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0 pointsshepherdjerred2y ago0 comments

Do you have a similar habit? How does one get started making Anki a habit? I've used Anki for studying before exams, but I haven't been able to integrate it into my life.

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sivers2y ago

If you care enough, you'll do it. Every day I brush my teeth, write in my diary, do my Anki, check email, eat something, etc. It's only a few minutes a day.

shepherdjerredOP2y ago

That's a fair argument. Maybe my problem is that I overestimate how much time it takes every day. It really should be only a few minutes a day, with that effort adding up over enough days/week/months. I guess the bigger time sink comes when authoring decks.

Jtsummers2y ago

The hard part (in terms of time) for me is creating the content. I cheat. I throw whole paragraphs and sentences in without clozes or refinement.

Then when I review them I think, "Well, that was informative but not answerable, what does 'easy' or 'hard' mean when I'm re-reading a paragraph?" So I spend some time refining them. This is iterative. The first pass on a paragraph of content might just be to split it out into several cards with one sentence each, nothing more. Then when I see the sentence cards (some time later) I turn them into clozes or Q&A cards. Then I realize they need images to really help so I add some. After 2-5 iterations they're useful and effective cards, but the work ends up being distributed over a more reasonable period of time (usually 1-3 weeks). Each refinement step only takes a minute or two per card, if that, especially as you get more comfortable with the editor.

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