Good blog post. I read Made to Stick when it came out, and still remember their SUCCESs acronym for making memorable points: Simple Unexpected Concrete Credible Emotional Stories. (Ok, to be honest, I had to look up two of those letters---maybe I should have read the book better.)
It can be hard to know how to apply some of these principles. For instance, if you are doing, say, Lichess puzzles, is that "varied" enough already because there are so many different themes? Or should you mix up harder and easier puzzles? Or should you mix in puzzles from another source too?
Similarly, for interleaving, is it enough to say, do some lichess puzzles in the morning, and study a chessable course after work? Or do they have to be in the same session?
Personally, I think I've noticed a benefit to the opposite of varied/interleaving: doing more focused training on a single subject. For instance, easy lichess puzzles include a lot of mate-in-1s. But when I did a hundred mate-in-1s in a row, I started to explicitly notice square patterns various piece combinations made around the king, which I think improved my recognition speed. I guess this is related to the "puzzle by theme vs puzzle mix" debate.
Anyway, good food for thought, thanks for the post!
It can be hard to know how to apply some of these principles. For instance, if you are doing, say, Lichess puzzles, is that "varied" enough already because there are so many different themes? Or should you mix up harder and easier puzzles? Or should you mix in puzzles from another source too?
Similarly, for interleaving, is it enough to say, do some lichess puzzles in the morning, and study a chessable course after work? Or do they have to be in the same session?
Personally, I think I've noticed a benefit to the opposite of varied/interleaving: doing more focused training on a single subject. For instance, easy lichess puzzles include a lot of mate-in-1s. But when I did a hundred mate-in-1s in a row, I started to explicitly notice square patterns various piece combinations made around the king, which I think improved my recognition speed. I guess this is related to the "puzzle by theme vs puzzle mix" debate.
Anyway, good food for thought, thanks for the post!