Spaced repetition is an evidence-based learning technique which involves reviewing information at increasingly longer time intervals. It makes your brain actively learn: just as the information is slipping away, your brain needs to recall it, thus strengthening the memory pathways.
It's scientifically proven to work, and people using it can memorize much more information. If there is data you need to memorize, it's hands down the most effective way to do so.
So...
If you've read a few other blogposts here, you probably already feel the but!!! coming up. And you're right!
First, a brief explanation of the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition tabletop roleplaying game system. This is a game where you create a character, and assign it various stats. There are six basic ability scores: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, Intelligence, and Wisdom.
Intelligence measures mental acuity, accuracy of recall, and the ability to reason.
Okay, back to spaced repetition. Maybe we can use our intelligence to decide on what's best to learn, and then apply our intelligence to learning it? No. Intelligence does determine how much we can memorize and how quickly we can do it, but I don't think it lets us choose good things to study.
Check this out though:
Wisdom reflects how attuned you are to the world around you and represents perceptiveness and intuition.
That sounds good. If we're more attuned to the world around us, more perceptive, and have more intuition, we're more likely to choose things to memorize that are actually good. We'll choose things that will be useful in the future.
Good! I'm very wise.
Interesting. In that case, maybe you've noticed that most people with wisdom have learned about spaced repetition but are not using it.
Interesting...