Anki Guide
Given how often I recommend Anki to people around me, I decided to summarize what I have learned in this “guide”. Anki is extremely effective for studying, but the application is not particularly intuitive for new users. However, once you know what needs to be configured, getting started with Anki can be very easy.
In this guide, you will find basic information about the principles behind how Anki works. Understanding them will help you see why this method is much more effective than repeatedly reading the same material and hoping for the best. You will also find information on how to configure the application at the beginning so that you can start using Anki as soon as possible.
What Is Anki?
Anki is software for learning with so-called flashcards. Each card has two sides. One side contains a question, or perhaps a term or topic that you should know something about. The other side contains the answer to the question, a definition of the term, or some information about the given topic.
For example, if you use Anki to learn a language, one side of a card might contain a word in the foreign language you are learning, while the other side contains its translation into a language you already know well.
Studying works by having Anki show you individual cards one by one. You read the question side, think about how you would answer it, and only then reveal the answer. Based on whether the answer you came up with was correct, you classify the card as passed or failed.
Learning Principles
The first principle Anki uses is Active Recall. Someone who studies by reading the same PDF over and over again may read the material and think, “Yeah, I would probably know that”, but they are not actually trying to recall the answer under the same conditions they will face during an exam. In Anki, on the other hand, you cannot see the actual answer while trying to recall it, which means you are actively training your ability to retrieve that information from memory.
The second principle is Spaced Repetition. The algorithm used by Anki tries to estimate as accurately as possible when you are likely to forget a piece of information and show you the corresponding card before that happens. The intervals at which cards appear can vary, which means you spend more time studying material you do not know very well yet and avoid wasting time on things you already know. Again, this is a major advantage over studying from a PDF, where everything is presented to you at once.
The Problem Anki Solves
Let’s say you have an exam coming up. To pass it, you need to know the material from 10 presentations containing 50 slides each. To successfully pass the exam, you should prepare thoroughly and spend as much time studying as possible, right? Wrong. How would that go? You do not have unlimited time or unlimited energy. On top of that, you cannot devote all your energy to a single subject because you also need to prepare for other subjects and deal with other responsibilities.
So we can probably all agree that you need to divide the workload somehow and limit the total amount of time you spend on a single subject. How do you do that? Let’s say it takes you an hour to go through one presentation and start feeling somewhat confident about the material. Great, finishing the course should therefore only require an hour a day for the next 9 days. Except that it does not work that way at all, because over time you will start forgetting what you learned on previous days. You also need to review the material continuously, but which parts exactly, and for how long?
With standard study methods, before you can even start studying, you first need to answer these two questions:
- What should I study today?
- How long should I study today?
When you use Anki, you do not need to think about this at all. At the beginning, you simply set the number of new cards so that you can get through all of them before the exam. After that, you study every day and review only the cards selected by the algorithm. The answers to the two questions above therefore become straightforward:
- What should I study today? The cards selected by the algorithm.
- How long should I study today? Until I have completed all of today’s cards.
You no longer need to ask yourself whether you should perhaps be studying instead, as Anki decides that for you. And once you have completed all the scheduled cards, you know you are done for the day.
I have heard doubts about whether this can really work. Some people argue that “an algorithm cannot possibly know what I am about to forget” or even say that they “still feel like they do not know the material afterward”.
First, the FSRS algorithm adapts specifically to you because it determines its parameters by analyzing your study history. This means it really will work for anyone. Second, you are the one telling the program whether you successfully recalled the answer or not, that decision is not made by any algorithm. To successfully complete your daily cards, you will generally need to pass all new cards twice in a row and review cards usually need to be passed once. So if you still feel that you do not know the material after successfully completing all of your daily cards, you are probably using Anki incorrectly, and I recommend reading the “Deciding Whether to Pass a Card” section below.
How to Set Up Anki
First, of course, install Anki. After that, you need some way of obtaining cards containing the material for the subject you need to learn. A collection of Anki cards is called a “deck”. I usually create one deck for each subject.
If you want to use my cards, find the relevant subject in my study materials and download the .apkg file. You can then simply open it and import it into Anki. If I do not have materials for that particular subject, or if you found this guide through a completely different source, you can browse Shared Decks or create your own deck.
Now we will go through the basic settings I would recommend to anyone who wants to start using Anki.
FSRS Algorithm
There is a gear icon to the right of each deck. Click it and select “Options”. Find the “FSRS” section and enable it. FSRS is a newer scheduling algorithm that allows you to achieve the same results in 20-30% less time compared with the original SM-2 algorithm.
This setting then applies to all decks using the given preset. As mentioned earlier, the algorithm adapts to your study history, so every once in a while (approximately once a month is enough) return to this section and click “Optimize All Presets”.
Number of New Cards
Next, you need to configure the “Daily Limits” section. There you will find the “New cards/day” setting, which determines how many new cards from the given deck you will learn each day.
A common recommendation is 10-20 cards per day, but for students it is usually better to look at the total number of cards in the deck and divide that number by the number of days remaining until the exam. For example, if a deck contains around 120 cards and your exam is two weeks away, set the limit to 10 new cards per day and you can be confident that you will get through all the material in time.
How to Use Anki
The algorithm works best when you use Anki every day. Studying daily is especially important if you used that assumption when calculating your number of new cards per day. Do not stop reviewing cards after successfully passing the exam either if the knowledge will still be useful for your final exams later on.
One advantage of flashcards is that answering a single card usually only takes a few seconds. This means you can study gradually throughout the day whenever you have a few spare minutes. If you are waiting for a lecture to begin or standing at a bus stop, you can go through a few cards. That means fewer cards will be waiting for you when you get home.
Using the Answer Buttons
After revealing the answer, 4 buttons appear at the bottom. Do not let this confuse you, you really only need two of them, Good and Again. Choose Good if you successfully recalled the answer and Again if you did not. Do not use the Easy or Hard buttons at all.
Deciding Whether to Pass a Card
Unless you are learning a language where you can recall the exact translation of a word, you will rarely remember the answer exactly as it appears on the back of the card. Sometimes the answer side may also contain a more detailed explanation or an additional note that you did not remember. That does not necessarily mean you should immediately mark the card as failed.
Always ask yourself whether the information you recalled would have been sufficient if you were taking the exam at that moment. If the answer is yes, mark the card as successfully recalled. Something that would count as a failure in the exam should also count as a failure in Anki.
Conclusion
Studying every day may sound like a lot of work to some people. However, Anki can save you a significant amount of time while also taking care of all the planning for you. I hope this guide has been useful if you decide to try this study method, and I wish you success with your studies.