Spaced Repetition

Spaced repetition is the key to memorization

Once you learn something, review it again later, and again even later. At each repetition, you reinforce your learning.

Spending hours and hours at one time on priority queues won’t make you an expert. You become an expert by revisiting and reviewing over time. If you do so, you’ll get to the point where can’t forget details. You make the knowledge your own part of brain.

The brain’s “use it or lose it” policy applies to everything we learn. If you spend an afternoon memorizing some science terms, and then don’t think about that material for two weeks, you’ll probably have forgotten most of it. In fact, studies show we forget about 75% of material learnt within a 48 hour period. This can seem pretty depressing when you need to learn a lot of information!