18: Interleaving Information

It’s better to distribute the time you have available to study over a greater number of shorter sessions than it is to cram your studying into a single marathon session.

If you have 12 hours to dedicate to a topic, it’s better to study over six two-hour-long sessions th...

In a 1994 paper, George Loewenstein theorized that curiosity’s direction is determined by the “information gap,” the sudden awareness of what you don’t know and the immediate desire to fill that gap.

But for the information gap to set its hook, though, it can’t be ...

Spending too much time on one topic can be counterproductive. It is better to switch and rotate between topics, something called ‘interleaving’. 

The technique has an in-built momentary confusion once you switch back and forth, resulting in a better long-term recall of the material.