Learning formula

Have you ever thought about a simple formula you can always rely on to maximize your learning?

I have and according to me, it’s as simple as follows:"Learning = Knowledge Acquisition Rate - Rate of Forgetting""Where priority of Rate of Forgetting > Knowledge Acquisition Rate"

Knowledge Acquisition Rate
Simply said, knowledge acquisition rate is the speed at which you acquire new knowledge. This can be measured in various ways, but I personally like to measure it according to “items per time” e.g. 10 items per hour.

You can simply hold account of these items in all kinds of programs like Anki or Quizlet.

Maximizing the knowledge acquisition rate can be done through various ways, like reading a good high-rated non-fiction book. Or my favorite: Wikipedia seems to usually contain the most dense and compact forms of knowledge.

You can usually also sense and feel whether the knowledge acquisition rate is high or not.

Rate of Forgetting
Now, it doesn’t matter how high your knowledge acquisition rate is if you forget everything within a week. This is why I added a second part to the learning formula: rate of forgetting.

This simply means how many items you forget per time, usually denoted in percentages for simplicity and practicability e.g. forgetting 50% of the acquired knowledge from 7 days ago.

Minimizing the rate of forgetting can be done through spaced repetition.

Priority of Rate of Forgetting > Knowledge Acquisition Rate
The last part of the formula is giving the rate of forgetting a higher priority than the knowledge acquisition rate. Why? Because it’s more efficient to do so thanks to the spaced repetition effect i.e. acts of revision should be spaced in gradually increasing intervals, roughly intervals of one day, two days, four days, eight days, and so on.

One can imagine, then, how this requires less and less time and energy the more acts of revision have already taken place. This, in contrast to the knowledge acquisition rate that doesn’t necessarily grow exponentially in terms of efficiency.

Simply said, if you have limited time and have to choose between an act of revision through programs like Quizlet or reading a book, choose for spaced repetition.

You Don’t Have To Choose When Combining Both
Now, it is possible to create a situation where you don’t have to choose between “spaced repetition” and “acquiring new knowledge”.

For example, if you previously read a book about metacognition or learning how to learn, and you now decide to read the Wikipedia page on metacognition, you are essentially applying both spaced repetition and acquiring new knowledge.