- In this video, I'm gonna talk about three different ways that you can use spacing
or space repetition to get better grades. Then at the end, I'll talk about a highly underrated habit that I used in medical school to make the most out of space repetition. (techno music) Hey, welcome back to the channel. If you're new here, my name is Mike. I'm a doctor working in California and co-founder of RemNote. This is another video from our series on evidence-based learning strategies where Matty and I take the research in cognitive and neuroscience and we help you apply it to your studies to get better grades. If that interests you, then subscribe for weekly videos. So in this video, we're gonna talk about actionable steps you can take to apply space
repetition to your studies. We're gonna cover three different methods, starting from the oldest all the way to the most
technologically advanced. And I'm assuming you already
know what space repetition is, but in case you don't, check out this video right here where we dive into the science
behind why it works so well. I'd probably watched that
video first for some context and then come back here when you're ready to apply those techniques. One of the earliest
implementations of space repetition was the Leitner System developed
by a Sebastian Leitner. Here's how it works. First, make five boxes. These can be actual physical boxes. For example, you can use shoe boxes or it can just be theoretical boxes, like if you wanna use tables within a digital note taking app. Box one gets studied every day. Box two gets studied every other day. Box three gets studied once a week. Box four gets studied every other week. And box five is the retired box, meaning that you know this material well and you can just review
it right before the test. Keep in mind that this
model is customizable. So experiment and adjust the timeframes to fit a schedule that you
would be able to stick to. So now that you have your five boxes, you're gonna need to place the topics you need to know for
the exam into box one. If you're using shoe boxes, then topics can be written on flashcards. If you're using digital boxes, then your topics are
the individual bullets. Every time you get a card
right, you move it up one box. Every time you get a card wrong, you move it all the way to box one regardless of where it was initially. This will ensure that you're studying your weaker points more often. If you want a less punishing schedule, then you can move the cards back one box instead of moving it to box one every time you get it wrong. Another way of using space repetition is through revision timetables. You make one table for
every test you take. The traditional way to
make a revision timetable is by writing all the dates that you have to study in one column and then all the topics
you plan to study each day in the next column. The problem with this method
is that you never actually study topics based on
how well you know them. So a better way to make
a revision timetable is to flip the columns. Ali Abdaal goes into much
more detail in his video which I can link in the description. But essentially what you're doing is picking topics to study based on how well you know them. So for example, on January
1st I'll study chapter one and it was pretty easy, so I'll mark it with the color green. Then on January 2nd, I'll study chapters that
I haven't studied yet. So maybe I'll choose
chapters two and three. Chapter three was really hard. I don't feel too confident about it, so I'll mark it with the color red. And chapter two was okay, so I'll mark it with the color yellow. On January 3rd, I can study
chapters four and five because I haven't studied those yet. So now on January 4th, I've seen all the topics at least once, but it looks like I
had a really tough time with chapter three as shown in red. So I'll go back and review that one. This time it was a little easier, so I'll change it to the color yellow. And now on January 5th, it looks like I have no more red colors, but I have a bunch of yellow. So maybe I'll go for this chapter because it's been the longest since I've seen that material. And that's the basic idea of how revision timetables work
with space repetition. You just keep studying until you feel good about all the topics,
everything turns green, and ultimately you feel
prepared for your exam. The final way of using space repetition that I wanna talk about is
using computerized algorithms. These algorithms apply the
spacing effect to flashcards and can set up a study schedule and adjust it for you based on how well you know each flashcard. There are numerous programs
ranging from SuperMemo, which was first developed
by Dr. Peter Wozniak, all the way to Anki, which uses a very similar algorithm. My favorite app would be RemNote because it saves you all the time of transcribing your
notes into flashcards. RemNote is a free app that
automatically turns your notes into flashcards as
you're taking your notes and it uses a space repetition algorithm that you can customize to your schedule. So now let's talk about
a highly underrated habit when it comes to using the spacing effect. And that is to use a
mobile app on your phone to study space repetition flashcards. So unlike the shoe boxes or revision timetables
that I mentioned earlier, a mobile app like RemNote allows you to study wherever you are. When you're waiting in line for your Starbucks coffee in the morning, pull out RemNote and run
through a few flashcards. When you're in the elevator,
do some flashcards. When you're waiting for the
subway, do some flashcards. RemNote makes it nearly frictionless for me to study during all
the little spare minutes that I have throughout the day so that by the time I get
home at the end of the day, I can go out with my friends and family without feeling guilty about
not having done my reviews. It's a simple habit,
but it's life-changing. So I highly recommend you start using mobile study apps today. All right, if you enjoyed this video, we'd appreciate it if you could
share it with your friends. Check out this video here if you wanna learn about different ways to use interleaving in your studies and check out this video here if you wanna learn about different ways to use active recall in your studies. If you want to chat, just follow us on Instagram or Twitter and send us a message. As always, thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video. (techno music)
