I love Spaced Repetition Systems like Anki and SuperMemo, but here is how you can use Notion to somewhat replicate that algorithm.
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I love Spaced Repetition Systems like Anki and SuperMemo, but here is how you can use Notion to somewhat replicate that algorithm.
Psalm Pueblos says
How do you make spaced repetition if the question part is text instead of images as you put it?
greenmellen says
In that case, I’d make the main column of your database the question and then change the properties to allow it to show under the (blank?) cards. The answer to the question could be another field in your database or the body of the card.
So the questions could look like this: https://www.screencast.com/t/OtRFv0tDe
And then clicking for an answer would look like this (along with the other fields for tracking timing): https://www.screencast.com/t/d65KT2DPQL
Katressl says
I tried doing this, but the card is showing up blank instead of showing the question (in this case a single word for language learning). Is there a setting I’m missing?
greenmellen says
I think so, yes. If you look at the “properties” for your gallery, be sure that you enable the main “name” field (or whatever you call it in your case), as seen here:
https://www.screencast.com/t/cJJojgtq
Does that do the trick?
W says
This was all very helpful, especially being able to copy the formula from template. For language review (in the Gallery view) I would also go into Properties and set Card Size to Small and Card Preview to None.
Is there a keyboard shortcut for flipping through cards quickly?
greenmellen says
Good tips!
As for flipping through quickly, I don’t know of any way. For now, I go in and out of each card. That would certainly be helpful.
John says
You have a really nice voice
Philippe Hebert says
Hey there!
I wrote a more succinct version of the formula:
if(toNumber(prop(“Level”)) <= 1, prop("Date wrong"), dateAdd(prop("Date wrong"), floor(pow(2.2, toNumber(prop("Level")) – 1)), "days"))
You can change the base of the power to regulate the spaced repetition to your needs.
Cheers!
greenmellen says
Wow, very impressive! Thanks for sharing.
Ashish says
This formula doesnot work when i copy paste. please help !!!!
greenmellen says
The formula is based on having the other columns named exactly the same as in the demo. You can either rename the columns to match, or tweak the formula to match your column names. Does that fix it for you?
e0 says
In addition to this, some of the characters are “wrong”. For example the quotation marks around Level and the minus sign at the end needed to be manually corrected (Just delete the mentioned characters and type it again by hand).
The working version is pasted below but in case that still gets messed up just try editing it manually and it should be fine.
if(toNumber(prop(“Level”)) <= 1, prop("Date Wrong"), dateAdd(prop("Date Wrong"), floor(pow(2.2, toNumber(prop("Level")) – 1)), "days"))
Danny B says
Quick note: when copying the formula into Notion some of the symbols aren’t copied exactly. If you’re still facing errors, try manually retyping the quotes and the hyphens in Notion. They make look very similar but when you type the symbols you will actually change them to the ‘correct’ version for Notion to read.
Björn says
Hi there!
I named the fields as it says, but I get som kind of syntax error and can’t save the formula.
greenmellen says
Email me a screenshot and I’ll take a look.
Björn says
Ah, I saw the solution in the thread just above.
Thanks anyways 😀
Philip Ljung says
If you want in to include a makeshift reminder function to this you could first add a column (formula) that plots the current date,
now()
Then do the same thing again but this time add the following formula,
prop(“Next Review Date”) < prop("Today")
,which will fill out a checkbox when the current day is past the "Next Review Date".
Remember to match the names of the columns with the ones used in the formula!
Kurt says
Hi there,
I’ve encountered a problem, when I tried to replicate this srs template. I copied the formula shown in the video and Notion said “too few arguments”. I also tried the formula mentioned in the comment section, with the same result “too few arguments”. What do I have to do to fix this?
Thanks in advance
Kurt
greenmellen says
Email me a screenshot and I’ll take a look.
Paulette says
This is truly fantastic — thank you. I’ve been looking for a way to use Notion more effectively in my language learning, and this is an unexpectedly fantastic workaround for the lack of built-in SRS functions. Anki is marvellous of course, but this allows me to do some useful review right in Notion (where I have a lot of other language learning material) and the efficiency is worth losing the power of Anki features that I mostly don’t make full use of anyway.
greenmellen says
Awesome, I’m glad it helped! I still use Anki quite a bit as well, but it’s nice to have both.
Rose says
Hi!
Thanks so much for the template 🙂 I messed around with it to add some more functionality/things relevant to me, and I’m excited to see how it works!
I’m wondering (re: this comment thread) how you use Anki + Notion together? Do you use them for different things? Do you integrate them?
I’m determining if I should just stick to Notion (would be the simplest/most streamlined as my entire life is in Notion) or if it’s worth adding another platform to organize my language learning (incl. Anki as well as platforms like or Roam/RemNote).
A further narrowing of the question may be: what are the main features of Anki/roametc. not possible in this template/Notion that would be a reason to use them?
Thanks!
greenmellen says
I really liked having the people SRS in Notion, but I ultimately moved it back to Anki. I couldn’t shake Anki for some of the other decks I had (geography, etc), and Anki was easier on mobile, so it’s all back in there for now. Still playing with it though…
Ajay raj says
space repetition formula. Label 1 to 25.
Formula repet 25 times. Then after page full, not shown done button, page full. How to edit this formula after page has been full.
Irina says
Thank you so much for this! I love the template and your explanation for using it. I tweaked it a little bit to make it more suitable for my learning styles and am super happy with it.
Dinesh says
can you please provide the screenshot of your remainder column.
tomas says
Hi,
thanks so much for putting this together. I am a 1st year PT student and trying to organize my study methods to be more efficient.
I do have a question. Is there anyway to group the different questions or pics as in your video description together with another field?
Essentially I am trying to group my questions by topic matter without having to make a truckload of pages.
Thanks in advance!
greenmellen says
Good question! To be honest, Anki is a much better solution for most folks (and it’s still what I use most of the time). The fact that you can do this in Notion is really neat, and it could be useful if you’re pulling in info that is already in Notion, but Anki is just perfect for it without weird tweaks.
prasad says
You are superb brother… Thank you for this awesome work… GBU… ans santa claus too…:P
greenmellen says
You’re welcome! I’m glad you found it helpful.