How scheduling works
Anki shows cards in three buckets: New (never seen), Learning (short-interval repeats until stable), and Review (longer intervals as you remember). Press Again/Hard/Good/Easy after each card and Anki adjusts the next due date.
The goal is not to clear the deck—it is to show up every day and answer what is due. Missing a day creates a backlog; Anki will reschedule, but catching up feels worse than steady ten-minute sessions.
New, Learning, and Review
New
Cards you have never studied. Anki introduces them slowly based on your daily new-card limit.
Learning
Cards you are still stabilizing—often seen again minutes or hours later the same day.
Review
Cards that graduated from learning. Intervals stretch from days to weeks to months when you answer Good or Easy.
A sustainable first-week routine
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Set a daily new-card limit you can keep—10–20 new cards is plenty for language vocab while you learn the app.
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Study at the same time each day (morning commute, lunch, before bed).
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Press Show Answer honestly; do not peek if you are unsure.
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Use Again when you failed, Good when you got it with reasonable effort. Reserve Easy for trivial recalls.
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Stop when the session ends—do not add extra new cards because you feel productive.
Set your new-card limit
Protect tomorrow's queue
On desktop: click the gear icon next to your deck → Options → New cards/day. Lower this before importing a large deck. You can always raise it later when reviews feel easy.
Syncing between devices
Create a free AnkiWeb account and sign in on each device. Sync pushes your scheduling progress so you do not repeat reviews on phone and laptop separately.
Sync after import and after each study session on mobile. If prompted about conflicts, choose the side with the study progress you want to keep.