I have found out that I was bad at card making when reviewing the first cards I made after a lapse of time of not using Anki. My then self got frustrated and irritated by how vague and non-specific the cards I made myself were. I certainly learned something about my memory and cognition. The article is long, but it has some insights that resonated with me. I think the quality of the cards one makes is as important, if not more so, than spaced repetition.

I have made a few runs at adopting spaced repetition learning via Anki into my life. The failure point each time so far has been making cards that are worth anything.

The article discusses how to create effective prompts that aid in long-term learning using spaced repetition. Matuschak suggests that good prompts should be specific, clear, and concise, and should be designed to encourage active recall rather than passive recognition.

He also emphasizes the importance of interleaving, which involves mixing up different types of problems or questions to enhance retention and facilitate transfer of knowledge. Additionally, he suggests that prompts should be personalized and contextualized to increase engagement and motivation.

Okay, so was this written by chatgpt

This is from Kagi's summarizer:

  Anki is a powerful tool for improving long-term memory.
  Anki is best used in service to a creative project.
  It is important to ask good questions when using Anki.
  Anki is most useful for learning new fields.
  Anki can be used to develop virtuoso skills.
  It is important to avoid orphan questions and yes/no patterns when using Anki.
  Memory is complicated and we should be careful before putting too much faith in any given model.
  Distributed practice is important for maximizing retention.
  Anki can be used to remember non-verbal experiences.
  Anki can be used to memorize APIs and code.

I asked ChatGPT to summarize the article as Anki cards. I thought it did a good enough job to share, but prefer to use my memory for processes rather than facts; while it has its uses, training a skill with Anki may cause the human equivalent of overfitting.

What type of memory is virtually limitless? Long-term memory

What is the main bottleneck between working memory and long-term memory? The speed at which we can move memories from the working memory to storage

What is a "schema" in the context of long-term memory? A pattern of knowledge stored in our long-term memory that gives our thinking depth and understanding

What happens to a long-term memory when we bring it back into working memory? The memory evolves and forms new connections, updating the living schema

What is Anki commonly used for? Rote learning and memorization

How much time does it take daily to maintain a database of 10,000 Anki cards? 15-20 minutes

What are Michael Nielsen's rules of thumb for whether to Anki-fy something? First, if memorizing a fact seems worth 10 minutes of future time, and second, if a fact seems striking, regardless of whether it seems worth 10 minutes of future time or not.

Can Anki be used to understand complex concepts, such as those in research papers? Yes, by breaking down the concepts into basic questions and building up knowledge through multiple re-reads and increasingly complex questions.

> summarize the article as Anki cards

that's a very clever prompt mechanism you used there