Notes apps are where ideas go to die (2022)
I like the idea presented in TFA, but as a small counter-anecdote, the mileage I&#x27;ve gotten out of my reading has skyrocketed since I started doing spaced repetition.<p>I can now actually whip out enumerative combinatorics to solve problems, or do on the spot estimations of the standard error of log-odds differences from contingency tables, or compute the power or any number to any other with mental maths, without looking it up in my notes first. That&#x27;s immensely powerful.<p>But it also doesn&#x27;t stop there. Since I now remember far more higher-level concepts, I can also make sense of more advanced reading in a way I was unable to when I had to dip back and forth between my notes and the text to try to piece things together.<p>Essentially, remembering what I&#x27;ve read has allowed me to raise the level of abstraction of my thinking, which has been more helpful than I expected it to, across a number of different situations.<p>----<p>That said, I&#x27;m only a few months into my spaced repetition journey, so maybe there&#x27;s a balance to strike and a judgment to make between forgetting and remembering, and I&#x27;m sure that&#x27;s something I&#x27;ll get better at finding as I get practise.<p>Maybe the first few months of spaced repetition is the time before diminishing returns set in. I don&#x27;t know but I&#x27;m excited to find out.