Remember Anything You Want (Free Course) Ep. 2 - How Smart Reviews Will Change Your Life

  • Video 1
  • Video 2
  • Coming Soon
  • Next Steps (Coming Soon)

Welcome back to this free video course on the basics of how to remember anything you want! In this second video, we learn how smart reviews will change your life:

  • The secret schedule of when we forget, and how we can use spaced repetition to work with this schedule and renew memories before we lose them. Key takeaway: without reviews, you forget half or more of your knowledge within a day. With smart reviews, you can renew memories until they last years between reviews.
  • Step-by-step screencast guide to getting started with Anki, a free flashcard tool that will show you, every day, exactly what you need to see just before you'd forget it. Everything else is saved for later. Result: incredibly efficient reviews. (Note: you can maximize the video if the screencast detail is too small.)
  • How to plan your Anki use so that you not only meet your learning goals but also enjoy your reviews. A critical step that's easily missed. Remembering what you want means daily practice — it's really, really important that you enjoy this time.
  • Plus, a bonus Q&A section! Learn why "effortless" learning would be kind of lame, how to avoid Anki taking over your life (don't panic!), and whether you can use both Anki and mnemonics together.

Step-by-step links to get started with Anki:

Other links mentioned:

  • How Flashcards Fail: Confessions of a Tired Memory Guy. I explore the dangers of taking Anki too far, especially with a "video game" mindset. Don't miss the excellent comments — some are basically articles themselves.
  • Deleted scene! When I first started editing together this video, it was on track to be way over an hour, so I had to cut several sections. One link I would have mentioned was Effective learning: Twenty rules of formulating knowledge. This classic article (1999!) dives deep into the best ways to use and design your flashcards. I don't know that I agree with every last point, but it's definitely worth a read if you're interested in serious flashcard use. The author is the creator of the original spaced repetition flashcard program, Supermemo, which first came out in, um, 1987.
  • Also worth a read: Reviewing as Thinking. More on how we can learn to enjoy our reviews. Also attracted some great comments.

What's next? If you're subscribed to my memory list, I'll be sending you an email in a few days with Video 3. You can subscribe at the top of this page. In Video 3, we'll finally explore advanced mnemonics, which means all those weird memory tricks you may have heard about. Like memory palaces.

For now, thanks so much for watching! I'd love it if you left me a thought or question in the comments below.