What Is Spaced Repetition?

Have you every learned material but had no clue on how often or when you should review it? Spaced repetition helps you exactly with this idea! You might have heard of something called spaced repetition. Spaced repetition is when you review information in specific intervals.

The different reviews help make the information stronger and easier to find. It is like a path on the forest. If you only walk on the path once in a while, then there will be a lot of plants over it. But if you walk over the path daily, there is no more vegetation on the path making it clear. Spaced repetition works the same way.

The reviews might be two days, seven, two weeks later, and so on, but the thing is there's no concrete amount of time between reviews that you have to review or you forget the material. What plays the biggest factor is how complex the information you are learning.

Let's take the presidents. You want to memorize the president, so you have probably three different pieces of information you need to memorize: the president's first/last name and what number they are Now let's say you're learning a language.

There are way more parts to a language: how to pronounce the words correctly, translating in your head (how do I say bath in Spanish), and how to structure the sentence completely and correctly. A language has more moving parts than memorizing the presidents which is why you would have to review a language more than the presidents.

The space repetition for a language might be every other day for 2 weeks then maybe 3 times a week. On the other hand, you might review the presidents a day later, three days, a week, and then a month. There's so many factors when it comes to spaced repetition that there's not just one review interval you could follow for every type of material.

You really need to have a feel for what you are learning. If you are forgetting information even though you are reviewing, you might need to review more. What I have mentioned is just about reviewing but if you combine memory techniques with spaced repetition, you will have amazing recall and be able to remember information for so much longer!

If you want to learn more memory techniques, get your free memory program: https://learntoimprovememory.com/free-mini-memory-program
Also check out my podcast if you rather listen than read: https://anchor.fm/johnny-briones