I enjoyed reading your blogs. You are such a good technical communicator. The things you listed that you enjoy/are good at such as understanding technology and improving communication and usability are actually we technical writers strive to achieve.

I will come back for sure to read your blogs. Keep up the good work!

Tao

I don’t really have a set method, it’s more trial-and-error over time. I’ve learned to start writing down my “aha” moments as they come (I can’t really force them) and I organize them by topic. So I have a text file for “calculus” in general, “limits”, algebra, etc. I just write down big and little epiphanies as they happen and hope to weave strands together.

When studying a subject I’ll look on Wikipedia and try to make analogies to what I already know. Most things fall into this pattern.

Linear algebra, for example, as a way of transforming inputs into outputs. The transformation can be a rotation, translation, scaling (basic Photoshop effects) and sometimes more exotic things. This helps me “get” how you arrange matrices, as the outputs of one stage must match the inputs of another (old article on this here: http://betterexplained.com/examples/papers/linearalgebra.pdf).

It’s been a while since I’ve had to search for insights under pressure of a test, I don’t know if I could find them on a schedule. Currently I read and write down what clicks, trying to figure out why the typical example didn’t work (Was it too simple? Too complex? Not addressing a corner case?).

You’re welcome for the articles, they’re fun to make .