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Using Anki to remember what you read

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Re: Using Anki to remember what you read

#191

Post by tra3 »

southphillyman wrote: post #143

I use it for interview prep. I know some people advise against memorizing stuff in programming but it's been effective for me so far. You can spend 3-5 minutes in an interview trying to reason about implementing the partition method of a quicksort or translating 2D array indexes into 1d. With anki you can just regurgitate it out of your deep memory in 30 seconds whether you use it in your day to day or not.

Do you have an example of how you structured your cards for such a question? It seems impossibly hard to remember an algorithm without committing it to muscle memory so to speak.

Re: Using Anki to remember what you read

#192

Post by r00fus »

yen223 wrote: post #35

I've used spaced repetition to help learn stuff in general. It's one of the most rewarding things I've done. Some general thoughts: 1. A lot of spaced repetition apps don't optimize for fast card creation. I like to make a card as soon as I come across something interesting, but the delay to get Anki started, and to create the card, etc just makes it frustrating. I wound up building my own app for this. 2. Cloze dele…

> 3. I fared better with lots of small, one-sentence cards. My rule of thumb is that a card should fit in a tweet.

Can someone tell me if this is a crazy good idea? Social network + spaced repetition. Why should you build all your own cards? Taking a class with classmates? Create a group & create cards during lecture, review/curate cards afterwards during study session, then rate which ones were most useful after the exam (or homework).

Re: Using Anki to remember what you read

#193

Post by tra3 »

smarri wrote: post #157

Good luck to him and his system. This line amazed me by how underwhelming it was "The core of the system is highlighting."

I dont understand the sarcasm. The core of most ideas is simple, wouldn't you agree? I've always struggled with retaining what I read, and "highlighting" is not an obvious answer.

Re: Using Anki to remember what you read

#194

Post by buserror »

dangus wrote: post #106

I just...can’t relate to living this way. Maybe you have to be a special type of person, but this whole lifestyle just seems exhausting and over-managed.

I agree. In fact, what I find the most interesting part about reading is .... forgetting about it! Basically concepts will sip thru, but learning the details is just a waste of brain cells, in my opinion.

Just leave the brain do it's job, don't read as it's a marathon, take breaks, think about that bits you've just read that was interesting, then promptly forget about it. You'll forget the details, but not the backbone of it.

Details don't matter in the end. Quite frankly the idea of knowing /by heart/ the name of the greek goddess blah blah blah he uses as an example would bore me solid. Worse, anyone knowing it and telling me about it would bore me solid :-)

Re: Using Anki to remember what you read

#195

Post by the_af »

buserror wrote: post #194
dangus wrote: post #106

I just...can’t relate to living this way. Maybe you have to be a special type of person, but this whole lifestyle just seems exhausting and over-managed.

I agree. In fact, what I find the most interesting part about reading is .... forgetting about it! Basically concepts will sip thru, but learning the details is just a waste of brain cells, in my opinion. Just leave the brain do it's job, don't read as it's a marathon, take breaks, think about that bits you've just read that was interesting, then promptly forget about it. You'll forget the details, but not the backbo…

Agreed.

Also notice how he mentions he remembers "trickle down economics" was a "very important idea" during Reagan's presidency. But there is no mention whatsoever about the idea itself, how it's considered today, whether it was a good or bad idea, its relation to neoliberalism, whether he understands how politically divisive the idea is, etc.

Someone remembering trickle down economics was something from the Reagan era tells me nothing about their understanding of that idea and their opinions about it. Precisely the bits I want to know!

Re: Using Anki to remember what you read

#196

Post by ar_lan »

vslira wrote: post #118
gwd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the issues Anki has, I find, is that if you end up taking a long break for whatever reason, there's no way to "reset". I used Anki to study Chinese for a period of about 10 years. At some point I decided that I wanted to memorize the poker "outs" (probabilities of filling out a hand based on what had currently been dealt). Then I went through a time where I was really busy and didn't study the poker deck for a…

For what it's worth, I keep everything in a single deck. I never stop reviewing stuff and "interleaving" makes learning more effective than "blocking" (studying things in blocks). Source: Bjork et al 2013 ( https://www.researchgate.net/publication/231610455_Self-Regu... )

I took a modified approach to this in university, though nowadays I mostly do the same.

For each new class, I would start a new deck, and after the course was over I would move it over to my main (huge) deck, and it's worked surprisingly well.

Typically (now that I'm out), I add small cards from time to time to my deck, but if there's a large quantity of things I am working on learning at any given time (say I'm going to add 50-100 new cards), I'll put them in their own deck for a little bit.

Ultimately, my repetition does end up being a wide array of subjects though.

Re: Using Anki to remember what you read

#197

Post by Shank »

sequoia wrote: post #162

This article reminds me of posts about "bullet journalling" on sites like Pinterest: the optimization of the productivity process or tool (or in the case of "bullet journal" posts, the beauty of the tool) is the end itself, not a means to an end. The posts are about/by "productivity" or "journalling" enthusiasts and don't map well to people who are simply seeking a bit of an organization or productivity boost, not an…

I think you can go too deep into it as a form of procrastination, but I think this post is sincere. Spaced repetition is backed by science as an effective way to acquire knowledge (e.g., https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3782739/).

I'm personally more skeptical of the Zettelkasten/Roam/PKB craze as being effective, but that's only because I feel like I've had yet to find a problem where it would have been the solution. I'm constantly left feeling like it may be the solution to many problems I have related to memory and remembering thoughts, but without personal experience in it, I can't say what it's worth.

I don't think it's even possible to evaluate a productivity system without using it for a long amount of time and conducting periodic reviews on it regularly to see if it's helping with anything. I don't know what the metrics to measure are, and I don't know what a review like this would look like.

On the paper journaling thing, though, I think the answer is much more clear cut: it's more about the artistic nature of it than anything else. A paper journal is almost always impossible to search, easily damaged, easily lost, and easily customized with stickers, different pens and pencils, and other decor. It's easy to find a notebook you like with a paper you like and then justify writing in it. However, I don't think there are many practical benefits that can't be applied to an electronic system that's functionally similar, save for the effect of slowing down entry so you remember it more.

Re: Using Anki to remember what you read

#198

Post by smarri »

tra3 wrote: post #193
smarri wrote: post #157

Good luck to him and his system. This line amazed me by how underwhelming it was "The core of the system is highlighting."

I dont understand the sarcasm. The core of most ideas is simple, wouldn't you agree? I've always struggled with retaining what I read, and "highlighting" is not an obvious answer.

Highlighting is an obvious answer. Children do it at school. I wish the guy well, but it's as I said, underwhelming.

Re: Using Anki to remember what you read

#199

Post by jaggirs »

the_af wrote: post #195
buserror wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. In fact, what I find the most interesting part about reading is .... forgetting about it! Basically concepts will sip thru, but learning the details is just a waste of brain cells, in my opinion. Just leave the brain do it's job, don't read as it's a marathon, take breaks, think about that bits you've just read that was interesting, then promptly forget about it. You'll forget the details, but not the backbo…

Agreed. Also notice how he mentions he remembers "trickle down economics" was a "very important idea" during Reagan's presidency. But there is no mention whatsoever about the idea itself, how it's considered today, whether it was a good or bad idea, its relation to neoliberalism, whether he understands how politically divisive the idea is, etc. Someone remembering trickle down economics was something from the Reagan…

The article not about 80's economics. He was just making a point, of course he knows the concepts he mentions with more depth than discussed in the post.

Re: Using Anki to remember what you read

#200

Post by josinalvo »

r00fus wrote: post #192
yen223 wrote: post #35

I've used spaced repetition to help learn stuff in general. It's one of the most rewarding things I've done. Some general thoughts: 1. A lot of spaced repetition apps don't optimize for fast card creation. I like to make a card as soon as I come across something interesting, but the delay to get Anki started, and to create the card, etc just makes it frustrating. I wound up building my own app for this. 2. Cloze dele…

> 3. I fared better with lots of small, one-sentence cards. My rule of thumb is that a card should fit in a tweet. Can someone tell me if this is a crazy good idea? Social network + spaced repetition. Why should you build all your own cards? Taking a class with classmates? Create a group & create cards during lecture, review/curate cards afterwards during study session, then rate which ones were most useful after the…

not crazy, i think

but my cards are hard to read by other parties, when I optimize for my own learning

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