Two-Minute Rule

The two-minute rule is a studying technique used to generate insightful questions while avoiding getting stuck on a single topic.

  1. Unsure on something? Spend 2 minutes trying to figure it out.
  2. If successful, write out the full solution clearly.
  3. If unsuccessful, try to generate a detailed, well thought out question about the topic. This is not just questions like why, how, etc.
  • & I’m working on understanding example 1 from lecture 5. In that example, I see that we are trying to create do XYZ. I understand the first few steps of this work. But I don’t see why we do the fourth step highlighted in my work here. How can I leverage the blah blah blah to do XYZ in this example? How is concept ABC related to concept XYZ? What am I missing here?
  1. After capturing the question, write a checkbox ☑ next to it and timestamp it. Highlight the question and its the location.
  2. Finally, move on to something else.

Afterwards, get answers for questions from office hours, STEM center, and talking with classmates.

The process of creating questions and coming back to them later limits the amount of time spent working on a single problem and falling down a rabbit hole.