Anki Again Hard Good Easy Times Too Long
If you are trying to optimize your Anki settings, you lot should definitely be looking at your Interval Modifier.
Anki'due south Interval Modifier takes the normal interval for a card and multiplies it past the interval modifier. You can apply this to increase or decrease the default review time for every carte du jour.
Here is an example.
Let's say yous have a card where a Good answer will result in yous seeing the card in 10 days (interval = 10). For now, allow's presume you lot have an Interval Modifier of 120%. Were you to implement that modifier, you would see the card next in 12 days instead of 10.
Interval * Interval Modifier = New Interval
10 days * 120% = 12 days (new interval)
Why Should I Change My Interval Modifier?
The Interval Modifier is a useful tool to adjust your retention pct, the percentage of review cards that yous reply correctly.
If your intervals are too small-scale, you are seeing cards besides often. If y'all're seeing the same cards too often, you are lowering desirable difficulty (thus, lowering appointment and memory formation). Plus, y'all are wasting valuable time that could be used to learn new cards. This is known as something called "Ease Hell" in the Anki community. I wrote about how I escaped it while learning Chinese here.
If your intervals are also long, you are seeing cards also rarely. When y'all don't see review cards frequently enough, you will forget the information before you accept a chance to re-appoint with it and maintain its retention. Your retentivity percentage will collapse, and review sessions will eventually go very frustrating.
Your Interval Modifier essentially trades time/frequency of reviews for retentivity charge per unit. The less frequently yous study, the lower your retention rate will be.
What Should I Fix My Interval Modifier To?
Anki's docs recommend aiming for a retention charge per unit of 90%.
Your retention charge per unit is going to depend on how well you demand to know every piece of information,how long you have to study every day, and how hard your cards are.
For language learning, I recommend a target retention rate of 85%. This is based on my personal feel learning Russian as well every bit attempting to larn 3,000 Chinese Characters in nether four months.
With an 85% retention rate, yous can get through a lot of reviews and withal proceed to learn a fair amount of new words every day.
When I was learning Chinese characters, I added thirty new cards to my deck every twenty-four hour period and was able to cease my reviews in 30-45 minutes, leaving an 60 minutes to focus on new cards. Of course, it helped that I tried very difficult to come up upwardly with good mnemonics up front that would salve me time re-learning the card afterward down the line.
That said, if you need to know data better and are satisfied with a 90% rate, that is personal preference.
Annihilation above 90%, and you are likely repeating cards too frequently.
Here is how to find your retentiveness rate:
- Become to a deck
- Select "Stats"
- Scroll down to "Answer Buttons"
- Your retentiveness rate will be the % of times you answered with a Correct push button.
Ignore the blue "Learning" category for now. Depending on the age of the deck you are optimizing for, you'll want to consider both "Young" and "Mature" cards.
Anki'due south docs recommend not changing the Interval Modifier until you have plenty of Mature cards, merely I take found that it's fine to tweak my settings a fiddling sooner than that. No need to spend months over-reviewing but to increase your Interval Modifier downwards the line.
Use Retentiveness Rate to Find the Optimal Interval Modifier
The formula to suit your Interval Modifier is:
Interval Modifier = log(desired retention%) / log(current retention%)
If you desire to target 85% retention and yous're currently at 90% retention, you would make the post-obit calculation:
Interval Modifier = log(0.85) / log(0.xc) = 154%
How to Decide on Your Desired Retention Rate
Merely every bit the forgetting bend (how forget over time) is not-linear, the relationship between time spent studying and retention rate is also non-linear. 
Imagine a scenario where you study 90 minutes a mean solar day and are able to achieve a memory rate of 85%. If you lot decide you would rather accept that rate be more like xc%, you are going to set the Interval Modifier to 65% and then your cards more often:
log(0.xc)/log(0.85) = 65%
This means you're going to spend 35% (!) more time, or an extra 30 minutes, studying your cards every day. So while 5% better doesn't sound like a big inquire, you're going to stop up spending a lot more than time than you realize to get that next 5% of retention.
To become to 95% from 85%, yous're going to take to spend 68% more fourth dimension, or an extra hr, studying your cards every day.
How to Change the Interval Modifier in Anki
In one case you've adamant what you want to set your Interval Modifier to in Anki, click on the gear icon next to your deck.
Next, choose the "Review" tab at the acme, and you'll find Interval Modifier on the listing. Don't worry about the other ones for at present.
You're all prepare! Thanks for reading!
Source: https://readbroca.com/anki/what-is-anki-interval-modifier/