Spaced repetition

Mindfulness meditation as described by Jon Kabat-Zinn might be helpful to you. I would describe it as learning to become more aware of yourself, including becoming more aware of your own thinking.

Most of us, even if we know that we have filler time (I call it autopilot), aren't aware of how often it occurs.

Be careful though, some of that filler time is a necessary part of memory consolidation and baking in new things we have learned. Eliminating it entirely would probably be counterproductive.

Just my speculation of course.

I don't remember much of it. I think it's because the PAO system was too complex. I can remember some of the images, but I can't remember what they stood for. I have been able to recall some abstract things (like where other pathways like glycogen storage intersect with glycolysis). What have you used loci for? I was thinking I might have better luck using loci for pharm stuff. But Sketchy Pharm exists, so why spend all that time when they'll create scenes for me?

I've been using Anki to learn (English) words for a while now (I got tired of looking up words I come across in books and then not 'learning' them from that). I've noticed a few things:

* A short definition is harder to remember than a long, involved one. It feels like the short one doesn't give enough mental 'hooks' for connecting to other concepts.

* A word that sounds onomatopoeia-c is usually easy to remember -- a 'cosh' is a bludgeon, and I have no trouble remembering that because it sounds kinda like one - one-syllable, harsh, blunt

* Words that don't seem to have definitions related to their spelling are hard to remember -- I had the hardest time remembering the meaning of the word "prevaricate" - 'to speak evasively, skirting the truth', because 'pre' makes no sense in it and 'vari' is not a root I've heard before, and neither has anything to do with lying

* Learning the etymologies of complicated words helps a lot, especially if it fixes the previous problem -- after learning the root 'aestus' means fire/boiling, but came to refer to the tide as the 'boiling of the ocean', I can't forget that estuaries are tidal zones of water

* Learning a story behind a word makes it hard to forget -- for instance I remember the word 'boffin' (Britishism for 'nerd') because I remember how it was used positively to refer to the war-effort researchers in Britain in WWII

* Using the word in a reasonable sounding sentence (not an idiomatic usage, 'the one way the word is ever used') helps a lot -- for instance, find a way to use the word "mores" that isn't in the phrase "social mores" and it's going to stick a lot better

* Words that come packaged with connotations are easier to remember -- for instance, the word 'lucre' means money or profit, but knowing that it usually means 'dirty money', specifically, as in money obtained via crime / sordid means, makes it way easier to associate it with a specific concept

* Talking to someone else about a word I learned makes it many times easier to remember -- for instance I gushed to a friend about the word 'psithurism', which is the 'sound of rustling leaves', and can't seem to forget it now

* Using a word in conversation / my own writing makes it far easier to remember than any amount of studying it via flash cards.

Basically it feels like the actual way to really learn a word is to associate a big mental structure around it in my mind - to understand subtleties in the definition; to associate it with its parts and roots and history; to have a social memory of sharing the word with someone else; to have to do the mental calculations to use it in my own speech or writing and to decide that it's the best word for what I wanted to say; etc.

This is consist with my experiences learning math and physics - I can learn a subject if I see it as a big picture, a narrative I can re-develop on the fly, or as a package of tools that are motivated by a particular kind of problem. I can remember an equation if I associate the parts of it with complicated mental frameworks or detailed arguments. But reading it off the page a bunch of times gets me almost nothing.

Cramming for a test usually means stuffing the raw text of the material into your brain, because you don't have time to build the whole concept lattice around it. I think that's why it doesn't work for retention.

I feel a bit the same. What's your goal of learning with Anki?

Part of my other comment here 'then what?' also links to someone else's comment about Anki - it wouldn't let you skip 500 words of backlog until you'd reviewed them. And the FAQ used to say something like: "Sorry, but you skipped some time and you are now at risk of forgetting those 500 words. You need to review them, because otherwise what's the point in any of this?".

I'm starting to wonder if people ever really 'learn' things, and if it's more a case of 'use it or lose it' happening every moment. When you're not using it, it starts to fade - whatever it is. Native language included, all skills included. And the consequence of that is that all learning has to include some notion of using it in future, not just once but regularly - frequently, even.

If your goal is in any way "because I should" or "because I want to be a better person" or "because I want to know more", I'm not surprised it gives you little motivation. If your goal instead includes "I want to do X with the language or skill, on a regular basis":

- I want to study Language because I travel to Langland every two weeks for work, and desperately want to be able to talk to people without a translator: motivating.

- I want to study Language because I saw a holiday to Langland on offer and maybe I'll go there next year, and I don't really have anything else to do: not motivating.

then the strength of motivation depends[1] on the strength of desire you have to do a thing, combined with the amount of doing that thing you want to have in your future life. Most things we choose to learn about, we have no good plan to weave them into regular life, and so not a long term strong desire to learn about them, and so not that much motivation to stick past the novelty stage.

[1] speculative.

I believe SRS is overused. The spacing effect is, of course, real and quite important. However, it lends itself to decontextualizing what you're learning.

For example, foreign language vocabulary is best learned in context (ie., in sentences, within conversations). That's the only way to know how it's actually used. Otherwise, you're just learning a mapping between first and second languages.

There are other benefits to learning in context, as well. It's more fun, sustains long-term interest better, and these emotional benefits enhance memory as well.

Most interestingly, there are efficiencies to learning in context. For example, one can learn two new words in one sentence.

For all these reasons, I believe it's quite unfortunate that the first language learning tool everyone grabs is some kind of SRS flashcard system. And similar arguments apply in other domains.