What Is the Meaning of Good Easy and Again in Anki?

Best Anki Settings: My Recommended Values (Updated for v2.1+)

March 4, 2022 March three, 2022

Hullo, this is Lesson four of iv in the Anki Fundamentals free course. I hope you like information technology! Let me know if you have any questions or feedback — I'd like to hear what you lot call back! 🙂

In this lesson, you're going to acquire my recommended Anki settings and how settings work in a more practical manner.

That's considering I don't simply want you to have "fix-fabricated" templates, simply also a complete understanding of how the advice I'm giving you works.

Why? Because I want you to be able to think for yourself rather than use something yous don't fifty-fifty know the purpose of.

Just to exist clear, Anki'due south default settings do piece of work.

However, in my feel, I found the default learning steps (more than on this later) gives a really poor review feel for both newer and older cards.

Newer cards don't become reviewed equally ofttimes, and older cards starting time dorsum to nix when you've lapsed fifty-fifty partially. (i.e. during tip-of-the-tongue moments)

Once you apply these settings I'm going to give yous, you'll be able to avoid these two issues right away then you'll have a smooth review experience every single fourth dimension.

They're made-for-yous settings that I found the most optimal in my learning process. Again, I will also share with yous the underlying concepts (and provided supplementary materials) so yous can tweak them on your ain.

That existence said, I do have to note ii things:

1. My recommended settings are more geared for conceptual learning than for memorizing vocabulary or isolated facts
2. Changing your settings this way won't really make or break your overall retention for conceptual learning. It merely enhances the review experience.

Which means if y'all're constantly forgetting the majority of what you've studied even though you lot've already made Anki cards for them, then mere settings are NOT going to care for that problem.

Luckily, I have a solution for that — yous'll learn it at the finish of this post.

The Made-For-Y'all Settings

This is an updated version that uses the recommended settings in the "LeanAnki Method" part of the study organisation course.

For Daily Limits:

• New cards/day = 9999. New data lacks depth, and should therefore be studied immediately. So you demand to retrieve them in order to brand them stronger — at least, before they fade into oblivion when more circuitous concepts are still far ahead.

• Maximum Reviews = 9999. Retention of past knowledge makes future learning easier. But take annotation that this can simply exist true if you have encoded what you've learned before making flashcards. Otherwise, y'all simply become fragmented, useless memory that cannot be used as an activated semantic context.

For the New Cards, I recommend these settings:

The Learning steps setting means that pressing Over again shows the card in 10 minutes and pressing Skillful would show the card after ane mean solar day, then after you press "Proficient" on that, you'll run into it over again subsequently iii days.

Then the starting time number is actually the number of minutes the bill of fare will show upward again if you pressed "Over again".

The next two numbers determine the intervals when y'all press "Adept".

And similar the tab says, all of these only utilise to New Cards.

Now, I don't recommend you lot pressing "Easy" right away because that tends to skip the "learning steps."

You don't want that. Just because a bill of fare is easy to think now doesn't mean information technology's going to be remembered in the time to come — nosotros have a bias to believe otherwise (cf. Stability Bias) and that'southward the trap we will fall into if nosotros don't "filter the bad cards out."

So, just to be on the safe side, go through all of your learning steps for your new cards by pressing "Good." (Obviously, this doesn't utilise to graduated cards — more on that in a sec.)

Now how exercise y'all know if the card has surpassed the "learning steps"?

You lot'll know it when the next interval in the "Graduating Interval" appears. (in this case, it'southward seven days)

When you see that option, it ways that that specific menu volition graduate afterward you printing "expert" or "like shooting fish in a barrel". (Think of the steps as a "grade" in grade school — you take to go through all of them, right?)

When a carte du jour has graduated, the ease of retrieval (i.due east. what buttons you press later on answering that card) will then decide how often that card volition show upwards in the future, rather than the learning steps.

Lastly, you might exist wondering why the "Insertion gild" is gear up to Random.

What this does is make the questions show up in an interleaved way. Interleaved exercise helps you dissolve boundaries betwixt subjects, and this is likewise why I recommend letting relevance determine deck creation. ¹

So going dorsum to graduated cards…

When the card has graduated, it will use the "Lapses" and "Advanced" settings:

The Lapses settings, I don't intendance so much about that. ten minutes is already fine for avoiding "mindless recollect" when reviewing lapsed cards, and I don't want my poorly-encoded cards disappearing, so I recommend not changing the "Leech Action" to "Suspend Card." (This usually happens when your cards aren't encoded or future-proof)

So hither's the "Advanced" settings.

I primarily used Anki when I reviewed for my board exams, and I noticed that sometimes there were cards that are supposed to be extremely like shooting fish in a barrel only take very low intervals.

If you find that yous have those cards, this ways that you take forgotten them somehow afterwards they have graduated, and that they take already used the default "New Interval", which is 0%.

So I've ready the "New Interval" setting to 0.60. This is crucial, because if you forgot something you've been successfully recalling for 3 years, do you actually take to test yourself every bit if it'due south a new menu?

Clearly NOT. And information technology'southward an inefficient apply of time and free energy for a well-learned carte du jour.

That'due south why we concede past turning the new interval to 60%. It's arbitrary, of form, but I wouldn't recommend going beneath fifty%.

This means that if yous accept a graduated card, and you've pressed "Again," then the next interval will exist set at 60% of the original. Pregnant, if y'all're supposed to run into that bill of fare 100 days for a "Good" rating, and then pressing "Once more" will brand information technology pop upwards later on 60 days (0.6×100=60) instead of 100.

My rationale hither, if information technology's not articulate still, is that well-learned cards do not need to be reviewed the aforementioned way as a newly learned card.

If the depth of encoding ² is the same, then at that place is already a base of storage forcefulness for the lapsed card. Since the large storage strength slows down the charge per unit of forgetting, it means that it will be forgotten fashion slower than a new card — which generally has depression storage strength ⁱⁱⁱ .

At present, in case you want to acquire more about these settings you can do that here (longer version) and hither. (shorter)

Regarding your reviews with graduated cards, you lot should press whatever selection in the "Easy" "Good" "Difficult" suits your sentence.

That's because from that bespeak on, you want the Anki algorithm to practise its magic for you.

To epitomize:

• The New Cards settings utilize to, well, new cards that haven't yet graduated
• Printing "Adept" but for the newer cards to become through all your learning steps and avoid Stability Bias
• A specific carte du jour has "graduated" when y'all finish the learning steps
• Press any review difficulty option (i.east. Easy, Good, or Hard) for graduated cards

Settings Aren't an Exact Science

If you've noticed already, these intervals are incredibly simple to tweak.

That's considering they aren't exact science.

If your goal is to but apply Anki more than effectively and more efficiently in a practical way…

Then do you really accept time to overthink well-nigh the exact data — i.due east. "the pErFeCt aLgOriTHm" — instead of actually spending that time creating amend cards that volition amend your knowledge base? Learning how to extract of import information from a textbook?

Look, even if some garbage news site "knew" what the "about constructive & efficient Anki setting" is…

It HIGHLY likely that it fails to accept into account:

1. The context of what y'all're learning
2. How specific your card is
3. How future-proof information technology is
4. How well they relate to your previous noesis
5. …and and then on.

…simply considering these tin can't exist quantified.

In short, even if there's available verbal scientific discipline out at that place, it probable fails to account the big picture.

So I argue it'south amend to keep this simple.

1 caveat, though, is when you're not using Anki as a tool for learning concepts, only rather only to memorize facts.

I can't speak for that — perhaps the well-nigh efficient intervals do exist for information technology.

(But hey, I incertitude you're even gonna make it this far if you're non gonna use Anki for learning!)

Anki designers were actually criticized for not having "optimal intervals", merely in defense of Anki, Nielsen argued:

I've heard this used as a criticism of the designers of systems such every bit Anki, that they brand too many ad hoc guesses, not backed past a systematic scientific understanding.

Simply what are they supposed to practice? Look 50 or 100 years, until those answers are in?

Give up pattern, and become memory scientists for the next 30 years, so they tin can give properly "scientific" answers to all the questions they demand answered in the design of their systems?

We get that exact science is good for increasing the take chances success, but every action doesn't accept to wait for exact data, especially if you want to make progress immediately.

Instead of waiting for memory scientists to somehow observe the data for us, we follow the outset principle of spaced repetition and learn the nuances for ourselves.

That is, to set up increasing intervals for reviews.

Simple, and practical.

One might ask, "What if I'm overtesting/undertesting?"

You'd often hear this from other "avant-garde beginners", just frankly, it'south impractical to stress yourself over them.

In case you lot're asking the same question, here'south the solution:

Adjust the settings accordingly.

Plain simple.

Of course, it's piece of cake to say that the overall review fourth dimension can be sped up when yous utilise setting X or Y…

Merely frankly, there are more than important things to address in the thousand scheme of things.

Side by side Step: How to Use Anki Efficiently

Like I said, settings solitary won't brand or break your ability to retain most of the concepts you lot're learning.

Sure, it might help a fleck — just the gains would be marginal at best.

It's more of an optimization thing rather than a viability factor.

And, every bit I've said in the beginning of this Anki Fundamentals series…

Anki — or more appropriately, spaced repetition — is but one-3rd of the things you need for learning finer.

Mind, if you're constantly tweaking your settings and you're not seeing any substantial improvements, then the trouble is probably not with Anki.

If you're interested to know more, then the next course — How to Use Anki Efficiently — is for y'all.

Information technology's totally free, no signups required to start.

Footnotes

1. See this article for more.
2. Craik, F. I. M., & Lockhart, R. Due south. (1972). Levels of processing: A framework for memory research. Journal of Verbal Learning and Exact Behavior, eleven(6), 671–684. https://doi.org/ten.1016/S0022-5371(72)80001-X
3. Bjork, R. A., & Bjork, E. L. (1992). A new theory of decay and an old theory of stimulus fluctuation. In Essays in honour of William Yard. Estes, Vol. 1: From learning theory to connectionist theory; Vol. ii: From learning processes to cognitive processes. (pp. 35–67). Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

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Source: https://leananki.com/best-settings/

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