How to use Anki like a PRO (by a Learning Expert) 

Join my Learning Drops weekly newsletter here: bit.ly/4e4sLpk Every week, I distil what really works for improving results, memory, depth of understanding, and knowledge application from over a decade of coaching into bite-sized emails.

As someone who has heavily relied on Anki, I felt very called out on knowing the card by recognizing it vs knowing the info

I absolutely agree that I can remember flashcards that are connected to others much more easily than standalone ones. Great tips, thanks for sharing

I have a concise way to describe your Problem #3... Some years ago I was juggling thousands of Japanese vocab cards in Anki. But I couldn't use a word in a conversation, even though if I saw the same word on an Anki flashcard, I would have known it. I finally came up with this summary: Practicing flashcards make you really good... at doing flashcards.

Thanks god I found your channel. I live in Sweden and I'm a bit older, I took the swedish SAT test to be able to study at uni. Scored high enough to be able to study medicine and I'm starting in August but im 35 years old now and I never was good student and I haven't studied since I was 18 so I'll check out your videos and try to prepare a study system so I don't get overwhelmed. Thank you so much. I insta subscribed ty ty

I really appreciate the consistency on this channel and popping vdos that we actually need at that time ❤... Tysm DR. JUSTIN SUNG ❤

Regarding to language learning, I've found that this also works quite well. Without even being aware I've found out that using sentences in anki instead of stand alone vocab has been a huge help. I guess it's majorly due to the fact that I'm using a realation between the words and not just the simple standalone translation. Thanks for sharing! Just discovered this channel recently and I love it, just subscribed!

Great video! I don't know if my question in the previous one prompted this or this was already in the making, but it's answered some of my questions. I've noticed with my own flashcards that memorizing cue can easily make you feel like you know the fact (not the same topic, but it's even more apparent in language learning) so I've been thinking on how to counteract that, especially for cards that I *always* get right (on the plus side, I think a lot of is just encoding the material well in the first place). The idea with evolving-flashcards that continuously get more difficult and interconnected is actually pretty awesome, I'm definitely be giving it a try.

Great point about memorizing the flashcard rather than the knowledge. It really needs creativity to break through that.

Thanks for the high quality, incredibly informative video, Justin!

Hey Justin, i was studying some programming concept and did you know that what you described in this video are two fundamentals paradigms in program developpment ? DRY : Do no repeat yourself , akin with the problem with too much focus on previously built flashcard ACID : Atomicity,consistency,isolation,durability which is an efficient transaction mechanism in database management Basically you showed us how to program ourselves to upgrade our internal database 😎

You can also use an SRS like Anki to manage your revision schedule. Give each of your mindmaps an ID and enter it into Anki. Whenever Anki throws it up, do your active review (One good way is to try and redraw the mindmap from memory. Another is to reformulate the material on the map to answer a related but different question). Working like this, you're going to develop a rock-solid understanding of your material before the exams come around. I can tell you from experience - this beats desperate last-minute cramming on every possible measure!

this is so cool! I've been doing some of these methods already without even realizing (like separating my flashcards based on getting it right/wrong 3x) so it's really cool to see the science behind it and how I can improve 😊

Great! I don't use your content for school work. I do use your content for improving productivity, and effectiveness. I like how you simplify things to present them in a logical manner, while also, doing the grunt work to calculating things properly to derive a near optimal answer.

Just in time when I was contemplating how I can memorize minor important details, facts and stuff while practicing encoding. Gone through a bunch of your previous videos and put in into practice. It's going well so far. Everyone told me to study since but nobody actually taught me how to. Thanks to you Justin that I can step ahead further.

THIS is the video we needed! It's been a long time of talking about the drawbacks to flashcards without much discussion about how to best utilize them in combination with your other strategies but you did a great job here. To give some perspective on why so many people use Anki and stuff throughout medical school is that, as you know, there is an insane amount of content covered even within 1 year of med school. So to be able to keep 2 year's worth of material fresh for USMLE or COMLEX (not sure if you took either of these) did require some form of spaced repeition and active recall for lots of the small details you're expected to know. Of course though, as doctors we must understand the material before using the flashcards. Thanks for the positive video on other study methods :)

Wondering what the iCanStudy program looks like once you join? Want to know if it’s right for you? Join our next free demo webinar to take control of your learning bit.ly/49Zz8Is

Thanks to your video, I managed to make my flashcards more efficient and practical

I had stopped watching Justin's videos, because I did not really understand them. I was always about Anki and past examinations. This video made more sense to me.

I've used anki a lot but this feels like a gamechanger. One of those why didn't I think of that moments. Thanks so much, I will either learn more or have more time for relaxing, both maybe!

Thankyou so much! I was facing this issue of learning the card but not the knowledge and I was clueless on how to tackle it. flagging really really helps combined with a dedicated revision day for the flagged card you got incorrect 3 times. plus, the hybridising of already learnt cards that are easy is so good! i could never think of these ideas on my own

Dr. Sung, You are so expressive and straightforward. I enjoy your video very much. I really appreciate it. Cheers! BTW your English is fantastic and easy to comprehend. Your justifies are so much in point. You convey your knowledge and experience in best possible way.

Mindblown! Wish this is taught earlier in the actual course.

I can relate to most of the problems you mentioned. I also got sucked into this "Anki community" and it didn't really help me. Thanks for the video!!

5:50 My strategy to deal with this is working well. My cards are common 1 - 1 cards for Japanese words (Kanji front). Instead of actually testing other things, many cards will become a short review session of grammar structure, for example. Many cards have one or more other card with the same picture and sentence on the back, so I am also reviewing how those words relate to eachother. I often skip the back entirely if I get the front easy. It would be bad to stay several minutes on the back of a card trying to cram on the answer, but I find that working on the sentence instead helps me with increasing my retention.

Thanks for the info on micro-learning. I hadn't heard that term before.

Flashcards are beneficial for active retrieval of knowledge, spaced repetition, and micro learning. However, they have limitations when it comes to higher-order learning and building knowledge networks. Focusing on building connections for higher order learning. Prioritize previewing material to prevent feeling overwhelmed.

Funny how i started Anki and this video comes up, thanks for the tips~❤

I am a student of Pharmacy. I use flashcards for memorising drug names, indications and side effects.

In targeted review, you talked about how we can merge several related flash cards into one card of a higher-order question/card, but previously around 5:20 you also mentioned creating such higher level exam typed questions can be messy as we are testing multiple concepts per card that our answer may not 100% covers what should be answered. Is there a difference between the two and are the said problems mitigated with the bottom-up merging approach(start simple, then merge), compared to the top-down approach(testing multiple concepts in 1 card first)? I think I got an answer for this one. Justin answered at 17:40 that the bottom up approach allows we build correct foundational knowledge first, such that when we attempt higher level questions we are unlikely to be consistently wrong or missing certains parts of the full answer. The key is to make sure you have the simpler card concepts mastered first before going crazy with them. Some features I thought while watching the video: Card hierarchy (parent sibling child cards) (card merge without deletion) Card tags (allows filtering and testing cards around a topic: i.e related cards) Card versioning/snapshots Card answer correctness based on percentage rather than only 0% and 100%, especially when cards are virtually composite cards that test on multiple concepts/answers Card test/revision with filters (single card: %correct, correct count, mistake count; tags; time; length; etc) In note-taking software(Obsidian/Logseq), mark certain nodes as flashcard and their child blocks as answer. Nodes can include metadata/redirect to an actual flashcard node to change card presentation.

5:00 - I use flashcards for memorizing hard facts, like multiplication/addition tables in base 16. Seems perfect for this.

Omg another amazing video!

Worst thing that can happen with flash cards is that rote learning of facts can turn into cued learning. If you must use flash cards for rote fact acquisition, rewrite the question and forget about it for a while so you don't know the exact cue that led you to the answer. If you made it this far, the biggest takeaway from flash cards is that the facts in the cards are a tool that lead you towards synthesis and higher level judgments so you can make fun and amazing projects, not a replacement for higher level learning itself.

The most powerfull things when using anki is to like this video,i love this guy

Very timely and quality video! Definitely over relying on Anki and the decks are starting to stack up… it feels almost unavoidable at this point as consolidation could be costly due to risk of poor implementation. But there’s some practical tips here I may have to give a whirl. Thank you!

Great video, I'm not sure I understood " Preview " the third part, what are we supposed to do during this step ?

I know several people who spend more time trying to create the perfect deck and card style (and are never satisfied) than focusing on learning.

This video is giving me permission to seriously reduce Anki's role in my language learning, so thanks! You've articulated something I was only barely aware of -- most of my genuine acquisition is coming from the intensive reading and listening I do (since those words are always in context and part of a larger network of meaning), while the vocab I 'learn' in Anki only exists in my Anki deck. I keep having the experience of not understanding what's said, checking the transcript, then discovering it contained words that are 'mature' in Anki -- yet in the real-world setting my brain didn't even recognize them. So Anki needs to supplement my routine rather than dominate. Thanks for this very enlightening video -- that's a like and subscribe from me!

Got Deans List today at my Vet school and Anki was 100% the reason 😂

I thought that the flashcard method was super easy, until I see this video. Things are way more complex as I imagined, I'll use this flashcard method someday.

Wow this was refreshing and I've been enjoying creating my strategy to Ace my exams. Thank you for all your hard work. The insight to create harder questions and encode the relationships and make it stronger and getting them wrong to go back to strengthen relationships is a dangerous combo. Gonna study those advanced concepts with grace now🎉🎉

I still have problems remembering with ADHD. I feel like I am wasting my time. I hope this fixes it. Thanks Doc.

The flashcards on hard stuff/what i will forget is what i do exactly! It’s just if I had like thousands of flashcards i would get so overwhelmed 😢

Thank you for all your videos!!! Any recommendations to study biology for Dat? Thank you !!!

Hey Justin, what other form of retrieval can we use apart Anki and flash card

Dang, would have needed this video earlier but rather late than never.

Question: How can you flag or star anki cards that you have chose 'good' or 'again' 3 times? Is there an add-on for that?

Is reading a book on the content you need to know for exams a good method for preview? If not then what methods are good for preview because that wasn't mentioned very much near the end of the video. Thanks😄

Bruteforce is a good metaphor. I'd also say flashcards are like crutches or supplements.

Amazing video as always! I've been applying and using the study techniques following blooms taxonomy, mind mapping, etc. My main question is if you can make a video or something like a mini course, explaining how to know what information should be learned through repetition (i.e knowing the definition of it) and what topics should be learned with high learning order techniques. I am more of a visual learner and a pre-med student so I still mainly work with textbooks I was wondering if you could show an example of you reading a textbook from college freshmen biology and separate which topics should be learned through higher learning and which should be learned through lower learning techniques.

This is kinda mindblowing.

This is very creative!

If I saw this a few months ago I wouldn't understand a single thing, but now based on my experience and mistakes trying to improve my learning methods, it's all starting to make sense lol

practical vid; hopefully I apply this.

Hello, do you have any tips how to create smart types of flashcards? And also smart way to make them? Thank you! :-)

We had a topic in school called "learning learning" and none of what is taught here was taught there, plus most of what they taught was completely useless. Schools even when they do teach practical skills of life fail at it...

I just love to listen him

Great Video!

Just curious, could you help me define what "higher order learning" is?

Thank you

Great video

When did you say "memorize the flashcard isn't the same thing as having knowledge" is true. I noticed a problem while learning English, I remember the flashcard answer but when I need to use that word, I forget it.

So please Dr . your input, something like CFA level 1 exam which is multiple choice the flash cards will work well...since the exam is based on multiple choice with some calculations??

@JustinSung This video inspired me to check out your course. I'm not a college student. I study in my spare time to get ahead in my field. Though I wasn't thrilled about the price of the course I would have paid it. The deal breaker for me was the length of the course. Much longer than several of the long Udemy courses I wanted to take put together. If you make an express version, I'll pay for it.

Hey Justin, Do you have any suggestions or a layout of how to write a dissertation? Apparently, the way I think is to apply knowledge or I build applications which is not what you want to do when working on your PhD. Instead you want to increase to the body of knowledge, whatever that means. I am in engineering BTW. I don't know if that is different than other fields. Thx!

Hi how can i use this to remember a lot of terms and definition for a competitive exams.

PQRST Method! Look it up...we were taught this method in the 60's and is still going strong!!

Subscribed, Thanks for the video. Is there any note taking apps that you suggest which will help to take notes in a connected format? Also is there a way to connect information in anki like these other apps? My current workflow is taking notes on onenote, and then transferring to anki. But onenote doesn't have the "connection" feature.

Great tips ❤ But i think noteworthy to say that this video not a preliminary Steps to using Flashcard, you need first to learn initiatives and use an App fir awhile then this video will be a great guide for you❤

Genius. Just genius. 😌

Thanks

Hey can you make video about why homeschooling is better why homeschool children perform better And the downside of regular school what are they doing wrong

Hi Justin, basically you can use anki tags to achieve that connection/networking effect for group of related cards, Is that right?

Informative 🤗

I think this video can be pretty useful for many people but there's part I feel don't apply to certain fields especially in uni. To retake your example of the card "How are proteins produced", well its easy to make links with other cards. However, in uni, that card in particular is the subject of a 2h lesson that is worth about 50 flashcards. And obviously, all those cards are already connected by the fact that they come from the same lesson, so it would be a waste of time to make connections on cards. Furthermore, since lessons are usually massive in uni, making connections between 14h of biochemistry and 18h of proteins, is impossible to do.

Thank you! Really useful. Can you recommend some literature to read about studying? I would be really greatful.

There's also the fact that testing yourself on 'what is the official residence of the french prime minister' with the answer of 'hotel de matignon' does not necessarily mean you can tell what the hotel matignon is when you hear about it. Especially in foreign languages it's easy to memorize stuff in only one direction.

Thank you, Extremely useful video! I was wondering if it is possible to automatically tag the card you got right/wrong multiple time in a raw in Anki?

Anki is fantastic for if you are working in a field with its own vocabulary (such as medical), with it's own acronyms (such as tech), its own language (such as coding/scripting) or of course learning languages. It doesn't provide mastery, but it does take care of the linguistic layer... and the process memorization layer. It's my belief that these are the hard part of learning. Once you have mastery of the linguistics, vocabulary, citations, etc... in any field, you add a force multiplier onto every other form of learning. Simply having a command over the linguistics means that you will be able to comprehend higher level lectures without buffering. If I do my due dilligence with Anki beforehand, I hardly ever need to take notes. In fact, I usually just take notes by putting cards directly into anki.

1. MAKING ANKI FLASHCARDS WASTES LEARNING TIME One of the hardest parts about learning a language as an adult is finding the time to get it all done. The demands of work and family life often leave us precious few hours to devote to our target languages. For that reason, I strive to spend most of what language learning time I have actually absorbing and using the language in a natural way: by reading authentic texts, listening to authentic podcasts, watching authentic films, and having authentic conversations with native speakers (affiliate links). If I were to inject Anki into my language practice, I'd have to devote a chunk of that time to inauthentic tasks, most of which boil down to tedious data entry. To create a good-quality Anki card, you need to: Type in what goes on the front of the card Type in what goes on the back of the card Add an image file (if you can find one) Add an audio file (if you can find one) Decide what other information you want to include, like tags, formatting, and different card formats. Save the card That's at least several minutes of work, and only just for one card! If you're creating a deck of tens, or hundreds, or even thousands of cards (as some people do), that's A LOT of time lost! Even if Anki does help speed up your memorization process on the other side, that's a huge amount of time spent up front just creating and managing your flashcards. And that's if everything goes well! From what I've been told, Anki isn't the simplest and most functional piece of software, so you'll probably lose even more time just figuring out how to get everything working the way you want! Not at all worth it, in my opinion. Save that time, and apply it directly to using and absorbing your target language. 2. ADDING NEW CARDS CAN BECOME AN ADDICTION Despite the work that it takes to put together a good deck of flashcards using Anki, a lot of that setup is front-loaded. Once you've planned the structure of the deck, configured the layout of individual flashcards, and then added enough cards to get started, growing the deck actually becomes pretty easy. Assuming you know where all of your card data is coming from, adding a new card can take anywhere from a couple seconds to a minute. And while the ability to quickly add new cards might seem like a good thing (and often is), it's something that can quickly become addicting. The whole value proposition of Anki is that it can help you remember anything you want. Since Anki flashcards are entirely digital, this actually seems feasible-nowadays, modern smartphones make it trivial to carry card decks containing thousands of cards or more, anywhere you go. Essentially, Anki removes nearly all costs associated with adding new flashcards to your card deck. Assuming you have the time to make the additions, there's nothing else preventing you from adding every phrase you hear in your target language right to your virtual "memory bank". There's even software out there that can make this simple process even easier. Using programs like subs2srs and voracious, you can turn an entire movie or television show into an Anki deck of thousands of cards, in just a few clicks of a button. You might wonder what I'm complaining about here. Certainly having a fast way to turn movies and TV shows into learning material is a good thing, right? Yes, of course it is! But if you don't know how to do all this in moderation, the size of your Anki decks can quickly spiral out of control. This is because once you've got a deck of Anki cards, you need to actually learn them and review them. This, incidentally, brings me to my next point: 3. REVIEWING OLD CARDS CAN BECOME A CHORE If you recall my explanation of the forgetting curve, you'll remember that each time you learn or review something, there's an ideal point at which you should review it again. This helps you strengthen the memory and slow the speed at which you'll forget it in the future. As a software program, Anki's job is to show you a piece of information (a flashcard), and then algorithmically determine when that next ideal review should occur. So, for example, it might show you a card for the first time, and test you on its contents. Based on that result, it could then decide that you need to review again in a few hours, or a few days. When it comes time for you to actually do that review, Anki will show the card to you automatically; you don't need to do any extra work. This is fine for one card. But as you go through and learn dozens or hundreds of cards, these reviews will start to pile up. Before you know it, you could be spending more than an hour each day going through your Anki reviews-and that's before you even get to learning new cards for that day. And if that sounds bad, then you shouldn't even think about taking a day off. Because while you're taking your break (because you're busy, sick, or just unwilling to review that day), your Anki reviews are still piling up. When you come back to Anki (assuming you will, which is not guaranteed), you'll have a mountain of reviews to work through. And that's terrible for motivation. People first become addicted to adding new cards, but then become opposed to actually reviewing them. This becomes a vicious cycle which ultimately causes learners to feel overwhelmed and give up their language learning. I've seen it time and time again, and it's not good for anyone. The tools you use should not only motivate you to learn, but help you stay on the learning path for as long as possible. Anki doesn't seem to do that for the vast majority of people, which is a major reason why I don't recommend it. But I'm not done yet. Let's move on to the next reason. 4. FLASHCARDS TAKE LANGUAGE OUT OF CONTEXT My next gripe against Anki is one that I have against flashcards in general: by definition, they remove the language you are learning from its natural context. Just think about it. When you picture a flashcard in your head, what do you see? A simple card with a word or phrase in your target language on one side, and the equivalent expression in your native language on the back. For all its bells and whistles, Anki boils down to just that: a way to take foreign language content and chop it up into small, isolated pieces, so that each piece can be absorbed, reviewed, and tested individually. Breaking down a lot of information into small chunks is a great way to learn in general, but it goes against how language inherently works. Language is not just a series of isolated words and phrases placed neatly next to each other in a row, like so many beads on a string. Rather, language functions as a network. Each word in a phrase, each phrase in a sentence, and each sentence in a paragraph or utterance serves to reinforce everything else around it. If you remove any one of those things from its network-the natural context that it finds itself within-it begins to lose meaning. In fact, the loss of meaning can become so great that in many cases, when you remove a word from its surrounding context, it becomes essentially meaningless. You see this practically anytime you look up a word in a dictionary. Most words you know have more than one meaning. But to determine which meaning is actually being used in a given situation, you have to look at the surrounding context. To give a quick example, think of the word "light". On its own, light could mean the visible radiation coming from the sun, or the relative weight of an object. But if you put just "light" on one side of a flashcard, you'd have no idea which of those two kinds of "light" was intended-at least, not without more context. However, if you had never heard the word "light" before, and I showed you a video about the sun, you'd quickly learn one meaning of "light", and automatically connect it to dozens of words and phrases which can give you context for that meaning, like "sun", "star", "solar system", "radiation", "wavelength" and more. There are ways to mitigate the loss of context that comes with taking target language content and putting it on flashcards; however, that generally requires you to squeeze more information onto each flashcard, which can then make the whole flashcard creation more laborious, as I explored in my first point. Given the issues that come along with creating and managing flashcards with Anki, wouldn't it be great if we could get all of the benefits of spaced repetition, but without the extra hassle? We can! Which is why, in my next point, I can say that...

Huh, kinda interesting that I was already consolidating my flashcards when reviewing and dividing up my study sessions like that

How would you recommend learning processes, for instance if I were to learn a biological process? Given that flashcards would be better for simple fact recall, what other method would be best?

Hello Dr Justin I am a final year medical school and I have got finals coming up and they are worth alot of marks. I have always relied on rote memorization and flashcards in my study routine after someone explains a topic to me. I truly belive in all you say. But I have scored high in my previous exams using flashcards and I don't know if switching up my whole routine would jeopardise my scores beavuse I have got only two months and lots and lots to cover (internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, and ObGyn) and my residency choice will depend on my grades. So what can I do to improve without risking too much? Thank you so much for your help I would be really grateful if you answered my question.

Writing bad questions is the fault of the person not the flash card. First thing I do when writing a question is consider what is the most important way to get the fullest answer out witht he question. So I either break it into multiple questions, or just make sure I word the question so that it implies, "5 things that make up regualation 5".

English is not my main language. When I take notes or create flashcards, do you recommend for me to use my main language or just parallel it with English so I can learn two things at a time?

7:00 For language one can use mnemonics.

is it better to use anki app or anki ? for ipad

Great Video Mr. Sung!! , but , guys , does anybody know , how to revise the material , that you encoded in PART 2 , but didn't put in the flashcards ?? Is there a video explaining that ?@Justin Sung

Encode the principal's. The universal knowledge. So whatever angle u look at it, u can elaborate a answer.

8:28 The problem with this argument is that flashcard are not repetitive when you use an algorithm based flashcards system as Anki. The other points are sound.

thank's

What are you from?

I really like using it as a supplement for my language learning when I see a new word in an interesting context while immersing I make an anki card for it with that sentence I do not rely on the card to keep memorising it forever ofc not, as language is very complex and requires different contexts to truly get the details of what that word means I've found that anki helps kick start that word into my memory so that every time I see it used I have a rough idea of the meaning and the more I see it in other context the more I truly get to learn the word Anything wrong with my use of anki? Let me know people of youtube lol

what is non linear learning ?

I find it hard to identify similar cards merging them and upgrading them help?

I used to spend days making Anki flashcards that could not exist in the material world with Latex. That was 20 years ago.

Anyone know of a good flashcard deck for learning to learn?

Brilliant slip of that CTA to like the vid by the way! Haha

I feel like im up to speed on flash cards now lol.. thanks!

hi, awesome work with these videos, i have been following your content since the very beginning! I am trying to figure out the best way to learn clinical subjects and i really struggle seeing any sense about many symptons or details asked in the exam and i'll make a couple of examples to be clear. Studying dermatology localization of lesions is key, but is utterly random and very mnemonic even between variations of the same disease, another one would be pathologies like Lupus where you can get some idea of the pathogenesis and the organs targeted by the disease but not the very specific manifestation which are very mnemonic as well. So in these cases isn't suggested to use flashcards or i missing something? thanks in advance and keep up the good work helping worldwide students!