I’ve recently been spending more time doing things that involve algebra and/or symbol manipulation (after a while not doing these things by hand that often) and have noticed that small mistakes cost me a lot of time. Specifically, I can usually catch such mistakes by double-checking my work, but the cost of not being able to trust my initial results and redo steps is very high. High enough that I’m willing to spend time working to reduce the number of such mistakes I make even if it means slowing down quite a bit or adopting some other costly process.
If you’ve either developed such strategies for avoiding making such mistakes or would good at it in the first place, what do you do?
Two notes on the type of answers I’m looking for:
1. I should note that one answer is just to use something like WolframAlpha or Mathematica, which I do. That said, I’m still interested in not having to rely on such tools for things in the general symbol manipulation reference class as I don’t like relying on my computer being present to do these sorts of things.
2. I did do some looking around for work addressing this (found this for example), but most of it suggested basic strategies that I already implement like being neat and checking your work.
[Question] What are your strategies for avoiding micro-mistakes?
I’ve recently been spending more time doing things that involve algebra and/or symbol manipulation (after a while not doing these things by hand that often) and have noticed that small mistakes cost me a lot of time. Specifically, I can usually catch such mistakes by double-checking my work, but the cost of not being able to trust my initial results and redo steps is very high. High enough that I’m willing to spend time working to reduce the number of such mistakes I make even if it means slowing down quite a bit or adopting some other costly process.
If you’ve either developed such strategies for avoiding making such mistakes or would good at it in the first place, what do you do?
Two notes on the type of answers I’m looking for:
1. I should note that one answer is just to use something like WolframAlpha or Mathematica, which I do. That said, I’m still interested in not having to rely on such tools for things in the general symbol manipulation reference class as I don’t like relying on my computer being present to do these sorts of things.
2. I did do some looking around for work addressing this (found this for example), but most of it suggested basic strategies that I already implement like being neat and checking your work.