Hush, hush, don't rush

What is wrong with my long-term memory? I seem to have forgotten too many things from the past. Well, not forgotten, but they're hidden in some remote, dusty corner of my brain. Specifically, I mean mathematical knowledge here: What were properties of Crank-Nicholson, what's the use of a positive definite matrix, and why, oh why do the Navier-Stokes equations look only remotely familiar?

Have I been out of it for too long? Well, two years of computer science cannot be that devastating, can they?
Were the former Computational Science students educated in a too broad, but too little `in depth' fashion? Possibly, from database programming, along electrodynamics, to numerical PDE analysis, we've had it all. Still, most physics and mathematics courses were good enough. The fact that I'm able to realize that I've almost forgotten so many things indicates that I know of the existence of all these many things.
I think I know the true answer: I'm rushing through things too much. Get into any matter quickly, solve some problems for it, implement it, or write a short report on it, and proceed to what's next. Some computer science courses even included an 'open-book exam', which allowed me to pass without having studied the matter in advance at all. Common sense is a good thing to have, but to have more factual knowledge would also be very good.

So at the moment I'm taking a fresh-up course in computational fluid dynamics, and one in numerical linear algebra. For the latter, I don't have time now, caused by two courses in linear algebra and calculus that I teach, and one in scientific computing that I assist in. Although cfd is interesting, I feel the urge of doing my own research, some serious deadlines coming up within months and I've only just started. Or do we sense my old "rush-on-to-what's-next"-mistake again here? I guess so...

The problem is: when I see interesting things lying ahead of me, I get enthusiastic. At the moment I would love to start implementing and experimenting right away, whereas it is better to first catch up with the field by reading others' papers. That's what I'm doing right now. Fortunately I have some open ends in my own previous work, which I can work on even now already, gives some variety from day to day.

Analyzing oneself is not too difficult, but changing one's bad habits is a whole different story. I hope I'll succeed!