Why Do Some Young People Have Cognitive Abilities Far Beyond Their Peers?

At Stanford University in the United States, there is a promising young theoretical physics PhD.

While his peers are still adjusting to their work, he has already made a name for himself in the industry by publishing multiple papers with his solid professional skills.

At the same time, he manages to balance work and leisure perfectly, being a top-six finisher in world poker tournaments and having accumulated over six million dollars in prize money to date.

His remarkable journey was documented in the book “How We Decide.”

Liu Weipeng, an engineer at Microsoft Research Asia, was inspired after reading this story and began researching it.

Liu Weipeng marveled: “Why do some people seem to play no less than you, read no more than you, but somehow just go further?”

Driven by curiosity, he conducted research and wrote his thoughts and insights on his personal blog.

Eight years later, he compiled his masterwork into a book and published “Dark Time.”

In the book, Liu Weipeng points out that beyond visible time, there exists an easily overlooked “dark time.”

The gap between people lies precisely in these “dark times” that we ignore.

If you’re troubled by time scarcity, you might want to open this book to learn new time management techniques and achieve life transformation.

How many people are sensitive to money but know nothing about time.

Have you noticed a strange phenomenon?

Some people study hard, entering the library at 6 AM in darkness and returning to their dorms at 10 PM under starlight, yet their grades show no improvement.

Some people work desperately, being the first to clock in at the company and the last to leave at night, yet their performance is terrible, worse than colleagues who don’t work overtime.

Others spend all their after-work time reading and studying, investing plenty of time but gaining little insight, with negligible returns.

Liu Weipeng says this is because most of us fall into an illusion, believing that spending enough time on something will inevitably yield corresponding good results.

But in reality, using time investment alone as a measure of achievement is very one-sided.

To facilitate understanding, he specifically used the example of a computer CPU.

After installing a system, a computer receives two operating instructions:

Instruction 1: Computer is on but not executing tasks. Instruction 2: Perform big data calculations.

On the surface, whether the computer is idle or processing tasks, the CPU runs non-stop for a day.

But running idle processes and processing big data produce completely different values and efficiency.

Therefore, what you gain depends not on how much you invest, but on how deeply you think and how efficiently you utilize time.

Colleagues A and B with similar abilities receive a temporary assignment to submit a project proposal by 4 PM.

To save time, both eat lunch in the company break room.

Soon, the deadline arrives.

A is still frantically making a PowerPoint presentation, while B submitted at 3 PM.

Where’s the problem?

Similarly, they both spent 30 minutes eating, this visible time belongs to “bright time.”

The difference is that A chatted with colleagues throughout the meal.

While B, beyond the “bright time,” utilized the “dark time” invisible to others, conceptualizing the project proposal outline while eating, so when returning to his workstation, he only needed to implement and create it.

Author Liu Weipeng highly recommends B’s state of “body doing things while brain thinking,” calling the time he uses for mental reasoning “dark time.”

Washing face and hands, walking and shopping, traveling and waiting for transportation, sleeping and eating…

These fragmented moments in life that people don’t pay attention to are all “dark time.” They seem insignificant and easily overlooked.

But in reality, once properly utilized, you can have one-third more time than others, accumulating vast knowledge and insights.

How many people are sensitive to money but have abnormally dulled perception of time.

Five yuan spent is still five yuan, value unchanged; five minutes missed are gone forever, irretrievable.

As Franklin said: “Those who ignore the present moment are throwing away everything they have.”

If you waste time, time abandons you; if you value time, time rewards you.

Truly capable people all advance and increase their value during the “dark time” others waste, continuously progressing toward success.

The key to widening gaps between people lies in thinking.

Writer Ma De mentioned that opposite the administrative building of Taiwan University, there is a “Fu Bell” set up to commemorate Taiwan University President Fu Sinian.

This magical bell rings 21 times whenever class ends.

Why not 24 times?

Because Fu Sinian had a famous saying: “A day has only 21 hours, the remaining 3 hours are for contemplation.”

Ma De said: Only the time spent thinking is the years a person truly lives.

In “Dark Time,” author Liu Weipeng also emphasizes: Everyone’s watch runs at the same speed, but everyone’s life quality is different.

Especially those who know how to utilize “dark time” live exceptionally wonderful lives.

Liu Weipeng shared his own story.

His English foundation wasn’t good; he failed the CET-4 exam in his sophomore year.

But he clearly understood that poor English could become a fatal weakness hindering future development.

So, how to supplement English learning while being extremely busy with professional studies?

He developed a highly efficient learning plan.

In daily studies, when he needed to consult technical materials, he deliberately chose English versions over Chinese ones.

Often, he absorbed technical knowledge while pondering English sentence structures, unconsciously training his English reading ability.

To train writing skills, Liu Weipeng switched his usual Chinese articles to English, specifically posting technical articles on foreign forums.

For oral and listening training, Liu Weipeng fully utilized dark time.

Throughout an entire summer vacation, he used his favorite American TV series “Friends” to train his ear, listening during the day while doing things, even listening while falling asleep at night.

Whenever foreign teams gave speeches at school, he definitely attended.

Once, Liu Weipeng proactively guided foreign teams on tours. After speaking English all day, he found his oral skills had improved rapidly.

Later, Liu Weipeng had the opportunity to interview at Microsoft Research Asia.

The assessment required him to explain computer-related technical knowledge in English.

Thanks to his thorough preparation, he successfully completed the assessment and got the job.

In life, we often encounter this situation:

After working or studying for a while, people unconsciously stop to let their brains go blank.

Those who use time wisely don’t completely relax; they keep their brains running at high speed, maximizing their thinking time.

When a person’s conscious and subconscious minds both focus on the same thing, their time for doing things and growing is infinitely extended, greatly increasing the probability of success.

Lin Qingxuan wrote in “Racing Against Time”:

“Although I know people can never outrun time, they can run faster than before. With extra effort, sometimes you can run several steps faster. Those steps, though very small, are very useful.”

Time is never partial, everyone has only 24 hours per day, yet time is most partial, giving no one exactly 24 hours.

Life’s gaps often hide in moments.

If you don’t want to waste years living an ordinary life, then every inch of time cannot be taken lightly; utilize every minute and second well.

Invest time in yourself to enjoy life’s compound interest and live the life you want.

True growth lies hidden in “dark time.”

Peter Drucker, the father of modern management, said:

All management is essentially self-management, and the core of self-management is time management.

The focus of time management is not infinite exploitation but effective utilization, transforming 10 minutes into 10 hours of efficiency.

How you use time is how you shape yourself.

I’ve extracted three “dark time” application principles from the book to share with everyone.

Check and control time flow.

The book contains a particularly vivid metaphor.

Everyone has an hourglass with wide tops and bottoms but a narrow neck.

Meanwhile, it contains the same total amount of sand.

But once the hourglass starts flowing, everyone’s situation differs vastly.

Some people’s hourglasses have extremely narrow necks, meaning they can firmly grasp every grain of time sand that passes through.

For example, listening to books while doing laundry, thinking while picking up packages, living life fully.

Others have very wide hourglass necks, chatting during work and spacing out when they should think, letting time sand rush away, leaving only regret and self-blame.

Writer Liu Run shared a heart-piercing statement: “If you put a camera at home and observe what you do every day from God’s perspective, you’ll discover—it’s perfectly normal that you can’t get rich.”

What truly steals a person’s time is often not obvious big things, but bit-by-bit waste in daily trivial matters.

Time is the fairest thing in the world; how you treat it determines what kind of life you live.

Practice and build thinking stamina.

Author Liu Weipeng comes from a computer programming background.

At work, he discovered that when computers run programs, frequent task switching requires constant system readjustment, wasting time and causing errors.

In comparison, running only one program at a time avoids such losses.

From this, he extrapolated that our brains should also minimize unnecessary task switching; only in a “zero-interference” state can we efficiently complete work and study.

Japanese computer scientist Takeo Kanade proposed the concept of “thinking stamina.”

He explained that thinking stamina refers to a state of sustained concentrated attention.

In today’s information explosion, modern people’s attention is torn to pieces, resulting in low efficiency.

Rather than falling into the “pseudo-diligence” black hole of being busy with everything, it’s better to organize attention, eliminate 90% of distracting factors, and focus wholeheartedly on the core 10%.

Someone who can do one thing well at a time can do everything well in life.

Cultivate thinking habits.

Aristotle said:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.”

Liu Weipeng became an influential first-generation internet mogul not only through personal effort but also by developing good thinking habits influenced by his father since childhood.

Once, his father assembled the village’s first television, but it wouldn’t work.

He pondered all day, continuing to let the problem turn in his mind while sleeping.

In the middle of the night, his father suddenly realized the problem, jumped out of bed, and quickly fixed the television.

His father wasn’t necessarily highly intelligent or well-educated, but through diligent thinking, he became a renowned technical expert.

Because of his father, Liu Weipeng learned from childhood to utilize all fragmented time for thinking.

Unconsciously, he had much more improvement time than peers, winning at the starting line.

“Atomic Habits” says: You reap what you sow; what habits you have determine what results you enjoy.

Don’t underestimate the value of thinking or the power of habits.

A successful person doesn’t rely solely on limited willpower to drive themselves but integrates habits into daily life, transforming through continuous action.

▽

I’ve seen an interesting saying.

Time is both a constant and a variable.

It’s a constant because time gives everyone the same amount.

It’s a variable because the same unit of time produces different effects in different people’s hands.

Time always forks, leading to countless futures.

With the same 24 hours a day, some people squander it in procrastination and laziness, making no progress over time.

Others race against time, utilizing moments when others binge-watch shows, chat idly, or oversleep to think and improve themselves.

Through daily accumulation, though not necessarily old, they understand many principles, with abilities and cognition far exceeding ordinary people, making them more competitive.

In the second half of 2025, to live well.

The competition is no longer about working blindly and frantically, but about clear understanding and efficient control of “dark time” principles.

Under time’s compound effect, even the smallest individual can grow exponentially, advancing to higher life levels and becoming life’s strong players.