Efficient Anki

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04 January 2024 - 2 mins read time
Tags: Article L2L

Summary of articles from leanAnki.com

How to Use Anki: An Efficient Tutorial for Beginners

Creating Decks

• Put “life long learning” topics into a single deck.
• Create separate decks for topics that come up in specific retrieval contexts:
  • Exam review
  • Interview prep

Organizing Decks

• You can organize decks in two ways:
  • Using the format MAINDECK::SUBDECK. For example, “Physics::Thermodynamics.”
  • Dragging one deck into another (not recommended unless for very broad subjects).

Adding Cards

• Use the keyboard shortcut: A.
• Important fields:
  1. Type
  2. Deck
  3. Front & back fields
  4. Tag field
• Ignore “Fields…” and “Cards…” for now.
• Create cards using CNTR + ENTER or CMD + ENTER.
• Start with basic card types and expand as needed.
• Use tags instead of sub-decks for card organization:
  • Replace spaces with underscores.
  • Add tags during creation or use the deck browser to add tags to multiple cards at once.

Card Structure

• Specific question
• Specific answer
• Screenshot of source
• Tags

Studying

• Press the space-bar to show the next card.

Card Ratings

• Again: Less than a minute (the card will show up again). Press when you fail to recall the answer.
• Good: Less than 10 minutes. Press when you successfully recall the answer.
• Easy: After 4 days. Use for cards you already knew the answer to or recalled instantly.
  • Shortcut keys: 1, 2, 3
• Pressing “Again” on a mature card 8 times makes the card disappear (ineffective).
• Study every day to prevent card stack-up.
• During custom study sessions, select cards from specific tags.

How to Create an Anki Deck that Maximizes Learning

Tips to Optimizing Learning:

• Consider the trade-off between retrieval context specificity and ease of learning.
• Implement interleaved practice.
• Use the minimal number of decks possible.
• Utilize tags to create specific retrieval contexts.

How to Make Better Anki Flashcards: Principles for High-Quality Questions

1. Make Your Cards Atomic

• Increased Specificity
• Increased Integration

2. Associate the Idea into Your Existing Knowledge Before Putting It into Anki

• Learn the Justifications of Why Something Is True

3. Make Your Cards Future-Proof

• Add More Specifiers
• Add More Context in the Question