I've tried spaced repetition systems several times. The problem that I always discover is that I don't really have stuff that's worth memorizing. Things that are actually important I remember without trying and for the rest of the things, doing daily card reviews starts to feel like a pointless chore after a while.
I use Anki more as a serendipity engine than for memorization: Whenever[1] I have an interesting observation or thought, I'll write a couple of sentences about it and file two copies: One in Obsidian, with links to any adjacent/relevant notes (if any), and another in Anki as a Close deletion.
Anki is set up with a long review cycle (1 day, 1 week, 1 month, then automated) and I sit down to do my reviews about once a week. In that process, I usually end up having new ideas to make notes about based on either the randomized order the notes show up in or spotting a connection between the review note and something I've been working on lately.
[1] In practice, I let many/most of these go unrecorded - I probably average about one new note per day, but in bursts.
I'm in a similar position of never having found a use where memorising lots of facts would be useful. The main use I keep seeing is vocabulary building when learning a language. I'm sure people are using the system for learning other stuff too though?
Seeing this did make me wonder how I might be able to get better at memorising important parts of iso/iec standards at work, but I can't see how that maps to flashcards
In what context do you find yourself wanting to recall a specific part of an iso/iec standard? Distill that context into a short description and put it on the question side of the flashcard. The answer side then has the corresponding information you want to memorize.
But of course it's possible that you almost never need the same information twice, in which case committing it to memory wouldn't be particularly useful.
I have used Anki to memorize cube numbers and roots, recipes, and music theory. If you're interested in other ideas, you can browse public decks here: https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks.
This is a few days worth of materials to read. If anyone finds it overwhelming, I recommend you read this comic that teaches you the basics of idea behind spaced repetition https://ncase.me/remember/
Dropping a product recommendation -- my favorite spaced repetition + notetaking + learning app: https://www.remnote.com/
I'm not affiliated, just a big booster. For those familiar with Anki it follows the same conventions. It has an excellent system for managing cards. Adding cards is as easy as writing a bullet point: [front of card] == [back of card]. They got the ergonomics right and clearly know the space very well; it has the right keyboard accessibility and shortcuts and navigation. It supports the basics you'd expect like cloze deletions (fill-in-the-blank), image occlusion (cover up parts of an image). It manages assets like PDFs and images. It uses FSRS (the best SRS scheduling algorithm atm).
It has the best (optional) AI integration into a product I've seen except for the usual code-generation suspects. I'm learning spanish and can type into a bullet point something like "el vaquero ==< [tab]" and have the translation automatically generated for me into a forward and reverse card. I'm learning math and can cloze-delete parts of latex equations; the AI can very frequently generate excellent and accurate latex equations, which I can make small edits to as I'd like. These kinds of bonuses make taking live flashcard-based notes during my spanish tutoring sessions and math-based parts of classes feasible.
It's less low-level configurable than Anki and more "works out of the box" with a smaller extension system. I've had enough of trying to fiddle with Anki. Overall just excellent -- I'm not affiliated in any way. Development is very fast. Release note videos are incredible, minor updates occur ~weekly. I've run into a few bugs, especially when I was traveling overseas where internet isn't strong, but overall very pleased with it.
It’s amazing how many people try to make an inferior clone of Anki and profit off of it. The only people who ever fall for it are ones with low computer literacy.
It also appears to require an account even for local-only use. It’s nice to see any kind of local support, but making an account mandatory renders that feature somewhat moot. I understand requiring an account for syncing (Anki does this too), but otherwise there’s not much of a good reason for it.
I'm a big fan of Mochi[1] (also unaffiliated) after getting frustrated with the clunkiness of Anki.
Mochi has great native apps on macOS and iOS (and maybe more?), the cards are formatted in markdown so I can generate them with LLMs with a custom system prompt, and I just found out today they have an API so I might try my hand at getting an LLM to push new cards on its own via. an MCP server.
Thanks for recommending it! I’ve had the same issues with Anki and am shocked there aren’t more clones considering it’s open source. Excited to try remnote.
I very highly recommend a blog post by this same author: [How to write good prompts](https://andymatuschak.org/prompts/). This post made spaced repetition click for me.
I use a variation of an SRS for storing notes about what I've read (as well as using a regular SRS for regular SRS stuff). I chunk notes I've made from books I've read (things like Psycho-Cybernetics, 7 Habits, Iron John, etc), and review 3-4 a day, and having read them I'll clip anything that's particularly salient into "daily review" and then push back the notes for however many days, weeks, months, I think. This has worked well for me over the last 15 years or so I've been doing it.
I've tried spaced repetition systems several times. The problem that I always discover is that I don't really have stuff that's worth memorizing. Things that are actually important I remember without trying and for the rest of the things, doing daily card reviews starts to feel like a pointless chore after a while.
I use Anki more as a serendipity engine than for memorization: Whenever[1] I have an interesting observation or thought, I'll write a couple of sentences about it and file two copies: One in Obsidian, with links to any adjacent/relevant notes (if any), and another in Anki as a Close deletion.
Anki is set up with a long review cycle (1 day, 1 week, 1 month, then automated) and I sit down to do my reviews about once a week. In that process, I usually end up having new ideas to make notes about based on either the randomized order the notes show up in or spotting a connection between the review note and something I've been working on lately.
[1] In practice, I let many/most of these go unrecorded - I probably average about one new note per day, but in bursts.
I'm in a similar position of never having found a use where memorising lots of facts would be useful. The main use I keep seeing is vocabulary building when learning a language. I'm sure people are using the system for learning other stuff too though?
Seeing this did make me wonder how I might be able to get better at memorising important parts of iso/iec standards at work, but I can't see how that maps to flashcards
In what context do you find yourself wanting to recall a specific part of an iso/iec standard? Distill that context into a short description and put it on the question side of the flashcard. The answer side then has the corresponding information you want to memorize.
But of course it's possible that you almost never need the same information twice, in which case committing it to memory wouldn't be particularly useful.
I have used Anki to memorize cube numbers and roots, recipes, and music theory. If you're interested in other ideas, you can browse public decks here: https://ankiweb.net/shared/decks.
This is a few days worth of materials to read. If anyone finds it overwhelming, I recommend you read this comic that teaches you the basics of idea behind spaced repetition https://ncase.me/remember/
Dropping a product recommendation -- my favorite spaced repetition + notetaking + learning app: https://www.remnote.com/
I'm not affiliated, just a big booster. For those familiar with Anki it follows the same conventions. It has an excellent system for managing cards. Adding cards is as easy as writing a bullet point: [front of card] == [back of card]. They got the ergonomics right and clearly know the space very well; it has the right keyboard accessibility and shortcuts and navigation. It supports the basics you'd expect like cloze deletions (fill-in-the-blank), image occlusion (cover up parts of an image). It manages assets like PDFs and images. It uses FSRS (the best SRS scheduling algorithm atm).
It has the best (optional) AI integration into a product I've seen except for the usual code-generation suspects. I'm learning spanish and can type into a bullet point something like "el vaquero ==< [tab]" and have the translation automatically generated for me into a forward and reverse card. I'm learning math and can cloze-delete parts of latex equations; the AI can very frequently generate excellent and accurate latex equations, which I can make small edits to as I'd like. These kinds of bonuses make taking live flashcard-based notes during my spanish tutoring sessions and math-based parts of classes feasible.
It's less low-level configurable than Anki and more "works out of the box" with a smaller extension system. I've had enough of trying to fiddle with Anki. Overall just excellent -- I'm not affiliated in any way. Development is very fast. Release note videos are incredible, minor updates occur ~weekly. I've run into a few bugs, especially when I was traveling overseas where internet isn't strong, but overall very pleased with it.
Insanely expensive. 18$ usd per month?? I’m going to guess it’s also an Electron monstrosity
RemNote founder here - the free version has unlimited cards and notes!
You can upgrade to the Pro version for $10/month if you want tables, PDF uploads, and more.
The $18 version is our most expensive plan that includes AI credits as well.
It’s amazing how many people try to make an inferior clone of Anki and profit off of it. The only people who ever fall for it are ones with low computer literacy.
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It also appears to require an account even for local-only use. It’s nice to see any kind of local support, but making an account mandatory renders that feature somewhat moot. I understand requiring an account for syncing (Anki does this too), but otherwise there’s not much of a good reason for it.
I'm a big fan of Mochi[1] (also unaffiliated) after getting frustrated with the clunkiness of Anki.
Mochi has great native apps on macOS and iOS (and maybe more?), the cards are formatted in markdown so I can generate them with LLMs with a custom system prompt, and I just found out today they have an API so I might try my hand at getting an LLM to push new cards on its own via. an MCP server.
1. https://mochi.cards/
I used this throughout my computer science degree, and it worked a charm. Now I rely on it as a solid personal knowledgebase.
Thanks for recommending it! I’ve had the same issues with Anki and am shocked there aren’t more clones considering it’s open source. Excited to try remnote.
My astroturfing radar is going into overdrive from this comment chain.
His article https://andymatuschak.org/books/ inspired me to build https://readboost.io/ to embed Q&A and SRS into ePubs. Might be buggy still, but I personally found it quite useful!
I very highly recommend a blog post by this same author: [How to write good prompts](https://andymatuschak.org/prompts/). This post made spaced repetition click for me.
Is there a good space repetition app on Android that you recommend?
That only does space repetition?
To mirror the sibling comment: https://apps.ankiweb.net/ is
* Open Source
* Cross-platform
* $0 except on iOS
* Popular enough to have a community and ecosystem around it
Shameless plug: you can use org-anki[1] to manage Anki cards from your org-mode notes.
[1] https://github.com/eyeinsky/org-anki
AnkiDroid
Second this
I use a variation of an SRS for storing notes about what I've read (as well as using a regular SRS for regular SRS stuff). I chunk notes I've made from books I've read (things like Psycho-Cybernetics, 7 Habits, Iron John, etc), and review 3-4 a day, and having read them I'll clip anything that's particularly salient into "daily review" and then push back the notes for however many days, weeks, months, I think. This has worked well for me over the last 15 years or so I've been doing it.
it's good for cramming up stuff, say to pass exams. but for long term deep think this did not work well for me.
It's been a huge help for me learning Spanish verb conjugations, which in turn has helped my Spanish in general.
A lot of it down to the effort this guy has put into making the deck. https://www.asiteaboutnothing.net/w_ultimate_spanish_conjuga...