Spaced repetition schedules that actually work

A workable spaced repetition schedule reviews new material one day later, then three days, then a week, then two weeks, then a month — each interval roughly doubling, and each review landing just before you would have forgotten it. The exact numbers matter far less than the shape, and far less again than actually doing the reviews.

Why expanding intervals

Each successful recall makes the next forgetting slower, so the next review can wait longer. Reviewing on a fixed daily cadence wastes effort on cards you already know solidly, while reviewing too late means relearning from scratch. Expanding intervals track the curve instead of ignoring it.

Fitting it to a real exam date

Work backwards. With four weeks, you have room for the full doubling sequence. With one week, compress it: day one, day two, day four, day seven — shorter intervals, same shape. With one night, spacing cannot save you, and your goal changes to triage instead.

The rules that matter more than the numbers

• Review daily, briefly. Twenty minutes every day beats three hours on Sunday.
• Failed cards go back to a short interval — do not push them along the sequence.
• Keep the daily count sustainable; a backlog of 400 due cards is how people quit.
• Do not reset everything because you missed two days. Just carry on.

The best schedule is the one you are still following in three weeks.

Doing it with CourseParse

CourseParse schedules the flashcards it generates from your lectures, resurfacing each card as it comes due, and the study planner spreads the workload across the days left before the date you give it — so the schedule is decided once rather than every morning.