A strategy for studying math

“Once you have the basic idea of a technique down during your study session, start interleaving your practice with problems of different types. Sometime this can be a little tough to do. A given section in a book, for example, is often devoted to a specific technique, so when you flip to that section, you already know which technique you’re going to use. Still, do what you can to mix up your learning. It can help to look ahead at the more varied problem sets that are sometimes found at the end of chapters. Or you can deliberately try to make yourself occasionally pick out why some problems call for one technique as opposed to another. You want your brain to become used to the idea that just knowing how to use a particular problem-solving technique isn’t enough - you also need to know when to use it. “ - from the book A Mind for Numbers.