Has anyone got experience using Anki or similar flash card based spaced repetition? I’m currently testing an app called Readwise which lets you import notes from books and then easily create quizzes from them.
This makes it extremely easy to prepare cards to study which reduces the attention spent in the material but on the other hand I expect the learnt material to stick around for as long as the repetition is done,
Yes, I used Anki in college for a range of different courses. It made memorization based courses (art history) an absolute breeze, and helped me build my conceptual tower for advanced math courses. Spaced repetition is quite useful for remembering things. I recommend reading this article by Michael Nielsen, alongside the comprehensive reference from Gwern.
I’m skeptical of the value of Readwise, because it is so passive. I think part of the value of using SRS programs like Anki comes from formulating good questions and structuring your knowledge into atomic facts. You need to have at least some understanding of the material in order to be able to make good flashcards. Flashcards that are questions or cloze deletions have a built in feedback mechanism: did I answer the question correctly, and if so, how difficult was recalling the answer? I don’t think being shown things that I highlighted while reading is going to help me learn the material well. If you just want to be reminded of some concepts or a beautiful passage periodically, it should work well.
I forgot to answer this. Readwise actually has built-in an option to easily transform your highlights into either questions or close deletions. Those will then show up as such the next time the highlight needs to be reviewed.
The first Michael Nielsen link has a part where he discusses using Anki to achieve a goal vs. just remembering for the sake of remembering which seems relevant to your question.
This thread I started on LW about my own observations from using Anki also touches on the question you raise. Personally, I haven’t used Readwise but I have had general positive experiences using Anki. That said, similar to Nielsen, my worst Anki experiences have come from trying to remember books for the sake of remembering them vs. using the content for some sort of goal. I use goal broadly here to include writing a blog post/article/book, solving problems/exercises, writing a program, etc.
I sometimes feel the way I review book quotes is akin to brand advertising. I just want those ideas to be « front of mind ». Space repetition puts me in control of what themes surface in my thinking and minimises decency bias.
Has anyone got experience using Anki or similar flash card based spaced repetition? I’m currently testing an app called Readwise which lets you import notes from books and then easily create quizzes from them.
This makes it extremely easy to prepare cards to study which reduces the attention spent in the material but on the other hand I expect the learnt material to stick around for as long as the repetition is done,
Yes, I used Anki in college for a range of different courses. It made memorization based courses (art history) an absolute breeze, and helped me build my conceptual tower for advanced math courses. Spaced repetition is quite useful for remembering things. I recommend reading this article by Michael Nielsen, alongside the comprehensive reference from Gwern.
I’m skeptical of the value of Readwise, because it is so passive. I think part of the value of using SRS programs like Anki comes from formulating good questions and structuring your knowledge into atomic facts. You need to have at least some understanding of the material in order to be able to make good flashcards. Flashcards that are questions or cloze deletions have a built in feedback mechanism: did I answer the question correctly, and if so, how difficult was recalling the answer? I don’t think being shown things that I highlighted while reading is going to help me learn the material well. If you just want to be reminded of some concepts or a beautiful passage periodically, it should work well.
I forgot to answer this. Readwise actually has built-in an option to easily transform your highlights into either questions or close deletions. Those will then show up as such the next time the highlight needs to be reviewed.
Yes! If you haven’t seen the following articles already, I recommend at least skimming them:
Gwern’s Spaced Repetition
Michael Nielsen’s Augmenting Long-term Memory & Using spaced repetition to see through a piece of mathematics
The first Michael Nielsen link has a part where he discusses using Anki to achieve a goal vs. just remembering for the sake of remembering which seems relevant to your question.
This thread I started on LW about my own observations from using Anki also touches on the question you raise. Personally, I haven’t used Readwise but I have had general positive experiences using Anki. That said, similar to Nielsen, my worst Anki experiences have come from trying to remember books for the sake of remembering them vs. using the content for some sort of goal. I use goal broadly here to include writing a blog post/article/book, solving problems/exercises, writing a program, etc.
I sometimes feel the way I review book quotes is akin to brand advertising. I just want those ideas to be « front of mind ». Space repetition puts me in control of what themes surface in my thinking and minimises decency bias.