No one really knows her outside of mathematics. But Karen Uhlenbeck is the first woman to ever win the Abel Prize, which is like the Nobel prize for maths. She pioneered a new field in maths called geometric analysis. Using differential equations for geometry and topology. 

But it was very difficult to collaborate with her. Because her working style was completely unstructured. Uhlenbeck would work on a problem for short bursts of time with extreme devotion, but then keep it aside for a few months or even years, and then come back to it much later.

In her own words, Uhlenbeck had a very “uncooperative mind.”

Uhlenbeck’s mind didn’t respond to pressure or deadlines.

People feel that they need discipline to get their tasks done. That motivation doesn’t appear, you have to build it. Have systems in place. But what do you do when your mind is uncooperative?

Uhlenbeck found that if she tried to force routines and systems and deadlines, her work suffered. So she gave up on it. And worked on a problem when the mood arose. But she did one more unusual thing.

Uhlenbeck kept no notes of her work.

She worked on the cutting edge of mathematics. Things no one else had worked on. She would start on a problem, look up references, work up a few ideas, and make notes. But then at the end of the day, she would destroy all her notes.

And while this made it even more difficult for others to collaborate with her, it is the reason for her breakthroughs! She could see things with fresh eyes when she came back to the problem later after a few days. 

It did mean things took way longer than they would have. But it also meant she avoided the anchoring bias trap.

Uhlenbeck avoided learned helplessness.

An experiment was done in classrooms where students were asked to solve anagrams. Three words were given, they had to use the same alphabets in the word to make up new words.

Half the students were given the words: bat, lemon, cinerama.

The other half were given: whirl, slapstick, cinerama.

The third word for all the students was the same. But yet, would you be surprised to know that in the second group of students, almost no one could think of its anagram? They couldn’t see America in cinerama.

Everyone in the first group had momentum. They could solve for cinerama. But the second group were given two impossible words, which made the third word seem impossible too.

It’s how anchoring leads to failure. The only solution is to forget about failures. To forget about your past work and mistakes. To see things from a fresh perspective.

Which is why, unstructure helped Uhlenbeck. Because she could reset her thinking, she could solve hard problems no one else could. Which led to creating of a whole new field of maths that helps not only mathematicians but also physicists. And won the Abel for Uhlenbeck.

Action Summary:

• Creative pursuits require forgetting. Unlearning. Forgetting your failures behind. Forgetting needs enough time to pass between failure and restart. Forgetting means you have no anchors, no fixed points of thinking.
  
• This is by default an extremely inefficient way of working. You are trading quality of output for quantity.