What comes into mind when you hear “Lean”? If it’s a person who’s really shredded to the bone, then that represents it perfectly.
That’s because the point of Lean methodology is to eliminate the “fat” — elements that don’t contribute much to a system — and optimize elements that do contribute.
Taiichi Ohno, founding father of the Toyota Production System, put it this way:
All we are doing is looking at the time line from the moment the customer gives us an order to the point when we collect the cash. And we are reducing that time line by removing the non-value-added wastes.
(More on “value” later.)
Applied to Anki, we that statement turns into:
All we are doing is looking at the tools and processes we use starting from when we learn a new idea up to using that idea either as is, or to build new knowledge.
The wastes, then, would mean:
- Installing inessential add-ons and think that they will make us “more effective”
- Creating custom “fields” and “cards” without knowing how to even formulate a card
- “Defective” cards that contain long lists and ambiguous questions
…simply because they do not contribute to the entire process of learning to building new knowledge! (You’ll learn more of these in the next lessons.)
But of course, that only scratches the surface. All of that is based on the 5 principles of Lean:
- Value. From an Anki user’s standpoint, Value is retaining what you’ve learned, and being able to use them either as mental “hooks” to attach new knowledge upon, or as is.
- Value Stream. The value stream is basically the outline of the elements and processes that lead to delivering the value we want from the raw materials we have. This then defines what we call muda, the “fat” that doesn’t add value: unnecessary add-ons, defective cards, and incoherent hacks, for example.
- Flow. This is about integrating the whole system into a single, coherent workflow to achieve a “state where each activity is fully in step with every other.” (Remember what I told you about the problem with tips and hacks?) Creating a coherent workflow, in other words, is the ONLY way to become efficient without sacrificing effectiveness. That’s because quality and quantity doesn’t have to be traded off — they can coexist.
- Pull. In lean production, this is when a supply is “pulled” by the customer demand; creating products only when needed. This minimizes inventory and wasted raw materials. In our case, Anki automatically does this for us. We minimize our review time by using spaced repetition — only reviewing what needs reviewing — at the level of the individual card instead of by topic. There’s also another way we can incorporate Pull, but I’ll save that for later.
- Kaizen. In case you’re not familiar with it, Kaizen is continuous improvement. We use feedback loops and opportunistic reformulation of questions to improve how we use Anki continuously and stay on track.
After knowing these 5 things, you’re suddenly able to easily think of what’s “wasteful” or not, as well as what’s “value-adding” or not.
That’s the power of tools for thinking — specifically, the power of principles.
Now then, are you starting to believe how tips and hacks don’t work?
Alright, good.
At this point, you now have the biggest prerequisite to using Anki for lifelong learning: having tools for thinking.
Moving on, I’d like to make things easier for you, so I’ve laid out what “value” really is for Anki learning.
In truth, there are only three value-added components to using Anki that makes everything else almost unnecessary.
When you have all three, you’ll ultimately achieve the state I call “Value-added Anki.”
Value-added Anki
Say, for example, you’re going to start training for martial arts.
Or even start a new business.
Or pursue photography.
Whatever it is, what do you think is the one thing that will determine how successful you’ll be in any of them in the long-term?
Is it how flashy your kicks are?
How many features your product has?
How good your lenses are?
Indirectly, they just might. But not quite.
Here’s the answer.
Your success will depend on your mastery of value-added activities. Nothing else will matter unless you’ve already addressed value-added activities. Surely you can become efficient without determining value-added activities, but you can’t possibly expect to become effective.
Let me give you some obvious — but often overlooked — examples. (Disclaimer: I’m not exposed in these fields, but I want to demonstrate the power of lean thinking by defining value through reasoning alone.)
Value in Martial Arts: Using the self-defense skills in the right situation — ideally, by reflex.
It doesn’t matter if you master a thousand different kicks or wrestling techniques if you can’t even do each in the right situation. If anything, I’d think that’s more dangerous.
Value in Business: Creating what people need — both logically and emotionally — to solve their problems.
It doesn’t matter if you can add a million different features to your product if you can’t even solve the real problems (external, internal, philosophical) of the people you’re trying to serve.
Value in Photography: Developing an eye for composition and mastering the manual camera settings.
It doesn’t matter how good your lens is if you don’t even know the basics of composition or if you’re just using the auto feature — every good photographer knows that.
Yet, when we use Anki, we tend to overlook this seemingly simple thing!
(Wow, did you just notice I bolded every other line?)
But then again, just like any other beginner, I once thought focusing on value-added tasks were “boring” (also I didn’t know what value-added tasks are back then).
When I was starting out, I figured I should just follow the norm because they’ve somehow “figured it out”.
And let’s face it: It’s always more interesting to download tons of add-ons to “increase productivity”, right?
Shared decks, too! With shared decks, you don’t have to make cards yourself — efficient! Amazing!
Oh, and don’t get me started with the “Fields…” and “Cards…” option on your Anki—it makes you look like you’re an advanced user, so it might contain “the secret” we’re looking for…
I would then try to code my own fields and search for a ton of add-ons right away, thinking they’d make studying “better” or “more productive”.
I would even try to copy and paste sentences from my Physics book, and then question myself on the important terms. I thought they’d make me “learn better” in less time, you know.
That didn’t end very well. (After two sections in this post, you’ll know why.)
But to put it simply, since they weren’t value-added activities, absolutely none of them was moving the needle. I then realized, coherence and focusing on the value-added elements of Anki is where the magic is at. They’re roughly 20% of the total things you can do that brings 80% of the results.
So, as promised, I’ll give you the ONLY three tasks that serve the value we’re looking for:
- Deck creation
- Question formulation
- Flashcard Studying
This is the main reason why the Anki Fundamentals course only has these three components into it. The settings were actually just a bonus.
Anything that doesn’t contribute add-value, treat them as muda.
How, then, do you eliminate muda?
You guessed it — by incorporating the 5 Lean Principles into a single, coherent workflow.
A single workflow that:
- Is designed for your OWN goals
- Is proven to work with the principles of memory formation
- Has elements that are proven to work together
I’ll show you an example how I did it for my board exams, then a bit on what you can do to incorporate it as well. It looks like this:
