The basics
How flashcards actually work.
Six ideas explain the whole system. None of them take more than a minute to understand, and together they are most of what there is to know about studying this way.
Cards
A card is the smallest unit of something you want to remember. Keep it to one idea — if a card has three answers, it is really three cards.
Decks
A deck might be a course, a language, a certification, or a book you are working through. Decks keep a large collection navigable and let you study one thing at a time.
Knowledge
A single paragraph you want to know might turn into a definition card, an example card, and a card that asks you to apply it. Each one tests the same knowledge from a different angle.
Reviews
Flashgram shows you the question, you try to answer it from memory, and then you check. How well it went decides when you see that card next.
Spaced repetition
Memory fades on a curve. Reviewing just before something slips is far more efficient than reviewing constantly — and far more effective than reviewing once.
Recall
Rereading builds a sense of familiarity that feels like knowing. Retrieval — the effort of pulling something out of your head — is what actually makes it stick.
Spaced repetition
Every time you remember, the gap gets longer.
A card you just learned comes back in minutes. A card you have recalled six times comes back in months. That widening gap is the whole idea.
Illustrative intervals. The real schedule adapts to how you answer each card.
Learn
You meet the card for the first time.
Review
It comes back a few minutes later.
Recall it
You answer from memory before checking.
Longer gap
The next review moves further out.
Review again
Just as it starts to fade.
Stronger memory
Each success buys you more time.
Forgot it?The gap shrinks and the card comes back sooner, until it holds.
That is the entire system.
Write cards for what you want to remember, review them when Flashgram brings them back, and answer honestly about how it went. Everything else is detail.
Start remembering what you learn.
Make a few cards today. Review them tomorrow. See what has stayed a month from now.