Anki has completely changed the way I approach studying for medicine. However, there are so many little nuances in how to use it, so I thought I’d share a tip on how to make your reviews show up at the time that you are more likely to do them. Here is a question I got recently from a student who recently started out using Anki:
Hey Dr. Palmerton,
I hope you are doing well!
Quick question. My new/review cards for the following day won’t show up until around 10AM. How do I set it for 6AM? It’s kind of a pain, I prefer to get them done first thing. I find it takes me much longer to get through if I do them in the evening.
Thanks!
If you have a Mac, first go to the top left of the screen, and click the “Anki” menu, and select “Preference”:
Then, where it says “Next day starts at…” change it to whatever time you want to start reviews at.
For example, let’s say you wake up at 5AM, and want to start studying at 5:30AM, but currently your reviews for the day don’t show up until 9AM, you would change “Next day starts at” to 4 hours, as opposed to, say, 9 hours.
I’m experimenting with shorter, “how-to” type of articles, for all of the nuts-and-bolts type questions I get about how to use Anki. If you like this (or if you don’t), please let us know in the comments!
