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Anki-fy your life

abouttolearn.substack.com

131–140 of 233 posts

Re: Anki-fy your life

#131
post #89

Unless you want to compete in Jeopardy or something, why bother with ""uploading"" static chunks of information to your wetware? Language learning aside. When categorizing notes to be remembered, I think it's good to think in terms of memory retreival, not memory storage. In other words, not to become an "archiever", because you probably want to evolve your ideas by linking them together in your own unique way -- uni…

I had a major concussion shortly before my GCSE exams that I'm still very slowly recovering from. I was completely unable to think, let alone study. I never did an IQ test, but I couldn't even listen to a book or stay awake for more than a few hours without a headache. And for a while I couldn't look at a screen or read. I was able to get the second highest grades in the school, with lower than expected grades in onl…

I sympathise: my wife was a teacher and the schools that were hardest to teach anything were the schools that were all about giving chances and "love" to bullies and disruptive elements. Mostly this comes direct from narcicists in upper management. They were very bad places to teach at, and she burned out quickly at them.

The best schools were ones that back up and support their teachers in disciplinary action (usually detention, buddy-class systems and behavior contracts which are all pretty effective if applied consistently and supported by management).

Re: Anki-fy your life

#132
post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me that pretty much anything has better ROI then 10-20 minutes of pure rote memorization a day. Plus, keeping in 10-20 minutes a day requires separate skill on itself. Anki has a way of taking over and expanding the time it requires.

> of pure rote memorization I wouldn't describe my use of Anki as "rote memorization". Though certainly some people use it that way. There is a big difference between blindly putting raw and unfamiliar facts into an SRS, and using an SRS to remember things you have learned and understand. It's the second case that pays large dividends over time.

There is uh, a reason the program's name is almost literally "blind memorization". The connotations are not quite as negative as the phrasing sounds in English, buut the meaning is not a coincidence.

Re: Anki-fy your life

#133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, there's a big distiction to be made here. Knowledge that is primarily conceptual (like almost all of math) generally does not benefit from spaced repetition. The learning involved is understanding -- a new concept may be hard to understand in the first place, but once you get it, you don't really forget it. Or you just need a super-quick refresher if you haven't touched it for a few months. While knowledge tha…

But the arbitrary-factual isn't they way people recommend using Anki. I really struggle to understand exactly what people are actually using it to learn. There are a lot of medical students and that makes sense, but that is... arbitrary-factual. I've tried many times with other material, but I always get far more out of creating condensed notes and reviewing actual notes than quizzing random factioids in Anki. I get…

I don't see how making and reviewing notes is that different from making and reviewing cards. The more important aspect of using a system like Anki is leveraging the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve. Maybe if you already have the habit of making, organizing and reviewing notes you don't need a system on top of it like Anki?

Re: Anki-fy your life

#134
post #51

I'm a huge fan of spaced repetition and Anki. I strongly believe that most people's professional lives would be improved by using it. There is a huge amount of information that falls into the zone of it's needed often enough that not knowing it is a pain, but it's not needed often enough that you would "naturally" remember it. I've yet to find anything else that only takes 10 to 20 minutes a day that has a higher ROI…

Do you have a TLDR for that article? It's pretty long and wordy.

I asked ChatGPT to summarize the article as Anki cards:

What memory type is virtually limitless? Long-term memory

What's the bottleneck between working and long-term memory? Speed of transferring memories

What is a "schema" in long-term memory? A pattern of knowledge for understanding

What happens when long-term memories return to working memory? Memory evolves, updates schema

What is Anki commonly used for? Rote learning and memorization

Time daily to maintain 10,000 Anki cards? 15-20 minutes

Michael Nielsen's rules for Anki-fying? Worth 10 mins future time, striking facts

Can Anki be used for complex concepts? Yes, by breaking down concepts and building knowledge

Re: Anki-fy your life

#135

I'm a huge fan of spaced repetition and Anki. I strongly believe that most people's professional lives would be improved by using it. There is a huge amount of information that falls into the zone of it's needed often enough that not knowing it is a pain, but it's not needed often enough that you would "naturally" remember it. I've yet to find anything else that only takes 10 to 20 minutes a day that has a higher ROI…

The other high ROI activity is writing/re-writing and writing these prompts yourself will make it more effective.

Re: Anki-fy your life

#136
I wish the author gave examples...I've used it for language, and currently using it for my daughter to learn the alphabet...but how to you "Anki-fy your life?" His only example is an Alpha-Go research paper, which he didn't read, but Nielsen? Why does he write about Anki-fying your life but uses someone else's example. Confused...

Re: Anki-fy your life

#137
post #136

I wish the author gave examples...I've used it for language, and currently using it for my daughter to learn the alphabet...but how to you "Anki-fy your life?" His only example is an Alpha-Go research paper, which he didn't read, but Nielsen? Why does he write about Anki-fying your life but uses someone else's example. Confused...

[dead]

Re: Anki-fy your life

#138

I absolutely love Anki. A lot of software make empty promises around productivity improvements. Especially in education. Anki is one of those rare tools that genuinely 10x's you over your peers. I used it when studying Japanese and it was a massive help. However, having used it for over 12 years to memorise many different things I have noticed one caveat. If you're not also using what you're memorising outside of Ank…

I tried to use Anki a long time ago, but maintaining cards ended up being too toilsome. Now that we have ChatGPT and other AI tech to take some of the pain out of that, I might give it another try for language study.

I do however maintain that for many skills it’s better to memorize processes over facts, and develop a more nuanced embedding with natural repetition intervals, rather than overfitting via excessive Anki-fication.

Re: Anki-fy your life

#139
I like to use spaced repetition for everything.

I used it so much it has become sort of a "Corgnitive Primitive" where I put everything there: Questions, Facts, Interesting Things, Calendar Events, Prompts, Writing Tips, Mutate-this-idea, Mood Controls, Historical Events and Dates, Todos(Spaced Repetition Productivity?) etc.

One example would be: I've grown from a (...) to a (...). I complete the (...) with something from my current mood. This is good because I'm accumulating "Writings" from myself to publish a novel, manga or story later on. When I need to write something then I just consult my notes for everything I have written at that moment.

I'm currently working on a tool[1] that has built-in Spaced Repetition(I made my own algorithm and don't use SM-2[Anki's Algorithm])

[1] https://github.com/ilse-langnar/notebook

Re: Anki-fy your life

#140
post #72

I'm a huge fan of spaced repetition and Anki. I strongly believe that most people's professional lives would be improved by using it. There is a huge amount of information that falls into the zone of it's needed often enough that not knowing it is a pain, but it's not needed often enough that you would "naturally" remember it. I've yet to find anything else that only takes 10 to 20 minutes a day that has a higher ROI…

It seems to me that pretty much anything has better ROI then 10-20 minutes of pure rote memorization a day. Plus, keeping in 10-20 minutes a day requires separate skill on itself. Anki has a way of taking over and expanding the time it requires.

Strong disagree. The pivot completely away from rote memorization in public schools is a mistake. Being able to immediately conjure math facts for example without having to use higher level concentration makes the next level of thought easier to access. Rote memorization is currently undervalued.
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