One of the pieces of studying advice that is best supported by research is that
if you care about long-term retention, don’t cram. Spreading learning
sessions over more intervals over longer periods of time tends to cause
somewhat lower performance in the short run (because there is a chance for
forgetting between intervals) but much better performance in the long run.
This was something I needed to be careful about during the MIT Challenge.
After my first few classes, I switched from doing one class at a time to doing
a few in parallel, to minimize the impact that the crammed study time would
have on my memory.
If you have ten hours to learn something, therefore, it makes more sense to
spend ten days studying one hour each than to spend ten hours studying in
one burst. Obviously, however, if the amount of time between study intervals
gets longer and longer, the short-term effects start to outweigh the long-term
ones. If you learn something with a decade separating study intervals, it’s
quite possible that you’ll completely forget whatever you had learned before
you reach the second session.
Finding the exact trade-off point between too long and too short has been a
minor obsession for some ultralearners. Space your study sessions too
closely, and you lose efficiency; space them too far apart, and you forget
what you’ve already learned. This has led many ultralearners to apply what
are known as spaced-repetition systems (SRS) as a tool for trying
to retain the
most knowledge with the least effort. SRS was a major force behind Roger
Craig’s
Jeopardy!
trivia memorization, and I used the systems extensively
when learning Chinese and Korean. Although you may not have heard of this
term, the general principle is the backbone of many language-learning
products, including Pimsleur, Memrise, and Duolingo. These programs tend
to hide the spacing algorithm in the background, so you don’t need to bother
yourself with it. However, other programs, such as the open-source Anki, are
the preferred tool of more extreme ultralearners who want to squeeze out a
little more performance.
SRS is an amazing tool, but it tends to have quite focused applications.
Learning facts, trivia, vocabulary words, or definitions is ideally suited for
flash card software, which presents knowledge in terms of a question with a
single answer. It’s more difficult to apply to more complicated domains of
knowledge, which rely on complex information associations that are built up
only through real-world practice. Still, for some tasks, the bottleneck of
memory is so tight that SRS is a powerful tool for widening it, even if there
are some drawbacks. The authors of a popular study guide for medical
students center their approach around SRS, because a medical student must
remember so many things and the default strategy of forgetting and
relearning is quite costly in terms of time.
10
Spacing does not require complex software, however. As Richards’s story
clearly demonstrates, simply printing lists of words, reading them over, and
then rehearsing them mentally without having them in front of you is an
incredibly powerful technique. Similarly, semiregular practice of a skill is
often quite helpful. After my year of learning languages, I wanted to ensure
that I didn’t forget them. My approach was fairly simple: schedule thirty
minutes of conversation practice once a week, to be done over Skype using
italki, an online service for tutoring and language exchange partners all over
the world. I maintained this for one year, after which I dropped to once-per-
month practice for another two years. I don’t know whether this practice
schedule was ideal, and I had other opportunities to practice that came up
spontaneously in that time period that also helped, but I believe it was much
better than doing nothing and letting the skills atrophy. When it comes to
retention, don’t let perfect become the enemy of good enough.
Another strategy for applying spacing, which can work better for more
elaborate skills that are harder to integrate into your daily habits, is to
semiregularly do refresher projects. I leaned toward this approach for the
things I learned during the MIT Challenge, since the skill I wanted most to
retain was writing code, which is tricky to do on only half an hour per week.
This approach has the disadvantage of sometimes deviating quite a lot from
optimal spacing; however, if you’re prepared to do a little bit of relearning to
compensate, it can still be a better approach than completely giving up
practice. Scheduling this kind of maintenance in advance can also be helpful,
as it will remind you that learning isn’t something done once and then
ignored but a process that continues for your entire life.
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