CSR — Cornell Spaced Repetition

Enter the day you first studied the material. The tool works out the next nine review dates and marks which review each one is.

Why these particular gaps

The nine dates widen as they go: one day, three days, a week, a fortnight, and then in months. That is the shape the research on the spacing effect points to — each successful review lets the next one wait longer, because something just pulled back out of memory holds better than it did before.

Two things worth knowing before you use it. First, reviewing is not rereading: cover the answer and produce it yourself, because looking back over the page leaves almost nothing behind. Second, if you miss a date by a few days, review when you remember and keep the remaining dates as they are rather than pushing the whole schedule back.

A fixed schedule like this is blunter than software that adapts to each card, but it suits what software struggles to break into cards: a lecture, a chapter, a page of Cornell notes.

Work out your own number of reviews

Fill in the blanks and the result appears below.

Example: a Cornell page with the review schedule already on it

Fill in the three boxes below — the first takes both the subject and the lesson title. The tool lays out a Cornell page: the title across the top, the nine review dates with tick boxes at the head of the left column, and the rest of that column left blank for your cue questions.