4 ms·

(IMO, non scientific blathering follows) Two big things that people seem to forget, or not realize: 1. Anki (etc) isn't really there to help you remember, it'

(IMO, non scientific blathering follows) Two big things that people seem to forget, or not realize: 1. Anki (etc) isn't really there to help you remember, it's there to schedule and optimize your time so you can do more in less time; to avoid the (ad absurdum) case of studying every card, every day. That's effective, but wasteful. To help you remember you use other tricks like the Major system, the Loci system, mnemonics, etc. I recommend either Higbee's book on memory, or Lorayne's, for a array of help there. 2. It's not even close to "perfect", because your brain isn't. SO MANY THINGS affect whether or not you're going to remember a card on a day; what you ate, how you slept, other stuff going on in your brain/life, your context when you added the card, your context now, what you have been thinking about ... It's just not possible for software to nail it _to the day_ of when you can see a card. Anki can only tell you when you should PROBABLY see the card and that probability's standard deviation is high indeed. To your question, what works for me (I've been using Anki for years, and am now approaching a ~1200 day continuous streak) is to be honest with yourself on how many cards per day you can actually do. 10? 100? 1000? For me I'm comfortable with about 150 to keep up the streak. Some days I can probably do a lot more, some days I want to do less but I can power through. But 150 is my happy spot. Then, set your max cards per day setting to that. Then do those. And stop sweating it. (Optionally, with more recent versions of Anki using the V3 scheduler, set the review sorting to "by most relative dueness") This does a few things: * It keeps your workload manageable based on your own notion of "manageable" * It shows you the cards needed to be reviewed kind of by priority * It "hides" the fact that there might be more due Kind of related is also to be HONEST about your use of the 1, 2, 3, 4 keys. Some people ONLY use 1 or 3. I think this is a mistake because it games the "ease factor" to never go up. Be honest; if the card was basically easy, use 4. It'll up the ease factor and you won't see the card as often. If it's too much you'll eventually miss it and restart the learning steps. (Optionally here, use a plugin light "straight rewards" which will also up the ease factor even on a 3. This is what I do and prefer it.)

jbstack 4y ago
> Then, set your max cards per day setting to that. Then do those. And stop sweating it. I agree with this, but I'd argue that this alone isn't sufficient. You should also try (as best as possible) to keep the number of new cards per day at a level where you will hit your max total cards per day on average in the long run. It's no good setting a cap of 150 cards per day if Anki wants you to review 1000 per day - you'll be severely interfering with the SRS algorithm if you do that. On the other hand, having a cap of 150 per day and an average of 150 a day is fine for those days where the review count is higher than average because it will work out roughly correctly in the long run.
- michaelcampbell 4y ago
  > you'll be severely interfering with the SRS algorithm if you do that My assertion is that "no, you won't", from a practical standpoint. One of the reasons people lapse on these things is the "overwhelming" issue. If you keep the max to what you can ACTUALLY DO, you'll be more likely to actually do them. What you're referring to is an optimization issue; although doing less than what it thinks isn't "optimal" FOR ANKI, its way, WAY better than getting overwhelmed and not doing them at all. And 150 vs 1000, if done regularly, WILL calm down and you'll chip away at that backlog. And I also firmly believe that people focus way, WAY too much on "the card has to be done on this day or it's lost". No, it isn't. There is no "proper" time for a card because our brains and memory is SO variable that Anki just is a VERY crude guess at proper. Miss it by a day, or 10, or 90 isn't (IMO) that much a difference in the long run. I see this over and over in /r/anki; people are getting WAY overtuned in trying to keep the software happy rather than the goal of remembering more things in less time.

jbstack 4y ago

> Then, set your max cards per day setting to that. Then do those. And stop sweating it. I agree with this, but I'd argue that this alone isn't sufficient. You should also try (as best as possible) to keep the number of new cards per day at a level where you will hit your max total cards per day on average in the long run. It's no good setting a cap of 150 cards per day if Anki wants you to review 1000 per day - you'll be severely interfering with the SRS algorithm if you do that. On the other hand, having a cap of 150 per day and an average of 150 a day is fine for those days where the review count is higher than average because it will work out roughly correctly in the long run.

michaelcampbell 4y ago
> you'll be severely interfering with the SRS algorithm if you do that My assertion is that "no, you won't", from a practical standpoint. One of the reasons people lapse on these things is the "overwhelming" issue. If you keep the max to what you can ACTUALLY DO, you'll be more likely to actually do them. What you're referring to is an optimization issue; although doing less than what it thinks isn't "optimal" FOR ANKI, its way, WAY better than getting overwhelmed and not doing them at all. And 150 vs 1000, if done regularly, WILL calm down and you'll chip away at that backlog. And I also firmly believe that people focus way, WAY too much on "the card has to be done on this day or it's lost". No, it isn't. There is no "proper" time for a card because our brains and memory is SO variable that Anki just is a VERY crude guess at proper. Miss it by a day, or 10, or 90 isn't (IMO) that much a difference in the long run. I see this over and over in /r/anki; people are getting WAY overtuned in trying to keep the software happy rather than the goal of remembering more things in less time.