History, setup, advantages, strategies and science - by Finn Guha

Important note: You will find the sources to every article, study etc. at Chapter 8: Sources

Now let’s dive into it.

Table of content

• Chapter 1: The history of learning with flashcards
• Chapter 2: What Anki offers: Understanding spaced repetition and active recall
• Chapter 3: How to setup Anki 101
• Chapter 4: Advanced configurations for setting up Anki
• Chapter 5: The science behind learning with flashcards
• Chapter 6: Special tricks on how to become super effective
• Chapter 7: How to learn every day
• Chapter 7.5: Brief summary of “Atomic Habits” by James Clear
• Chapter 8: Sources
• Chapter 9: Become a super learner

Chapter 1: The history of learning with flashcards

Flashcards become popular after the 1800s when mass production of paper got introduced. If paper would have been available for the every part of the poplulation, they would have probably been used since the Renaissance ( 1420-1600 ). Joseph Lancaster was the trigger of pre-made flashcards which could be sold across the USA at the beginning of the 20th century.

Before that, the concept of a memory palace was more common for remembering information. An important difference to learning with flashcards is that medieval/ancient cultures thought a concept should be seen as a whole , not as a set of individual facts. Someday, people started to see the primary advantage of flashcards: It was that one could study one specific fact at a time. Combining small facts and understanding their connection eventually accumulates into the understanding of a whole topic. That’s what flashcards were/are for.