Hello Reader,

I still remember the last thing my grandpa told me before he passed away...

"Take care when you're going out. It doesn't matter if you went slower, as long as you get there."

I thought it was just about my driving.

I was a newbie driver back then, and was quickly becoming reckless at times as I tried to live my dream of driving really fast. (stupid, I know)

But this turned out to be one of my biggest life lessons ever.

Instead of doing things faster, I first made sure I could get there in the first place. Speed doesn't matter if your direction is off.

And instead of the constant bias to action, I started to seek out people who were just a few steps ahead of me so I know I'm in the right direction.

So today, I want to be that person for you — so you can start using Anki more effectively.

After making 1000+ useless flashcards and wasting 2 months, THEN creating 4000+ flashcards, I’ve gained a lot of experience as to what’s really working or not.

If right now, as an Anki user, you’re experiencing “flashcard hell” — where:

• Reviews just take forever (read: boring as hell)
• Learning new cards take you HOURS
• Making new ones take you SO much time; and
• You start to think you should’ve spent all those hours actually studying rather than doing all this busywork...

...then you’ve most likely committed at least one of these 3 mistakes.

If you feel like it’s impossible to even have 15+ new cards a day, I’m guessing it’s either #1 or #3 ;)

I promise you, that once you fix these mistakes, you’ll start to notice the REAL benefits of Anki.

Here’s a example from personal experience:

• I never had to go back to anything I’ve read (even after months!) ever since I started using Anki correctly
• I never did any “cram weeks” because my own reviews were FAR more superior than any traditional method
• I had the FREEDOM to choose whether to rest or study more, simply because it was easier to keep up with materials if you could remember them right after you studied them
• ALL of my commute times turned into PRODUCTIVE HOURS — either because I was making flashcards from PDF’s I read (using marginalia) or just going through my flashcards
• “Active Learning” wasn’t something I tried to do, it was “built-in” because I made my own cards (more later!)

So in this email, my goal is to save you a LOT of time by helping you avoid these mistakes.

First, we’ll talk about each mistake, then I’m going to show you the “deeper why”.

Sound good?

Alright, let’s get started from the BIGGEST time waster, to the smallest one.

#1. Trying to make cards for EVERYTHING

If you’re doing this, then right now I know it feels impossible to do all of your cards…if you haven’t deleted them already 🙂

You only need to make cards for the things you have ALREADY LEARNED.

And sometimes, you’ll need LESS cards because the information is just SO interconnected that you can just “grow the leaves from the branches,” you know what I mean?

Just follow this rule: NO MENTAL CONNECTION, NO FLASHCARD.

So here you go.

Once you make flashcards only for things you’ve learned, I guarantee you that reviews will start to feel like PROGRESS, like you’re winning with every single card.

#2. Having a PASSIVE studying method, then creating more Anki cards

Like BRO, this is a double time waster. Using study methods like re-reading, highlighting, TAKING NOTES WORD-PER-WORD, etc. THEN creating Anki cards out of that.

Most people use Anki as their “study method”, but little do they know that they could start FAILING before they even start touching Anki.

Learn passively = no mental connections to strengthen in the first place = you end up with BS cards that keep looping for hours.

Learn actively ⇒ you condense the material ⇒ you make cards for what you learned ⇒ you end up with less cards, better recall, and look forward to reviews.

How do you know if you’re learning passively?

If your notes are too pretty or too complete, you’re not learning actively.

You’re focusing too much on “capturing important information” that you captured them in YOUR NOTES but not IN YOUR BRAIN.

So here’s what you do instead.

Use your notes for THINKING, not for REMEMBERING.

Try to represent what you learned in your notes, rather than just “capturing key ideas” and all that jazz.

Make your notes UGLY AS HELL. Nobody cares. You’re not a printing press. Only studyfluencers need pretty notes for the views—not you, because you’re serious about learning.

What should you put in your notes?

• Processed Information. These should form the bulk of your notes. These are the underlying ideas you have extracted—transformed into your own words. It doesn’t need to be in full sentence form.
• Visuals. Visual models that make a lot of information more coherent for you.
• Annotations.
  • Maybe you have thought of an association.
  • Maybe you have a knowledge gap that’s preventing you from understanding the topic. WRITE THAT DOWN.
  • Maybe you need to go back to a certain part again and need to take note of it.
  • Maybe you need to ask your professor a question about a specific concept.

Remember: NO MENTAL CONNECTION, NO FLASHCARD.

#3. Flashcard Hacking (stay away from this)

I classify the following as “flashcard hacking”:

• Trying to find ready-made Shared decks first thing [most common!]
• Creating image occlusion for lecture slides
• Automating card creation with AI or an add-on

Sure, shared decks and automations could work, but obviously with a lot of pointers to remember:

1. They must perfectly align with your material (AnKing does this)
2. The questions you generate must test you of what you’ve learned AFTER you’ve actually learned the exact material

But image occlusion cards where you’re just COVERING UP IMPORTANT TERMS?

This is the WORST thing EVER.

This is ZERO learning, you’re making TONS of flashcards, and successful recall does NOT lead to actual performance.

And before we even get started on “add-ons”…

NO AMOUNT OF GAMIFICATION WILL MAKE UP FOR CARDS THIS METHOD PRODUCES.

Make your OWN cards. Make GOOD enough cards that test what you learned.

And your future self will thank you — over and over.

All of these stem from ONE root cause: Thinking that Anki is for learning, not for practice

Now that you know these common mistakes, let me tell you what Anki really is.

Anki is a scheduler, not a magic tool that turns any raw information to long-term memory.

It’s just a way to automate scheduling for spaced repetition — which does NOT automatically mean you’re doing spaced repetition effectively FOR YOUR GOAL.

In fact, let’s talk about that for a sec.

Spaced repetition works because of a few things:

1. Retrieving information improves recall better than ALL other passive study methods. (After all, you are practicing it. Makes sense?)
2. The “increasing intervals” effect of scheduling increases retrieval effort
3. Higher retrieval effort significantly improves the memory-enhancing effects of retrieval practice
4. Your memory has more opportunities for consolidation

BUT, here’s the thing…

Spaced repetition only deals with the forgetting aspect of memory — which is just ONE out of its many processes:

My point:

Anki is a “spaced repetition” tool, but it doesn’t mean that ANYTHING you put into it will magically transcend to “long-term retention” status.

As you may know by now, it’s more of a “garbage in, garbage out” thing.

Schedule garbage and you'll get garbage results.

Schedule the RIGHT cards, and you'll get long-term retention.

Anki strengthens mental connections that already exist, so if you use it to create those connections from scratch, you’ll be led to a familiar place…

Flashcard hell.

Now, let's consider the alternative real quick.

What if you could make the most out of Anki—from Day 1?

What if you knew exactly what's worth making cards for?

What if you actually enjoyed your reviews, SO much that you keep wanting for more?

"It's not that simple", is it?

Well, not if you know exactly what steps to go through.

If you can master these steps, you'll be able to make the most out of Anki, start enjoying your reviews, and stay consistently ahead of your workload.

That’ll be in tomorrow’s email 🙂

Question for you…

What's your biggest "a-ha" moment from today’s lesson?

Hit reply and if you want to let me know! 🙂

To smarter studying,
Al Khan

P.S.

This isn't talked about as much in the "learning how to learn" world, but really, the fastest ways I've ever learned are when:

• When I have someone teaching me what to focus on
• What I'm with people who are excelling in the same things
• When I'm forced into a situation that required me to learn fast

I wonder why.

And this might be just me: I do NOT learn faster when I'm explaining things to others. It's just too slow.

It's so much faster for me to learn from someone else and then try it myself because I skipped all the mistakes they had to spend YEARS just to learn.

For example, my swimming coach teaching me butterfly technique. My parents teaching me Toyota's principles from the trenches. My friend teaching me fingerstyle guitar arrangements.

And the best part is that I could have multiple mentors — Ali Abdaal, AnKing, Prerak Juthani, Med School Insiders, Ron White (Memory Expert), etc.

Anyway, rant over. Just needed to get that off my chest.

Crossed my mind because I'm learning about basketball right now :)