Your thinking and learning is determined by your ability to see patterns. The more data you can put into a pattern, the quicker you can absorb new data, the more data you can put in memory, and the better you will be able to manipulate data.
Seeing patterns or "chunking" is one of the things that people who have superior performance in any field do according to Geoff Colvin in "Talent is Overrated". One of his examples is master chess players. Most of us look at the pieces on a board and try to sort everything out. A good chess player sees positions and calls on his or her memory of how similar positions have been played in the past.
Think of chunking in a more mundane field: your own reading. Do you look at each letter and tell yourself that it is a b because it has a vertical line and a curve to right and you know it's not a d, p, or q. Maybe you did that when you learned to read. But as you became more skilled you saw whole words and even started seeing whole phrases. Why do you think so many typos get missed? Editors look at big chunks and miss some detail that they glossed over.
Warning! Seeing bigger and bigger chunks takes lots of work. All your need is motivation and time. But you may be surprised at your gains beyond the material at hand.
