We Need A Math Wordle

Back when I first got out of college I noticed that I was starting to lose my ability to do basic math in my head. It’s not that I didn’t know how, but I just wasn’t doing it everyday so I was slowing down on calculations. To combat the loss I started balancing my checkbook in my head. (Remember when we used to write down what checks we wrote and subtract those amounts from our balance.) I also did as many math problems as I came across each day without a calculator, like figuring out what my commission on a sale might be.

Doing all this math regularly helped. I still try and do these things and consequently I got to be very fast at brain math. I am not doing calculus, but what used to be called long division is a big brain booster.

I do Wordle everyday, sharing the results with my book group. They are a heavy literary crowd and I am there for comic relief. I find that Wordle is helpful in brain training, but being able to figure out a missing letter is not really a transferable skill.

I wish someone would come up with a daily math puzzle. Nothing too hard, but something useful as a tool to keep up our basic math skills and keep our brain’s agile.

I no longer have a checkbook and I certainly don’t balance anything. I guess most of us are taking the bank’s word. The best math I do in my head now is calculating what I think my retirement account has in it after looking at how the market did each day. That is not a math problem, but a wishing game.

I guess the old adage, “use it or lose it,” applies here. If only it was as easy to lose weight as it is to lose the ability to multiply 13 times 24 in your head.