In spaced repetition, it's tempting to ponder per-card cost—"should I pay three minutes over my lifetime to memorize this?" But for me, marginal cards are effectively *free* to add: 1. I review cards in time that'd be dead anyway. 2. I can't add enough cards to fill that time.
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For instance, often I'll review cards while waiting 10 minutes for the next train. This doesn't "cost" me 10m because I would've just been screwing around on Twitter or something. And even with 1000s of cards, it often takes less than 10m! I can't write new ones quickly enough!
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This leads to a *very* unintuitive feeling: it's… effectively free to memorize as many new cards as I can write? What? Which in turn means that for me, the real marginal cost is in the moment of *writing* a new card.
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I think there are ways to mitigate that cost, but some of it's essential: in writing cards, I'm synthesizing, comparing, filtering, personalizing, etc. I'm interested in structures and routines which support me in doing those things more rapidly or with less friction.
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Replying to @andy_matuschak
I'd be interested to know what potential cards you did not write and for what reasons. I've struggled to start Anki a few times. Perhaps bc I didn't feel I was making useful cards for myself.
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Replying to @farrarscott
Simplest category: 100s or, alas, probably 1000s not written because they’re things I found striking when reading away from a computer, and I failed to follow up (hard to build that workflow).
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Replying to @andy_matuschak @farrarscott
A more complex category: I just finished a conversation with a person who thinks about the world differently, in a way I find stimulating. What 20 cards can I write? Writing good prompts here requires creativity (though there are some patterns).
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Replying to @andy_matuschak
how much do you think the creation of the card jump starts the storing to memory-process? People say you can't use others cards--- for this reason? Well what if you and I were both there at the same event? Would that help me use your cards even if you creatively write them?
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I think it's important—not so much for memory as much as for understanding: writing good cards requires synthesis, connections. I suspect it *is* possible to use others' cards (with some penalty in view of above), but most people write poor cards (and don't know it—hard to see).
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