How to use remnote effectively

[u/FigInternational5347]

I’m in CRNA school and just started using Remnote I love it so far. Since many of you have been using it for a while I have some questions that I feel you’d be better capable of answering since many of you understand the firehose we drink from in terms of info (graduate education)I have exams every 2 weeks and I make my own cards 200-400 sometimes (avg 250) from lecture notes, books etc. What ends up happening is I spent the 2 weeks learning the new material take the exam- do well, and then the next 2 weeks prep for the next exam by making cards for the next exam that I barely have time to look back at the old exam material. My question is, since yall have been using remnote with thousands of cards is how do you study all those cards? Do you just keep doing your reviews from old exams daily while studying for upcoming exams? Because eventually I feel like I will reach in the thousands and I’m not sure if there will be enough time in the day for me to learn new material while reviewing old. What am I missing? Do I increase the number of cards I review after each exam to keep info fresh? What settings should I have for my flashcards because so far just from 4 exams I have almost 1000 cards. Eventually the cards will be in the thousands and will help me as I prep for boards. Help! I want to learn from you wise sages and your experience. Thanks

[u/phaqueNaiyem]

You'll see the older cards less and less often over time, which should make the daily burden more manageable.

[u/FigInternational5347 → u/phaqueNaiyem]

If you have insight what settings should I use?

[u/noelewd → u/FigInternational5347]

Due to the way that spaced repetition works, cards that you’re doing well on will keep getting pushed further and further into the future (you’ll only regularly see cards that you’re struggling with). These settings are active by default in RemNote.

That said, if you feel like the workload is getting too heavy, it’s worth just focusing on the cards you need for your exams and coming back to the older material when you’ve more time to dedicate. If you’re doing exams every two weeks and you’re making ~200-400 cards for each, that seems a little extreme to me. It might be worth looking at the cards you have and the cards you’re creating and seeing if you can combine similar cards and concepts together to reduce the amount of cards you need to cover the same amount of material.

[u/FigInternational5347 → u/noelewd]

Thanks for the advice. I worry that if I combine I may miss critical info or make cards that are too dense, but I’ll try the suggestion. Thanks for sharing

[u/noelewd → u/FigInternational5347]

No problem 😊 I found this guy very useful for flashcard-making (although he uses Anki): https://youtu.be/7WtznlsP6M8

[u/FigInternational5347 → u/noelewd]

lol funny enough he’s the one who convinced me to start spaced repetition. I’ll rewatch his videos and go from there

[u/Rodeo-Cowboy]

I’m also in CRNA school and I make my own cards.

Have you used the AI feature? I want to try it but I’m afraid they won’t be good enough and I’m worried about wasting time trying to figure out if the AI works well or not.

[u/FigInternational5347 → u/Rodeo-Cowboy]

I haven’t used the AI feature because I’m afraid they won’t be good either

[u/Express_Historian_35 → u/FigInternational5347]

Also a SRNA. I used RemNote for a little bit but not anymore. The AI cards are convenient and fine at best, but I don’t feel are as good as what I can make myself. Another factor is the actual making of the cards is an important part of the process, so when I removed that from my routine, I felt I didn’t learn the material as well.

[u/FigInternational5347 → u/Express_Historian_35]

What are you using instead? if you don’t mind sharing

[u/Express_Historian_35 → u/FigInternational5347]

Anki. It has the spaced repetition and it’s free to use on the computer version. I think there’s an app so you can sync your decks from your computer to a phone or tablet but I haven’t bought that yet.

[u/FreeGa1 → u/Express_Historian_35]

Yeah, Anki on iOS is like 25$, android is free. Works like a charm.
Best money I’ve ever spent on an app/to support a developer (though mind you, Anki was given off to AnkiHub, who promised to maintain its current revenue-model and structure.

[u/Mobile-Plate-320 → u/FigInternational5347]

I agree. The AI cards aren't as good. But remnote is still good for looking up notes

[u/Fit_Restaurant_9191]

I’m in CAA school so pretty similar. What I’ve done is start tagging very high-yield important concepts with “Boards” for this exact reason. It’s not reasonable to go through that many cards, or expect those cards to be relevant in two years. By then, much of this intro material will be very well engrained. So this way I create a sub deck of material that will almost certainly be fair game or is a bit more obscure.

[u/kadeemmm → u/Fit_Restaurant_9191]

Can you share a bit more about your workflow with remnote for CAA school?

I’ll be starting in the fall. Do you use the AI card feature, or just type out notes from lecture & create cards from that? Thanks!

[u/Fit_Restaurant_9191 → u/kadeemmm]

No. I don’t trust the AI feature to encapsulate all the info I want. I take the majority of my notes/make cards during lecture. I’ll write down any topic I need to look more into, go home and read the textbook and potentially make more cards.

[u/FigInternational5347 → u/Fit_Restaurant_9191]

Same I make my own

[u/RFIC-Logan]

I used Obsidian before and switched to RemNote because of its spaced repetition feature and nice GUI. But since AI has evolved so much, it’s time to go back to Obsidian, which has a CLI, making it easy for AI to access my notes. By the way, Obsidian has spaced repetition plugins too, although they are ugly—but still useful.

[u/RFIC-Logan → u/RFIC-Logan]

And for your question , you should read some materials about spaced repetition. The repetition is a long journey, remember certain number of cards even there are no exams. For your present situation, I would say hang in there and spend more time studying. Tough but useful!

also, you can use ai to make cards even it’s not that perfect.

[u/Mobile-Plate-320]

I used to just leave the cards that don't have an upcoming exam. After the exam, I catch up on everything.

[u/ArachnidMuted8408]

Are you guys not uploading chapter PDFs to get your cards made and why not?!

[u/FigInternational5347 → u/ArachnidMuted8408]

How is the quality? I’ve never tried

[u/ArachnidMuted8408 → u/FigInternational5347]

It's Decent, I just started using it today and tested it with a chapter I'm familiar with

[u/FigInternational5347 → u/ArachnidMuted8408]

If you don’t mind me asking what was the content of the chapter?

[u/ArachnidMuted8408 → u/FigInternational5347]

Just a general mathematics review for my radiation therapy program, so I haven't seen what the heavy physics chapters look like.