Best materials #

• The best introduction to practical spaced repetition
• Guidelines for making great cards

My blogpost #

Link here

• connecting SR with Tiny Habits

Controversies and caveats #

• Shoulnd't be used in classroom - it's a tool for self-study, but (with caveats) doesn't work well in group setting
  • Piotr Wozniak - supermemo creator an THE expert on SR says so here as part of broader rant over modern school
  • Practictioner's perspective
    • Forgetting is also part of learning process
    • It doesn't work well for concepts

Thoughts #

• I firmly believe if you can't explain something to a 5-year old, you don't understand it yourself. And if you can't come up right away with definitions of key concepts in your field, even when woken up at 3am, you have no clue what you are doing. Spaced repetition is a great tool to help you with that.
  • Fun exercise: set up a little quiz for your team / colleagues, asking to define key concepts you use in daily work (e.g. for software - DevOps, Agile, Data mesh), then compare them between each other and best industry definitions. Hilarity might ensue.
  • Obligatory xkcd
• The step of creating flashcards is worth the effort even if you were to never repeat them.
• Creating too many flashcards is a very common mistake, and one I'm guilty of. It's easy to get carried away, especially when learning new topic.
• Taking a break from SR is a big deal, as it's easy to get overwhelmed, especially if you tend to overdo the number and details.
• As a self-study technique, the results are massively dependant on your mental health, general well-being and time management/life design skills.