Spaced Review
The Forgetting Curve
Hermann Ebbinghaus, testing himself on lists of nonsense syllables in 1885, found that memory decays sharply at first and then levels off. Roughly 50% was gone within a day and 80–90% within a week, with no review at all. His material was deliberately meaningless, so a lecture you half-understand will not decay on exactly that curve — but the shape holds, and the steepest part is the first 24 hours.
What Spacing Does
Reviewing material at increasing intervals — just before you’re about to forget it — forces effortful retrieval that strengthens the memory trace far more than re-reading.
Pauk’s Review Schedule
Walter Pauk prescribed a simple weekly review: spend 10–15 minutes each week going through your accumulated cues and summaries. Don’t re-read the full notes — just work from the cue questions.
CoreNotes implements a digital version of this on a fixed expanding schedule — each successful recall pushes the next review further out:
| Review | When |
|---|---|
| 1st | 1 day after |
| 2nd | 3 days |
| 3rd | 7 days (1 week) |
| 4th | 14 days (2 weeks) |
| 5th | 30 days (1 month) |
| 6th | 60 days (2 months) |
How CoreNotes Automates Review
When you add a note to the review queue (or save via SQ3R), CoreNotes schedules it at the day-1 interval. After each review session:
- “Got it” — advances to the next interval
- “Missed it” — resets to day 1
The Review tab shows only notes that are due today, so you never study more than necessary. Every due date lives in your own browser. Sync it to another device if you want to, or don’t — the schedule works either way.
CoreNotes runs all five Rs — not just the two columns. Free to use, nothing to install, and it keeps working when the wifi does not.
Start a Cornell note →