Ask HN: Is there a simple email-based spaced repetition tool? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Is there a simple email-based spaced repetition tool?

8 pointsarikr9 comments

I'd like to be able to put in a few things and then have it send me emails with the spaced repetition things to remember, so that I don't need to build a habit around a separate app (Anki).

Does it exist?

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How would you expect to interact with such a system? Part of the way Spaced Repetition works is to adapt its timings based on whether you got things right or wrong. Times to recall prompts can be less than a day, down to minutes, are you expecting to get an email every minute until you respond?

I don't see how the system can implement the fundamental underlying algorithm and still work via email. I've written Spaced Repetition systems, one that works on the command line, another that works via a web page, and I'd be interested o now how you envisage something like this working via email.

I would it expect to work a bit like Anki.

Why would I get many emails?

I would get an email in the morning with today's questions (or one email per question), and I'd reply "easy", "normal", "hard".

That's all that's needed. Timing is unnecessary.

I think we have a difference in understanding of how Spaced Repetition works. I don't know the specifics of how Anki works, but what you're describing doesn't match the specifics of the system I use, so I'm guessing here.

The way you see it (as I deduce - I could be wrong) is that you get an email (or multiple emails, one per challenge) with a challenge, for which you are expected to know the response. If for simplicity we work on one challenge per email, then you get an email saying something like:

What's element 66?

You're then on your own to decide whether you know this instantly ("easy"), or with some effort ("normal") or not at all ("hard"). You respond, possibly by clicking a link in the email, possibly by replying with the answer in the email body.

Is that what you imagine?

(This is related to, but significantly different from the way my system works, so it's pure guess-work based on the clues in your response).

If that's what you're thinking, I'm not completely disinterested in creating such a system as an experiment. Do you have a list of things you'd like to memorise so we can experiment? Contact details are in my profile.

Yes, Anki works like this: You get the challenge, you think about it, you tap on it, get the solution, and then you provide feedback whether you were right and how easy it was to remember. This feedback then determines when the card reappers.

That's how my system works, but when I'm using it I get up to 30 or 40 challenges in a session. I imagine that getting that many emails in a short time would be annoying, so the system I use would not immediately convert to an email version.

In particular, time gaps for a given "atom" can be as short as a minute or two when first working on it, and again, I can imagine getting emails that close together would be annoying.

But my system could be adapted and throttled. Is anyone interested?

Yes, it's an open source software called Dnote [0]. I wrote it two years ago and have been using it since.

The two main features are:

* putting in new information without switching environment

* getting automated weekly email digests

Like you, I wanted to avoid building habit around a separate app because that would require me to switch environment every time I want to write something, thus losing context of my current task. So I made Dnote work as a CLI, browser extension, IDE plug-in.

While I'm not sure exactly why you want an email spaced repetition, for me, the reason was that I never looked back at my past notes. The solution to this negligence was to automate the spaced repetition via weekly email.

I suspect we are trying to solve a similar problem. Hope my software can help.

[0] - https://github.com/dnote/dnote

I was wondering about your rationale for not using another app like Anki. I'm a big fan of email and loved the integration of reminders with email of the like provided by Inbox (and sadly missing from Gmail as of today).

But I am also cognizant that there's a context associated with different apps. I've been using AnkiDroid for over a decade now and the context the app provides (mental context that I'm learning something) helps me focus better. Email is usually a stressful context in my mind which reminds me of deadlines and tasks to complete; so I like to keep both of these contexts separate.

I built a website that (simplifying here) quizzed users once per day, it wouldn't be too hard to change this into a spaced repetition tool.

Would you (or anyone) pay for it? How much? It is interesting enough that I'd be willing to work on it.

You can send scheduled emails via Google Sheets (Tools -> Macros -> Triggers).

I did so for a "Your random word for today." kind of setup.

It's not quite spaced repetition because the amount of time in-between repetitions doesn't vary but it's close enough.

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