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NOTE: I do NOT own Anki nor did I develop it — all rights to Anki software belong to Damien Elmes and his team. My goal here is to share my experience if you’re interested in integrating Anki into your study strategy.

Hey there, welcome!

If you’re wondering how to study efficiently with Anki but don’t know where to start, I made this roadmap for you.

ALL of them are based on my own experience as well as the hundreds of students I’ve helped become better learners.

Follow this closely, and I’m sure you’ll shave off hours of your study time quickly 🙂

Step 1. Get started with Anki — the Anki Fundamentals Series

How to Use Anki Tutorial Featured Image

Unlike what you may hear online, Anki is certainly NOT magic.

BUT, it’s incredibly helpful in automating retrieval — a crucial ONE THIRD of your study system. (i.e. in the Encoding – Storage – Retrieval stages of memory)

Just like you don’t need to learn all features of your computer to use it for schoolwork…

You also don’t need to learn Anki’s every damn feature to use it effectively for remembering what you learn.

Just the basics are enough to make it do its damn job in your study system.

If you want the “shortcut” approach: just follow the Lesson 1 closely and then move on to Step 2 of this roadmap.

Otherwise, you can navigate through these links — which are also available in every post:

Step 2. Get started making efficient flashcards — download the Flashcard Examples PDF

Don’t know how to structure your flashcards the right way? Overwhelmed with mountains of due reviews per day? Constantly forgetting your cards?

These are signs that your cards aren’t quality enough, and I know you probably need a bunch of good examples to follow and anti-examples to avoid.

In that case, I got your back, buddy.

I made a short PDF that shows you 13 flashcard examples and anti-examples so you can get started making good flashcards and avoid creating bad ones.

It’s exclusive only for my newsletter members, so if you want a copy, I might as well invite you to join 🙂 Just click the red button below to go to the signup page.

Step 3. Discover the right mindset for learning efficiently with Anki (ADVANCED)

If you feel like “Anki is just taking up SOOO much time”, read on.

Thing is, because learning with Anki is that different to the conventional style of studying, it also requires a different set of “rules,” so to speak.

Productive guiding principles. Effective mental models.

For example, you shouldn’t think of “efficiency” in terms of just speed, and you also shouldn’t think about “optimization” in terms of “installing Anki add-ons.”

This means you can’t blindly use ChatGPT to make your cards. You can’t just rely on installing add-ons. Not even automating card creation or just doing Image Occlusion for your lecture slides.

In fact, they’re probably the recipes for not being able to keep up with your reviews — you’re overoptimizing based on local maxima.

Like I said: You gotta follow a different set of rules.

Read more by clicking the button below.

Choose Your Own Adventure