What is the proper number of anki cards to do in a day?

I think the answer is largely person-dependent, with just a few of the variables including…

• how well you want to do on your exams

• what kind of free time and life outside of school you might want to have

• your ability to crank out cards

• your retention rate

• the number of practice questions outside of Anki you want to do

For the first variable I think there is a great gradient of how well you actually need to do in medical school. If you are not striving for a competitive residency, then one may need to grind as hard as possible. However, if striving for a less competitive residency, it may be rational and indeed the more pragmatic decision (if all roads lead to the same outcome) to enjoy your life more outside of school by studying less (aka doing fewer anki cards per day). Who did better, Amazon who shipped your prime box to your door for only 2 dollars of effort or UPS who shipped your box to your door for 5 dollars of effort? In both scenarios, there is the same outcome—the box on your front doorstep.

To the second variable mentioned above, if you enjoy school and do not have a family or friends maybe you can justify doing more cards every day because you have nothing else to do. This is partially my situation. Indeed, studying less and having reduced stress in general may increase your performance in general by enhancing your well-being and by particularly helping you perform under stressful OSCE situations (which also tends to count towards whatever your medical school is hanging over your head to provoke better grades, in my school’s case my class quartile).

Regarding the third variable on cranking out cards, you may have a really good system of exercising while studying or of waking up early in the morning and being on a roll to get a lot of cards done. This can affect your daily output.

If your retention rate is low, then you may want to take more time and understand the concepts behind the cards more rather than punching through as many cards as possible. I think there are merits and weaknesses to both approaches potentially.

Also, it may very well be optimal to do more practice questions from sites like amboss or uworld instead of smashing the spacebar a similar amount of time, as it is important to be able to apply the information in new ways which anki inherently is not the best at since it shows you the same info over and over again. Doing practice questions may also enhance your thinking skills which anki excels less at, but this is situation-dependent as if you are already doing a lot of practice questions in your particular medical school class each day, as is my situation, maybe you lean on doing more anki cards on a normal day since you are already getting thinking skill practice.

As mentioned, the number of cards one can get through on a given day is very situation dependent, and therefore is by no means a direct correlation between effort or performance in school in general. If one can find time to double task during the day this can greatly increase your card output. Maybe one uses a controller and studies while on an exercise bike with their laptop propped up or when commuting on the bus/subway. Safely doing cards while driving, like listening to a podcast, with the volume up and a laptop in the passenger seat while holding a small controller and keeping eyes and attention on the road could increase card counts (not recommending as this can be dangerous). If one can usually get 100 cards done every 30 minutes or 200 done every hour (a rough rule of thumb I use for planning), then finding an hour on commute and an hour while exercising on a treadmill or exercise bike could potentially add 400 cards or more to your daily card counts, freeing up time to do other things.

I pray that you come to a decision on how many anki cards to do a day. I will refrain from mentioning numbers, as there is not one right answer. May God give you wisdom as to how to balance your life during this incredible stage of life you may be in in medical school or in whatever field you may be pursuing. I wish the best of luck to you and change the world one small bit, or card, at a time.