How Many New Flashcards Should I Study per Day?

Pick the number of new cards whose reviews you can still finish every day a month from now. New cards are cheap today and expensive later: each one comes back several times in its first weeks, so your daily reviews grow with every new card you add.

Why reviews grow

With spaced repetition, a new card is reviewed at short gaps first and longer ones later. In Decks, a card you keep rating Good comes back after 10 minutes, then 1 day, 2 days, 5, 12, 30 and 75 days. So a card you learn today is reviewed about five times in its first three weeks. Add 20 new cards every day and, after a few weeks, most of your study time goes to reviewing earlier cards, not to new ones.

A rough guide

• 5–10 new cards a day: light; reviews stay small. Good for busy weeks or a second language.
• 10–20 a day: a common steady pace. Reviews settle into a routine.
• More than 20: fast, but the reviews pile up quickly, and missing a day hurts more.

Decks starts at 20 new cards a day, and you can change it in Settings.

Signs you've set it too high

• Your reviews take longer every day and you can't finish them.
• You're rating more cards Again than usual because there are too many to keep straight.
• You skip days because the pile is too big.

If that happens, lower the new-card number for a week or two. Your existing reviews keep coming; you just stop adding to them until they settle. See what to do when reviews pile up.

Consistency beats volume

A few cards every day work better than a lot of cards some days. The scheduler assumes you'll show up; when you skip, everything due that day waits for the next one.