People, use spaced repetition! It’s been studied academically and been shown to work brilliantly; it’s really easy to incorporate in your daily life in comparison to most other LW material etc… Well, I’m comparatively disappointed with these numbers, though I assume they are still far higher than in most other communities
I’m one of the people who have never used spaced repetition, though I’ve heard of it. I don’t doubt it works, but what do you actually need to remember nowadays? I’d probably use it if I was learning a new language (which I don’t really plan to do anytime soon)… What other skills work nicely with spaced repetition?
I just don’t feel the need to remember things when I have google / wikipedia on my phone.
Isn’t there anything you already know but wouldn’t like to forget? SRS is for keeping your precious memory storage, not necessarily for learning new stuff. There are probably a lot of things that wouldn’t even cross your mind to google if they were erased by time. Googling could also waste time compared to storing memories if you have to do it often enough (roughly 5 minutes in your lifetime per fact).
What other skills work nicely with spaced repetition?
In my experience anything you can write into brief flashcards. Some simple facts can work as handles for broader concepts once you’ve learned them. You could even record triggers for episodic memories that are important to you.
Isn’t there anything you already know but wouldn’t like to forget?
Yeah, that’s pretty much the problem. Not really. I.e. there are stuff I know that would be inconvenient to forget, because I use this knowledge every day. But since I already use it every day, SR seems unnecessary.
Things I don’t use every day are not essential—the cost of looking them up is minuscule since it happens rarely.
I suppose a plausible use case would be birth dates of family members, if I didn’t have google calendar to remind me when needed.
Edit: another use case that comes to mind would be names. I’m pretty bad with names (though I’ve recently begun to suspect that probably I’m as bad with remembering names as anyone else, I just fail to pay attention when people introduce themselves). But asking to take someone’s picture ‘so that I can put it on a flashcard’ seems awkward. Facebook to the rescue, I guess?
(though I don’t really meet that many people, so again—possibly not worth the effort in maintaining such a system)
I don’t know what you work on, but many fields include bodies of loosely connected facts that you could in principle look up, but which you’d be much more efficient if you just memorized. In programming this might mean functions in a particular library that you’re working with (the C++ STL, for example). In chemistry, it might be organic reactions. The signs of medical conditions might be another example, or identities related to a particular branch of mathematics.
SRS would be well suited to maintaining any of these bodies of knowledge.
In programming this might mean functions in a particular library that you’re working with (the C++ STL, for example)
Right. I guess I somewhat do ‘spaced repetition’ here, just by the fact that every time I interact with a particular library I’m reminded of its function. But that is incidental—I don’t really care about remembering libraries that I don’t use, and those that I use regularly I don’t need SR to maintain.
I suppose medical conditions looks more plausible as a use case—you really need to remember a large set of facts, any of which is actually used very rarely. But that still doesn’t seem useful to me personally—I can think of no dataset that’d be worth the effort.
I guess I should just assume I’m an outlier there, and simply keep SR in mind in case I ever find myself needing it.
I’ve used SRS to learn programming theory that I otherwise had trouble keeping straight in my head. I’ve made cards for design patterns, levels of database normalization, fiddly elements of C++ referencing syntax, etc.
They’re mostly copy-and-pasted descriptions from wikipedia, tweaked with added info from Design Patterns. I’m not sure they’d be very useful to other people. I used them to help prepare for an interview, so when I was doing my cards I’d describe them out loud, then check the description, then pop open the book to clarify anything I wasn’t sure on.
edit: And I’d do the reverse, naming the pattern based on the description.
I’m one of the people who have never used spaced repetition, though I’ve heard of it. I don’t doubt it works, but what do you actually need to remember nowadays? I’d probably use it if I was learning a new language (which I don’t really plan to do anytime soon)… What other skills work nicely with spaced repetition?
I just don’t feel the need to remember things when I have google / wikipedia on my phone.
Isn’t there anything you already know but wouldn’t like to forget? SRS is for keeping your precious memory storage, not necessarily for learning new stuff. There are probably a lot of things that wouldn’t even cross your mind to google if they were erased by time. Googling could also waste time compared to storing memories if you have to do it often enough (roughly 5 minutes in your lifetime per fact).
In my experience anything you can write into brief flashcards. Some simple facts can work as handles for broader concepts once you’ve learned them. You could even record triggers for episodic memories that are important to you.
Yeah, that’s pretty much the problem. Not really. I.e. there are stuff I know that would be inconvenient to forget, because I use this knowledge every day. But since I already use it every day, SR seems unnecessary.
Things I don’t use every day are not essential—the cost of looking them up is minuscule since it happens rarely.
I suppose a plausible use case would be birth dates of family members, if I didn’t have google calendar to remind me when needed.
Edit: another use case that comes to mind would be names. I’m pretty bad with names (though I’ve recently begun to suspect that probably I’m as bad with remembering names as anyone else, I just fail to pay attention when people introduce themselves). But asking to take someone’s picture ‘so that I can put it on a flashcard’ seems awkward. Facebook to the rescue, I guess?
(though I don’t really meet that many people, so again—possibly not worth the effort in maintaining such a system)
I don’t know what you work on, but many fields include bodies of loosely connected facts that you could in principle look up, but which you’d be much more efficient if you just memorized. In programming this might mean functions in a particular library that you’re working with (the C++ STL, for example). In chemistry, it might be organic reactions. The signs of medical conditions might be another example, or identities related to a particular branch of mathematics.
SRS would be well suited to maintaining any of these bodies of knowledge.
I’m a software dev.
Right. I guess I somewhat do ‘spaced repetition’ here, just by the fact that every time I interact with a particular library I’m reminded of its function. But that is incidental—I don’t really care about remembering libraries that I don’t use, and those that I use regularly I don’t need SR to maintain.
I suppose medical conditions looks more plausible as a use case—you really need to remember a large set of facts, any of which is actually used very rarely. But that still doesn’t seem useful to me personally—I can think of no dataset that’d be worth the effort.
I guess I should just assume I’m an outlier there, and simply keep SR in mind in case I ever find myself needing it.
I’ve used SRS to learn programming theory that I otherwise had trouble keeping straight in my head. I’ve made cards for design patterns, levels of database normalization, fiddly elements of C++ referencing syntax, etc.
Do you have your design pattern cards formatted in a way that are likely to be useful for other people?
They’re mostly copy-and-pasted descriptions from wikipedia, tweaked with added info from Design Patterns. I’m not sure they’d be very useful to other people. I used them to help prepare for an interview, so when I was doing my cards I’d describe them out loud, then check the description, then pop open the book to clarify anything I wasn’t sure on.
edit: And I’d do the reverse, naming the pattern based on the description.