Summary of Fundamentals
As the human brain has limited RAM (working memory), our approach to mental maths needs to respect that fact and use techniques that avoid overloading our RAM.
This is especially important in practical/professional situations, where you might need to do calculations while also speaking, following a conversation, or making more complex financial decisions.
The three pillars of mental maths are:
- Mathematical facts
- Low-RAM methods
- Visual processing of numbers
Practice Tool for Times Tables
You can use this tool (on a laptop) to drill times tables to reduce the friction in retrieving them from memory as much as possible, and to learn more advanced ones, such as 18 × 3.
I recommend to start with Group 0 (multiplications from 2×2 to 9×9) and aim for a score in the range 20–25. The other groups can help for learning various sets of mathematical facts.
To submit each answer, press [Enter]. To obtain the next question, press [Enter] again. The timer runs for 30 seconds, but only runs while you are answering each question; not between questions.
Training Settings
Sequence Drill for Visual Processing
Start from any random 1- or 2-digit number, e.g. 11.
Choose an increment to keep adding on (arithmetic sequence), e.g. 13. The bigger the number, the harder. Numbers ending in 0, 1, 5 or 9 are easier and less suitable for training the visuospatial sketchpad.
Say aloud (no writing) as many terms of the sequence as possible in 30 seconds.
Example: 11, 24, 37, 50, 63, 76, 89, 102, 115, …
You can check for most mistakes by calculating (your last term – starting number) ÷ increment and checking whether it’s an integer. If it is, then that’s the number of (presumably) correct additions you made in the time interval.
Further Coaching
Most of my students are starting a career in finance, and ask for coaching to help with online assessments, interviews, and to help them excel at their job.
More information about mental maths coaching is here. Please do get in touch by email if you could use some individual support, if you have any questions, or if you’d like to know more, and I look forward to hearing from you!
Please note the “monthly updates” at the bottom of this page is mostly news about international mental calculation competitions.