I like the idea presented in TFA, but as a small counter-anecdote, the mileage I've gotten out of my reading has skyrocketed since I started doing spaced repetition.
I can now actually whip out enumerative combinatorics to solve problems, or do on the spot estimations of the standard error of log-odds differences from contingency tables, or compute the power or any number to any other with mental maths, without looking it up in my notes first. That's immensely powerful.
But it also doesn't stop there. Since I now remember far more higher-level concepts, I can also make sense of more advanced reading in a way I was unable to when I had to dip back and forth between my notes and the text to try to piece things together.
Essentially, remembering what I've read has allowed me to raise the level of abstraction of my thinking, which has been more helpful than I expected it to, across a number of different situations.
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That said, I'm only a few months into my spaced repetition journey, so maybe there's a balance to strike and a judgment to make between forgetting and remembering, and I'm sure that's something I'll get better at finding as I get practise.
Maybe the first few months of spaced repetition is the time before diminishing returns set in. I don't know but I'm excited to find out.
I can now actually whip out enumerative combinatorics to solve problems, or do on the spot estimations of the standard error of log-odds differences from contingency tables, or compute the power or any number to any other with mental maths, without looking it up in my notes first. That's immensely powerful.
But it also doesn't stop there. Since I now remember far more higher-level concepts, I can also make sense of more advanced reading in a way I was unable to when I had to dip back and forth between my notes and the text to try to piece things together.
Essentially, remembering what I've read has allowed me to raise the level of abstraction of my thinking, which has been more helpful than I expected it to, across a number of different situations.
----
That said, I'm only a few months into my spaced repetition journey, so maybe there's a balance to strike and a judgment to make between forgetting and remembering, and I'm sure that's something I'll get better at finding as I get practise.
Maybe the first few months of spaced repetition is the time before diminishing returns set in. I don't know but I'm excited to find out.