basically find myself asking what the hell am I ACTUALLY doing, and struggle heavily with word problems, where the actual concept has to be decoded

This is a massively underrated video and deserves far more views! One thing I'd add on to this procedure which has massively helped my intuitive understanding of difficult concepts is either napping or applying a NSDR (Non Sleep Deep Rest) procedure after a bout of problem solving or concept learning. The way I understand this to work in the context of what you're saying is that it relaxes the conscious mind in a way that lets the unconscious mind work its background magic. This will help consolidate or increase the power of the problem solving machinery of the unconscious mind, as oftentimes conscious thought can get in the way of the unconscious process. This explains why insightful or epiphany type thoughts usually come to you in times where you're "zoned out" or when you're doing mundane activities that don't require much planning or deliberate thought. Great video, and keep teaching what you're teaching!

Where did you learn all this? Is it just how you naturally come to learn anything or is it from years of trial and error picking up different skills until you've refined the process in competitive programming? Thanks for sharing by the way!

Can we get a video explaining a real life example of the method? It could be easier to understand where instead of seeing "detail 1, detail 1.1" we see actual breakdowns of real life problems.

Organize learning as solutions to problems and care about problems by making them vivid. I like that!

Your animations are epic. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise.

Do you use this method on anything else other than programming? if yes, can you share? I think this way of thinking can be applied in other fields outside coding. It will be very good if you have 2 or more examples in different fields: like mathematic, art, music, sport and so on. Also thanks for the video. Very nice perspective :)))

If all of these ideas work for me. I will comeback to write my experience. I am currently focusing on kaggle competitions and my final year project of undergrad in ML domain.

as someone who has been going through this learning process when programming for years, this video puts into words for me to consciously understand the pieces of the process. thanks for the insights 👍

First Btw thanks bro your videos are op!

Easter eggs (lmk if I missed any): 0:00 Channel icon in button right (stuffed donut) 0:01 Cutie on screen 0:03 “aren’t you tired of this graphic by now? seriously, who even reads this anyway…” 0:08 “seriously, like what even is half of this” (does this count as an easter egg)? 0:14 Batman logo on shirt? 0:19 Self-deprecating joke? (“me” in same list as other concepts) 0:53 The result is wrong. The answer is clearly 6 1:09 Adds up to 1531357. Not sure if this means something or is a hidden code 🤔 3:01 Recursion - the end chart looks recursive with all the inverleaving and stacking words and arrows 3:41 Red box around “A method to learn hard concepts intuitively for a long time” 7:48 Long, not hard 11:37 Getting good use out of the graphic 11:55 Tri-angle, nice 12:24 Me too Colin, me too 14:08 when you start to forgor 14:42 pls I don’t wanna die 15:33 “i bet you (?) find this” top left for the rest of video, becoming clearer and clearer 17:55 bullying ppl with no neurons 😔 19:16 “i bet you won’t find this” becomes extremely clear Let me know if I missed any

The introduction was what really got me hooked!

You're very generous, sharing these ideas. Thank you.

if you guys loved this then u should check out Justin sung basically he's a learning coach

This is very interesting to me especially because it seems like I do something similar to this when I find a concept I'm interested in even though I don't have any formal training besides just graduating from high school basically what I do when I find the concept that interests me is I think about it and I tried to break the concept up piece by piece and then I look at those individual pieces in as many angles that I possibly can and I kind of drive myself a bit crazy trying to figure it out until eventually I give in and just Google it but a lot of the times when I Google it the answer that Google gives me is an answer that I already came to from my thinking and my intuition most people I meet when I get a chance to talk to them for a long time they say I'm smart but I would say that I just have a different attitude to acquiring knowledge than most people and I guess my autism could have something to do with by the way yes I know I don't know how to use commas or periods or punctuations of any kind my brain just apparently thought that wasn't important enough to remember and quite frankly I agree with my brain when it comes to commas and punctuations.