Ed Journey — Study Techniques Guide | edjourney.org
The interval table in day numbers — 1, 3, 7, 14, 30 — and the Leitner box rules that decide when each card moves.
A practical first spacing is to review new material after one day, then after about three days, a week and two to four weeks. Written as an interval table that is day 1, day 3, day 7, day 14 and day 30.
Each interval exists because of the forgetting curve: at day 1 you interrupt the drop from 58 percent to 34 percent; at day 30 you catch the material before it settles near 21 percent.
The Leitner system, published by Sebastian Leitner in 1972, gives the schedule its rule. Flashcards sort into boxes; a correct answer promotes a card to a less frequent box, an error sends it back to the first box. The box number is the interval, so the system schedules itself without you choosing dates.
On narrow screens, swipe or scroll the plate sideways.
In practice: box 1 is reviewed every session, box 2 every few days, box 3 weekly, box 4 every two weeks, box 5 monthly. Correct answers climb, errors reset to box 1, and the daily maintenance time stays between 10 and 15 minutes once the system is running.
The failure mode is skipping the daily box check because it feels small. One skipped day is recoverable; a skipped week lets box 1 pile up until the session grows past the time you will give it.
When a card has climbed through every box without an error, it has survived a month of spaced retrieval and can move to a maintenance interval of several months.
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