How to use the flashcard planner

The planner tells you how many new Anki cards to learn each day so that every card is well learned by your first exam paper, with time left over for practice questions. It also shows the reviews and minutes to expect each day.

Using it

1. Pick your deck, or choose Custom and type in your own number of cards and the date of your first paper. The A Level Biology and Chemistry buttons are for the Cards by Clara AQA decks: they fill in those decks' card counts and the Paper 1 dates. The decks are free on AnkiWeb now, and updated versions are coming soon.
2. Say where you are in the course.
   • Taught but not started: cards for topics you've covered in class but haven't begun in Anki.
   • Still to be taught: cards for topics you haven't covered yet, and when teaching ends. You'll learn these as they're taught.
   • Already learned: cards you're already reviewing, and roughly when you started on them.
3. Choose how to plan.
   • Plan back from my exam (recommended): the planner works out how many new cards a day you need. Let it calculate your buffer, or set one yourself, for example to start when study leave begins. Tick Taper to ease off new cards gradually.
   • Try a daily number: enter how many new cards a day you'd like to do and see where it leaves you.
4. Read your plan. The summary at the top gives the daily number, when new cards stop, and how ready you'll be. The graphs and the month-by-month table show how your workload changes.
5. Put it into Anki. In the deck's options, set New cards/day to the planner's number. Set Maximum reviews/day high, for example 9999, so reviews are never held back. Then do all your reviews every day.
6. Check again every few weeks, or after mocks, with your updated numbers.

What the results mean

New cards

Cards you see for the first time that day.

Reviews

Cards you've learned before that Anki brings back to test you, after longer and longer gaps.

Learning steps

Quick repeats of a new card on the same day (by default after 1 and 10 minutes).

Relearning

A card you forgot, repeated the same day before it goes back into reviews.

Young and Mature

Anki calls a card Mature once it waits 21 days or more between reviews: you know it well. Before that it's Young.

Buffer

The weeks before your first paper with no new cards. Practice questions come first, and flashcards are just your daily reviews.

Taper

Easing off new cards gradually before the buffer, so your reviews are already falling when it starts.

Why it works

Spaced repetition. Each time you remember a card, Anki waits longer before showing it again. Pressing Good every time gives gaps of about 1, 3, 8, 20, 50 and 125 days. Each time you forget, the card starts again from short gaps. That's why reviews pile up: every card you learn keeps coming back, less and less often.

The planner uses Anki's own rules. It follows Anki's scheduling code (the SM-2 scheduler, which Anki uses unless you've switched to FSRS). It uses how often real students press each button: on reviews, a typical user presses Again 15% of the time, Hard 14%, Good 67% and Easy 4%. It works out what one card does, on average, on each day after you learn it, then adds that up for every card in your plan.

Where the button percentages come from: the Anki button-usage dataset (open-spaced-repetition) records how about 10,000 Anki users press each button, from around 727 million reviews. For each stage (first time a card is shown, learning steps, reviews, relearning), the planner uses the median user's share of each button, rescaled to add up to 100%. The review Again rate comes from the median user's "true retention" of 84.7%. The relearning Again rate (15%) comes from a forum analysis of the same data. The time per card for a typical user (about 14 seconds) is from the same dataset; the planner uses 20 seconds to allow for writing the answer down.

Why a buffer, and how it's calculated. Close to the exam, practice questions matter more than learning new facts, but your reviews keep going. The calculated buffer is the shortest one that leaves 75% of your whole deck Mature, and 75% of the cards from your final 4 weeks of new cards, by your first paper. "Final 4 weeks" means the 4 weeks just before the buffer starts, when you learn your last new cards, not the 4 weeks before the exam. Those cards are the newest, so they've had the least time to settle, and the buffer gives them that time. This second check protects the topics you learn last: without it, older cards can hide that recent ones aren't secure yet. The dashed line on the graphs shows the day those final cards reach 75% Mature.

Why steady beats bursts. Learning a steady number each day spreads the reviews out. Learning lots at once, for example before a test, creates a wave of reviews a few days later and again weeks later.

What it can't know

• Falling behind. It assumes you do every review on the day it's due. Overdue cards are forgotten more often, so a backlog makes things worse than shown.
• Your own memory. It uses a typical student's button presses. Under your plan's summary, it also shows how much more work the same plan would be if you forget more often (as you might on harder topics, or if you fall behind). If you know your own figures, change the button percentages under Advanced.
• Your Anki settings. It assumes Anki's default deck options. If you've changed them, enter yours under Advanced. If you use FSRS, the numbers will be a rough guide only.
• Time per card. It counts about 20 seconds a card, allowing for writing the answer down. Change it under Advanced if you're faster or slower.
• Real days vary. The figures are averages, so expect some days to be busier and some quieter.

Sources

• Anki source code: the scheduling rules the planner follows (rslib/src/scheduler/states/).
• Anki manual: deck options.
• Anki button-usage dataset (open-spaced-repetition): button presses and time per card for about 10,000 Anki users.
• Anki forums: analysis of learning steps: how often relearning cards are remembered.

Privacy

Everything is calculated in your browser. Nothing you type is sent anywhere or stored, and there are no cookies or tracking. The only outside service is Google Fonts, for the font. The charts library (Chart.js) is part of this site.

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