[andersentobias]

Unless you want to compete in Jeopardy or something, why bother with ""uploading"" static chunks of information to your wetware? Language learning aside.

When categorizing notes to be remembered, I think it's good to think in terms of memory retreival, not memory storage. In other words, not to become an "archiever", because you probably want to evolve your ideas by linking them together in your own unique way -- unique as dicated by your problem at hand plus your own idiosyncratic experiences.

"How to take smart notes" by Sönke Ahrens is a great book on this topic, admittedly more oriented towards a Zettelkasten/Obsidian workflow.

[Juke_Ellington]

This kind of static information retention is good for me. I’m an electrician so it’s nice to know off the top of my head that there’s a 10’ spacing on supports for EMT without going to the code book every time. Some of that knowledge gets beaten in through repetition, but there are enough fringe cases and things I don’t touch for years that are nice to have memorized.

[_43oo]

I had a major concussion shortly before my GCSE exams that I'm still very slowly recovering from. I was completely unable to think, let alone study. I never did an IQ test, but I couldn't even listen to a book or stay awake for more than a few hours without a headache. And for a while I couldn't look at a screen or read.

I was able to get the second highest grades in the school, with lower than expected grades in only two subjects (and dropping one, further maths), because of Anki. Because Anki does not require understanding, only sufficient repetition, and I had a lot of time on my hands, I was able to continuously do flashcards for hours on end while maths work would have me struggling to stay awake within 5 minutes. I could remember facts without understanding them.

The exams were ~3 months after it happened, which gave me time to improve, plus during the actual exam a combination of painkillers, extra time, rest breaks, exam technique, and adrenaline allowed me to put together a plausible answer with the disconnected facts I had learnt in the months preceeding that I just about got the mark. As a sidenote - it's quite incredible how adrenaline can temporarily improve brain injuries, with the downside that the moment it went I was completely exhausted.

Every subject bar maths I got the grades I wanted or just below, because Anki allowed me to memorise without learning.

(These subjects were: Maths, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, English Lit, English Lang, History, Computer Science, Digital something, Creative Media Production (didn't do exam), Further Maths (dropped).)

Now, I would prefer not to revise using solely Anki, and I think the fact a braindead student with memorised facts (and good exam technique) was able to get good grades says a lot about the British education system. It also says a lot about Anki, and just how effective it is.

Side note, because I'm tired of hearing drivel on HN:

My life being (permanently?) ruined was entirely preventable, all it would have taken is a little less empathy, a little less second chances, for violent barbarians who damage everyone around them. When people preach empathy they forget about the human cost of allowing inherently violent, destructive people to continue their actions.

If you're one of those people who thinks grammar schools are bad, restorative "justice" is the future, and we should prioritise those who hurt and destroy over those who want to learn and build: Your actions and your ideology have ugly consequences beyond your selfish delusion of making the world better through being nice and kind and the power of love - that belongs in novels, not policy.

[hhjinks]

I've never had a concussion, but I wanted to recount my similar experience in school, too. Like you, 5 minutes of math lectures had me dozing off. Really, a lecture in any subject would bore me to sleep. Only when we got practical tasks to work on, like math or physics problems, did my brain wake up and engage with and understand the material. As a result, I excelled in the natural sciences and math, where working on problems took up most of the time, while I did poorly in the more memorization-oriented social sciences and language subjects. Memorization is a skill like any other, and I'm happy I get to work in a field where understanding is more important than memorization.

[MrVandemar]

I sympathise: my wife was a teacher and the schools that were hardest to teach anything were the schools that were all about giving chances and "love" to bullies and disruptive elements. Mostly this comes direct from narcicists in upper management. They were very bad places to teach at, and she burned out quickly at them.

The best schools were ones that back up and support their teachers in disciplinary action (usually detention, buddy-class systems and behavior contracts which are all pretty effective if applied consistently and supported by management).

[sowbug]

It's like exercise. As a software engineer, I'm very unlikely to need to lift heavy things or run long distances. But my body is (probably) healthier long-term if I'm able to do those things.

Disclaimer: going through my Anki decks is one of the 50 things on my 10-item to-do list. I don't get to it often enough. But it does work, and I now know how to memorize things I want to remember.

[coffeebeqn]

Hmm sure but I feel like my brain gets too much intellectual stimulation if anything from my job and relationships and reading. If I try to do a leetcode at 8pm my brain is just extremely fatigued and tells me to stop. My body on the other hand just sits in a chair for a very large amount of the day so I need to supplement there

[sowbug]

There's an old book called The Richest Man In Babylon that has to do with personal finance. One of the key points is to pay yourself first. You have your rent, utility bills, maybe credit-card debt, etc., and even tonight you want to order in, even though it's expensive, because you're way too tired to cook. That's all fine, as long as you first set aside 10% of your paycheck for savings. Although that leaves only 90% left for all the other needs clawing at you, somehow you make it all work.

All too often people tend to their financial needs first, and find there's nothing left for themselves. No surprise most people die broke. Isn't it strange how their lifetime income just happened to almost exactly equal their lifetime expenses? Hmmm....

You might see where I'm going. Why are you giving the best of your time (rather than money) to everyone else, leaving nothing for yourself at the end of the day? Maybe start with just five minutes at the start of the day to pay yourself intellectually. If that works out, make it a habit!

[nathanmcrae]

I find a good way to link together ideas is to have them easily at hand i.e. memorized. Having a motivating problem is probably a better way to do this, but I've found that motivating problems which require concepts I would like to learn are not as readily available as I'd want.

[BeetleB]

In my experience trying to follow Zettelkasten was an order of magnitude now work than spaced repetition.

[fierro]

you could integrate a Zettelkasten workflow with Anki. Just send over certain ZK notes into Anki. I'm working on this -- a vim based ZK tool with ability to send over notes to Anki.

[thenerdhead]

We wrote pretty much the same comment. That's funny.