> Not only are common practices like lectures, cramming, and re-reading boring, science has shown they don't even work well. But what if I said there's a way to learn that's evidence-based and fun? What if I said there's a memory card game you can play, for 20 minutes a day, to store anything you choose into long-term memory, forever?
A mistake I made when I first started experimenting with spaced repetition was treating it as a learning tool, as described above, rather than as a memorization tool.
I'd create a bunch of cards with facts that I wanted to learn on them, then review my cards each day and hope that spaced repetition would help me learn what was on them. In reality, I learned very little.
What I've since discovered works much better for me is to separate studying and memorizing, and only create cards with facts that I already know on them. You might say "but why would I make a card with something I already know on it?", and this question reveals the mistake that most people make when it comes to remembering -- that just because they know something, it will be in their head forever.
I often still make this mistake whenever I learn something new. The important thing is to remind myself that without reviewing that information again at a later date, I will forget it. I've lost count of the amount of times I've figured out a problem and thought "great, I know this now!" only to run into the same problem a month later and forget what the solution was.
One complicating factor though, that might hit on what you mentioned is how complex the thing you're learning is. There's one group that claims (re)studying is better for complex material than testing.
A mistake I made when I first started experimenting with spaced repetition was treating it as a learning tool, as described above, rather than as a memorization tool. I'd create a bunch of cards with facts that I wanted to learn on them, then review my cards each day and hope that spaced repetition would help me learn what was on them. In reality, I learned very little.
What I've since discovered works much better for me is to separate studying and memorizing, and only create cards with facts that I already know on them. You might say "but why would I make a card with something I already know on it?", and this question reveals the mistake that most people make when it comes to remembering -- that just because they know something, it will be in their head forever.
I often still make this mistake whenever I learn something new. The important thing is to remind myself that without reviewing that information again at a later date, I will forget it. I've lost count of the amount of times I've figured out a problem and thought "great, I know this now!" only to run into the same problem a month later and forget what the solution was.