Yes, exactly, I find that if I set the daily bar very low (e.g. 5 a day), and keep the habit alive in that way, I will occasionally get bursts of motivation that lead to much bigger numbers. I’d say once a week I may do 50-100 cards in one go, once a month it might be even more. But I never force myself into that, I just follow a motivation wave when it comes (and it’s made easier by the cards being short and easy). This means that there will be periods without bigger waves and that’s ok. I found the Tiny Habits book very useful for this approach.
Occasionally these waves result in there being too many cards in the revision “queue”, which makes the daily habit harder (there are too many cards that I can’t remember). In those times, I reset a bunch of the cards that are in the queue and learn them again from scratch later on.
In terms of the 40 000 cards, I should have clarified that I am not necessarily actively learning many of those. Many of them are just dormant in the database, because they were for example relevant in my university studies, but I don’t find them relevant now. But I still like having them there in case I need them at some point. I also have many cards that I have already learnt many times and therefore they come back around once every year or two.
I find that with the slow and steady approach, I do eventually learn all the cards that are currently relevant to me, I just have to be patient. If something needs to be learnt urgently, I put it in my ASAP desk which has much fewer cards and I get to them more quickly.
Hope this makes sense, thank you for your interest!
Hi, thank you for your comment!
Yes, exactly, I find that if I set the daily bar very low (e.g. 5 a day), and keep the habit alive in that way, I will occasionally get bursts of motivation that lead to much bigger numbers. I’d say once a week I may do 50-100 cards in one go, once a month it might be even more. But I never force myself into that, I just follow a motivation wave when it comes (and it’s made easier by the cards being short and easy). This means that there will be periods without bigger waves and that’s ok. I found the Tiny Habits book very useful for this approach.
Occasionally these waves result in there being too many cards in the revision “queue”, which makes the daily habit harder (there are too many cards that I can’t remember). In those times, I reset a bunch of the cards that are in the queue and learn them again from scratch later on.
In terms of the 40 000 cards, I should have clarified that I am not necessarily actively learning many of those. Many of them are just dormant in the database, because they were for example relevant in my university studies, but I don’t find them relevant now. But I still like having them there in case I need them at some point. I also have many cards that I have already learnt many times and therefore they come back around once every year or two.
I find that with the slow and steady approach, I do eventually learn all the cards that are currently relevant to me, I just have to be patient. If something needs to be learnt urgently, I put it in my ASAP desk which has much fewer cards and I get to them more quickly.
Hope this makes sense, thank you for your interest!