Flashcards as Notes

This post is about flashcards, so I've placed example flashcards throughout the piece to demonstrate the kinds of question/answer pairs I would typically write while reading. Normally, I prefix them with something like "According to [author] in [title of article], [flashcard question]". 0

A Wise Split

Stairs or escalator? source

My partner and I use an app called splitwise to track and split shared expenses. Over the last several months, I’ve gotten in the habit of immediately taking any expense added to splitwise and manually adding it to my personal finance accounting app, Lunch Money . It’s not an ideal solution because it’s a redundant and automatable task. It also usually takes me between 30-60 seconds to complete. Regardless, I treat it as an important task with a high degree of urgency. Why? Because the alternative is much worse.

On average, we have at most a few expenses per week to be split, but if I let those accumulate over a month or longer, processing the backlog of transactions in splitwise and manually entering them into Lunch Money becomes unbearable. Instead of a boring 30+ seconds every few days, I’m confronted with an excruciating hour plus of mindless work.

Q: why does [Author] avoid letting splitwise transactions accumulate before adding them to Lunch Money?

A: because they end up becoming too tedious and time consuming to manually enter them into Lunch Money.

In these kinds of situations, it’s far too easy to over-fixate on the technological solution (building custom software that automatically syncs between splitwise and Lunch Money) rather than the behavioural solution (building the habit of immediately mirroring the expense between apps manually). In fact, I found myself justifying procrastinating or deferring the task because of the idea of it being automated in the future. Why bother wasting my time if it can be done automatically? Even though the individual task itself is dead easy (~30 seconds of tapping and typing) and solves the problem in the here and now.

The hard part about the behavioural solution is not that the task itself is difficult but that it feels cognitively effortful. In this particular scenario, embracing this cognitive effort leads to an elegant outcome: peace of mind and accurate accounting. But there is also something more subtle going on here: my relationship with my past and future self shifts when I don’t shy away from cognitive effort in the present. For example, whenever I check lunch money to get a breakdown of my monthly expenses, not only is the breakdown accurate and sufficiently complete by default, I also feel a warm sense of gratitude towards myself — a nod to my past self for distributing the workload into much more manageable chunks.

Q: What kinds of solutions tend to be forgotten or overlooked when over-fixating on technological solutions?

A: behavioural solutions

Q: What is difficult about behavioural solutions?

A: that they feel cognitively effortful, not because the task itself is difficult.

The lesson here is clear: forming the right habits can address issues simply and replace the need for unnecessarily complex technological “solutions”. Additionally, habits leave us with something much more enduring than a technology. Eventually, I’ll have my splitwise to lunch money integration. When that day comes, I won’t have to spend time manually entering transactions, but I’ll have become the kind of person who actively engages with my finances, habitually ensuring nothing slips through the cracks. Habit formation and maintenance transfers to all areas of life and transcends any particular tool. In other words, habits are about the journey whereas tools are often about the destination.

Nowhere do these lessons feel more true for me than it does with information consumption and learning.

Q: What can replace unnecessarily complex technological "solutions"?

A: forming the right habits.

Tools for What?

Scaffolding or crutch? source

I’ve always been a curious person. I love to learn about the world and deepen my understanding of it. Naturally, when I discovered tools for thought (TFT) for the first time, it felt like one of the most significant discoveries in my life. TFTs promised that I could think more sharply, learn more quickly and develop ideas more prolifically. For the most part, this has been true for me, but not in the way I had initially expected it to be. With TFTs, it’s easy to over-focus on the tools. The thinking usually goes like if only this tool did X, I could do Y. Yet in reality it’s more like if I build habit A, tool B or C or D can support my goal of E. I find this is especially true for note-taking and bookmarking.

Q: what is a common way to think about how tools for thought can support capabilities, and what is a more realistic way to think about it?

A: "if only this tool did X, I could do Y" and "if I build habit A, tool B or C or D can support my goal of E"

TFTs are usually meant to help us collect content that we want to learn from (or take action on) as well as organize it alongside our notes/thoughts about it. It’s in the name: they are supposed to help us think. I’ve spent many hours dreaming about the perfect tool for thought. A tool that lets me stay in the flow of learning, seamlessly collecting content and turning it into insights without any friction.

For example, I’ve thought extensively about a system that acts as a universal “inbox” for all my content. Any podcast, article, book, website I come across with any valence of relevance, would get saved and AI could process the content, extracting themes and flashcards for me to review and build on top of. Themes would get extracted in a cumulative way where I can provide oversight and feedback frequently (similar to how Claude Code asks clarifying questions when generating an implementation plan). The idea here is that I could passively build a “map” of the domains of knowledge of interest to me. With flashcard generation, the idea is that I could passively capture all the key details from the content and ensure I retain that knowledge through spaced repetition.

The problem with this kind of fantasizing is that it made me lose sight of the habits that need to be developed alongside the tool usage. And that will always feel effortful, no matter what tool I use. There is no passive habit formation.

Q: what is the problem with trying to build workflows that enable "passive" knowledge integration?

A: because knowledge integration requires habit formation alongside tool use and there is no passive habit formation.

Bookmarking content “for later”, even with a sophisticated AI processing pipeline, is to hand off the active cognitive work of learning and reading for one’s future self (or to an AI system completely). Without the right habits, TFTs become tools for deferring attention. Really, what they ought to be called are tools for thinking habits to indicate the synergy between tool and behaviour.

Flashcard Writing as a Thinking Habit

Journey or destination? source

For several years, spaced repetition flashcards have been an essential tool in my daily life for learning and thinking. Among all the TFTs I’ve used, Anki has been the most enduring. Whether I’m learning new vocabulary in a different language, memorizing computer shortcuts or reading a book, flashcards help me articulate and decompose what I’m trying to learn and deeply internalize it.

There are two hard things about using flashcards: writing them and reviewing them consistently. For review, I’ve habitualized daily review. I slip up and sometimes it feels like a grind, but overall it’s easy for me to review all my queued flashcards for the day. On the other hand, flashcard writing is much more effortful. Especially on mobile, the experience is clunky and riddled with mental friction. Hence my grasping for technological fixes described above. But just like with adding splitwise transactions to lunch money, perhaps there is a simpler and more effective behavioural solution?

My answer to that question recently has been to treat flashcard writing as note-taking. Instead of bookmarking a link and leaving some quick notes for my future self to process into flashcards (which I’ve done extensively using many different apps), I try to write the flashcards as I’m engaging with the content. No attention deferred to my future self. Instead, what’s left for my future self is a set of flashcards to review, synthesized by actively engaging with content.

Q: what are the two hard things about flashcard writing?

A: writing them well and reviewing them consistently.

Q: what does [author] do to avoid deferring attention by "saving it for later" and to engage with content more actively?

A: To write flashcards while reading. To treat flashcard writing as the primary form of note-taking.

This subtle behavioural shift has completely reshaped by relationship to content and learning. Thus is the power of habits.

The process of turning my comprehension of the content into flashcards ensures I’m actually engaging with and thinking about the content. It’s very hard (impossible?) to passively write flashcards from content. I’m forced to consider things like what am I learning from this content? How do I formulate reviewable question/answer pairs from it? Which itself is the process of learning. Not some magical thing that comes later, but in the concrete and effortful here and now.

Q: what is identified as the process of learning?

A: the active engagement with content and the process of formulating reviewable question/answer pairs.

Then, spaced repetition review of these flashcards ensures I’m turning those ephemeral moments of understanding and insight into internalized, long-term comprehension. This self-reinforcing dynamic shines for longer content like books. If I’m actively writing and reviewing flashcards from a book, I’m actively integrating the knowledge from the book as I’m reading it. I get to carry all the relevant knowledge and insight from previous chapters into the rest of the book. Everything clicks more clearly. The book feels much more like a dialogue and thinking partner.

Of course, this dramatically “slows” the speed of reading. But is it really reading if I’m not engaging with it in a deep way? I’m here to learn, which means proactively internalizing knowledge, insights and wisdom to shape the way I understand the world. Taking the time to write flashcards is to accept that learning is a journey much more than it is a destination.

Spaced repetition flashcards, like Anki, are both a tool and a habit. Paired together, they are an unimaginably effective tool for any life-long learning journey.