People who haven’t used a memory system tend to think of it as a tool you might apply “when you want to memorize something.” But this misses the point. Without augmentation, explicitly memorizing information is quite onerous, so it's done rarely, for extremely important details.
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With an efficient memory system, remembering something is a low-stakes decision—a fraction of a minute over years. Such systems wouldn’t be very interesting if you use them only to memorize the kinds of material you already memorize, because people don’t explicitly memorize much.
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Not only do memory systems make memory a choice, but they make it an almost costless choice. Emotionally it’s closer to choosing where to highlight or write marginalia on a page. Practically, when an expensive resource becomes ~costless, surprising things happen (eg electricity).
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The way I add things to memory systems feels like a *gesture*. It’s usually not that purposeful—more like mentally “underlining." Much like how I use the Twitter like button. Not a bookmark, not a vote, not costly; liking a tweet is a habitual unconscious way I indicate interest.
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What are some things you memorize when it is a low-stakes decision? I have a failure of imagination here
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From my brief experience with anki and some simple flashcards - I feel like things quickly add up and next thing I know I find myself reviewing things for an hour a day and then at some point I quit. What am I doing wrong?
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An hour a day?! Are you downloading others' decks? I find it's easy to get overwhelmed that way but hard if you're writing everything yourself: you can add 40 new cards a day with a 10m/day budget, assuming my 6s/card average.
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