Spacing and Forgetting

The big idea

📉

Forgetting is the schedule, not the enemy

Let a little slip before reviewing. The effort of getting it back is the part that sticks.

Try it

Schedule the Review

“Review after a day, then three days, then a week, then a fortnight.”

Does this use forgetting deliberately or fight it?

Decide which schedules use forgetting and which fight it.

Compare

Same hours, different result

Massed

One long block

Tap.

tap for example ↻

Spaced

Distributed across days

Tap.

tap for example ↻

The total effort is identical. Only the distribution changed.

Key term

The counterintuitive bit

Why does letting yourself forget help?

tap to reveal ↻

Storage vs retrieval strength

Retrieval strength — access now — falls fast. Storage strength — how embedded it is — grows with each effortful retrieval. Cramming keeps the first high and adds little of the second.

Nuance

Mix it up

Think like a Maester

Interleaving feels worse and builds the ability to tell which approach a problem needs — which is usually the actual skill being tested.

Quick check

What is the difference between performance and learning?

You did it

Nice work

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