The forgetting curve is brutal: most of what you learned this week fades before next week — not because you learned badly, but because memory needs revisits. Spacing those revisits is the highest-return study habit that exists, and it costs ten minutes a day.
The capture step: one line per lesson
After each lesson, write one line: the key action or idea. These lines are your review deck — no flashcard software required, a simple note works.
The schedule: 1 — 3 — 7 — 21
Review a line the day after you wrote it, then on day 3, day 7 and day 21. Each pass takes seconds; four passes move the idea into long-term memory where cramming never reaches.
Review means recall, not reread
Cover the line, ask yourself "what was the point of that lesson?", answer out loud, then check. The slight effort of retrieval is exactly what strengthens the memory — rereading feels easier because it does less.
Attach it to an existing habit
Coffee, commute, lunch queue — anchor the ten minutes to something that already happens daily. Systems attached to existing habits survive; systems requiring new willpower — not.
Frequently asked questions
Do I need an app like Anki?
Helpful for hundreds of items; for a course’s worth of one-liners, a dated note reviewed on schedule is enough.
What if I miss a review day?
Just — it the next day — the schedule is a guide, not a law. Consistency over weeks beats precision on any single day.
Does this work for practical skills too?
Yes, with a twist: the "review" becomes a tiny rep of the skill — one shortcut, one phrase, one calculation.
