The Ebbinghaus forgetting curve
Recall it
before it fades.
Left alone, memories fade. Ebbing brings each review back just as you start to forget, so the effort you put in becomes long-term memory.
Each review slows forgetting (model-based estimate)
Simple by design
Planning reviews is the app's job. Yours is to learn.
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01
Log what you studied
Add the material and the range you want to remember. That is all the setup there is.
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02
Reviews are scheduled for you
Based on the forgetting curve, Ebbing schedules reviews at widening intervals: 1 day, 3 days, 1 week, and beyond.
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03
Do only today's reviews
You only see the reviews due today. Leave the timing to the system and focus on the learning itself.
Features
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Automatic review schedule
Reviews are generated from a pattern based on the Ebbinghaus forgetting curve, so you never miss the right moment.
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Calendar
See upcoming reviews at a glance in weekly and monthly views, color-coded by material.
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Retention you can see
See how much you likely still remember, shown as a model-based estimate. The effect of each review becomes visible.
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Study guides
Read about the forgetting curve, spaced repetition and more, in the app and on this site. Accurate, with sources, no hype.
Study guides
The forgetting curve, spaced repetition, retention: findings from learning science, explained with sources.
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What Is the Forgetting Curve? — Why we forget almost as soon as we learn
What Ebbinghaus's forgetting curve really shows, including the most common misconceptions about it. Forgetting is not a failure of memory but a signal that tells you when to review.
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Why Review After 1 Day, 1 Week, and 1 Month? — The science of spaced repetition
The same number of reviews can produce very different retention depending on when you do them. Here is the evidence, built up over 100 years of research, behind spacing out your reviews and recalling from memory.
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How to Read Your Retention Rate — Using a number for how much you remember
How to read the retention rate correctly as a metric. What matters is not the exact number but the trend and how you use it.
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Memorization Techniques Backed by Research — Plus the ones that don't work as well
The study techniques rated most effective in a review of hundreds of studies, and the popular ones that turned out to be less effective.
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Planning Reviews Backward from Exam Day — How to design a plan that gets you there in time
The most rational way to set review intervals is by the time left until your exam. This guide explains how to build a backward plan of the kind the research supports.
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Managing Reviews When You Have a Huge Number of Items to Memorize
Medicine, law, languages: when there are hundreds of things to memorize, reviews can collapse. This guide explains why that happens and how to keep it from happening.
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How to Build a Review Schedule for a Certification Exam — What to do 3 months, 1 month, and 1 week out
Exam prep starts working once you separate "learning new material" from "locking it in with review." Using a 3-month example, this article shows how to set review intervals and how to cycle through a problem book.
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Review Intervals for Vocabulary — Working through a word list on the forgetting curve
With vocabulary, retention is decided by when you review, not how many passes you make. Daily new-word limits, review timing, and how to recall, all with the research behind them.
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How to Choose a Spaced Repetition App — Flashcard type or schedule type, which fits you
Apps built on the forgetting curve and spaced repetition come in two kinds, flashcard type and schedule type. Here is how to pick the one you can actually keep using, based on what you are learning and how you study.
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If Anki Didn't Stick — Spaced repetition without making cards
Anki is excellent spaced repetition software, but many people give up under the weight of card-making and settings. Here is why Anki may not have fit, and another way to run spaced repetition by material rather than by card.
Turn today's study into next month's memory.
The easiest way to keep an evidence-based review habit is to let a system handle the timing.
