by yodsanklai
4 subcomments
- They barely mention why they're even doing this. I see flashcard as a means to something (e.g. learning a language, preparing for a test...). The measured outcome should be the success in task, rather than the number of reviewed cards.
by satisfice
5 subcomments
- Does doing this have utility? What problem does it solve?
Years ago, I memorized 1034 digits of pi just to see what it felt like (reciting pi from memory felt like walking through a forest at night without bumping into any trees). So, there was some value in that experience.
I wonder what this guy gets out of it?
- > The prompt of my most-missed card (39 misses in 2025) is: Merrily We Roll Along (the musical) is based on a 1934 play by what two people
> [...] But, ChatGPT and Gemini both tell me that these effects are not statistically significant, despite having pretty large sample sizes.
Imagine he instead learned how to calculate staristical significance instead so he didn't have to believe AI guesswork.
- From the article:
> For example, I only record the correctness of a response, not its subjective difficulty, and I mix in random cards with my study sessions to make it harder for me to guess the answer on the basis of when I'm seeing the card.
Sounds a bit like the Leitner system [1] with respect to recording only Correct/Incorrect responses. One of the reasons I avoided Anki for a long time was that I wanted to be able to answer cards quickly without actually looking at my phone. I ended up using a combination of automatic TTS, bluetooth headphones, and swipe-up/down gestures to indicate my response.
Made it much easier to go through cards while driving or during daily runs with my husky.
[1] - https://subjectguides.york.ac.uk/study-revision/leitner-syst...
- As someone who did about 51k in 2025, oh my goodness how would you possibly have time for 300k?
by santoshalper
2 subcomments
- I read the author's attempt to explain why memorization is important, and found myself unconvinced. Of all the things we consider to be "intelligence", memorization of facts seems like one of the least valuable in the Internet-era. That said, I am open to hear some counter-arguments (pro-memorization).
Of course, if you simply enjoy the process of memorizing facts, then no explanation is needed - it is entertainment for you, and comes with a benefit, like enjoying exercising. Otherwise, it does not seem like a remotely optimally productive way to achieve mastery in any field I am aware of, other than being a student who will be tested on fact memorization.
- I sympathise. I did ~200k reviews in Anki and no idea how many in Renshuu in 2025 for language learning: German, Spanish and Japanese... and I think I got into Anki hell.
For a long time, Anki was really useful for me, it pushed my Spanish and German forward, but now I plan to decrease the number of reviews significantly. I hope to spend no more than 30 minutes per day of flashcards, and the rest of time on immersion.
by rahimnathwani
0 subcomment
- If you use Anki and want to analyze your review history, you can export the review history into a CSV, and then use pandas to analyze it.
https://www.encona.com/posts/custom-statistics-for-anki-flas...
- Interesting to see the stats here. My total active library size is about the same as the author's (~50k cards), yet I performed less than 100k reviews this past year. That said, my overall retention is a good bit lower (~83%). Wouldn't have expected a 6% difference to make for a 3x higher review load!
- First of all, big kudos for not missing a single day. When I used flashcards in the past, missing even a couple of days led to an avalanche of cards to review.
Since you’ve been so consistent and are using your own software, have you experimented with different resurfacing rates? Did you notice a material difference in recall?
by Theaetetus
1 subcomments
- Thanks to everyone for all the useful notes and questions here. I've compiled a follow-up post here:
https://www.natemeyvis.com/22-reasons-i-did-301432-flashcard...
by williamsss
0 subcomment
- I would have liked to see statistics on study session length eg. average duration. Also how long you typically spend creating per card and how many you created this year.
That information would help us all better assess whether the time spent on a spaced repetition flashcard system is justified
- How do you decide what gets a card? I see you like trivia and such, but what triggers you to turn a trivia sounding fact into a flash card?
by kayo_20211030
0 subcomment
- There are some days when I feel I don't know this community at all. :-)
Do this many people use flashcards? Maybe I'm way too old. Probably.
- > My correct-answer rate is approximately 89%
That sounds like incredibly boring way to spend time. I'd aim for something like 20% at most. What's the fun in being asked things you already know?
- 301k reviews/year is serious commitment. Curious — do you ever prune low-value cards, or is the goal to never delete anything?
by webdevver
1 subcomments
- would be really funny if this was actually someone preparing for who wants to be a millionaire
- Are these physical flashcards or virtual, some sort of flashcard software? Definitely writing out 301,432 physical flashcards would be a lot of work, not to mention [kinda] a waste of paper, however many people still like the physical over the virtual; this is me when it comes to reading books.
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