I have been on Anki for under 3 months. I am very active and have reached a point where I have over 100 reviews each day for each deck. I can’t find enough time to go through that many cards in my several decks every day. Is there a strategy for reducing the number of reviews, or is this a necessity for successful learning ? Thanks for your help.
You can reduce the desired retention (if you haven’t already, you should enable FSRS in the deck options), or you can slow down introducing new cards.
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Anki considers 100% of knowledge essential. But in reality, it doesn’t work that way. Forgetting is normal. The knowledge you really need is retained, and your resources aren’t wasted on anything else. So we do the same as in traditional learning: study something for at least 3-4 weeks, then consider it long-term memory, and we’ll need to review it before an exam (every six months) or before applying for a job.
Many will say I’m wrong. That’s your right, and you should consider your own experience. I long ago realized that reviewing 100 flashcards from 20 different subjects is ineffective. I prefer to choose one subject and review 100 cards from it. Therefore, I advocate creating a separate deck for each subject, or even a separate subdeck for each section of the textbook, and focusing on that specific deck for 3-4 weeks and then moving on to the next, rather than trying to learn everything at once. It’s like learning 16 languages at once, have you tried it?
Thank you. Reducing new cards for a few days should move the review backlog farther into the future I reckon.
I don’t fully understand what “desired retention” means and how it affects the growing pile of work accumulating.
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Desired retention (DR) is basically a number you can change in the deck options.
Anki tries to schedule your reviews to make your retention (the percentage of reviews you pass) as close as it can to your DR. Thus, the higher DR the more reviews you have to do (and the shorter the intervals get).
You can read this reddit post to learn more about FSRS and DR.
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Thanks for sharing your experience. I am only using Anki to learn Spanish. I feel language learning needs various inputs but not really sequentially. I need to learn grammar, vocabulary plus idiomatic quirks and I feel it best to have to have this all happen at the same time. So even tho I’m using 3 or so decks, one is for straight vocabulary, one for very simple but handy phrases and one for more complex sentences.
The vocabulary is pretty fast, but the other stuff gets hung up and can be forgotten after a month (or less) and piles up.
At the same time the vocabulary piles up, not because I forget it, but because there is just so much. With vocab I have the most accuracy but also the most to review. Can you tell me how to fix that issue?
S
I’m not a polyglot. Although I monitor and analyze many channels and am subscribed to our polyglot channel. Everyone has their own methods. I’m all for finding a method that develops them well, that’s great. But the fact is, not everyone uses the same methods. So try changing your learning and memorization methods.
As for the amount of material—yes, and the longer you study, the greater the load. This is where I see the downside of chasing a high “Desired Retention (DR)” level. Don’t strive to memorize everything. Even for an exam, 90% is acceptable, but in real life, 75% is quite enough, and the rest can be asked, clarified, and so on.
How do you memorize so you don’t forget? Well, I already said that forgetting is normal. We remember what we actively use today, and we use it tomorrow. It takes three weeks to form a lasting habit. What does that mean? And the fact that stable connections are formed between neurons, everything essentially grows where it needs to. It’s not a fast process. Yes, there are mnemonic techniques, but these aren’t for quick recall; they’re techniques for quickly storing something in your head and then retracing that path, recalling it again and again, thus memorizing. Essentially, these are anks in your head, that’s what mnemonics is. Sorry, but I have a lot of advice, and you’re interested in the one that works for you 
Any problem, whether in programming or business, begins with analysis. You need to analyze your methods, your knowledge, and then draw conclusions. A professional would do this and tell you exactly where you’re making mistakes and where you’re not. I don’t even completely agree with the anks regarding the number of repetitions, the best timing, and so on. But such things exist, and everyone somehow tweaks anks to suit their own needs and tries to find their own solutions. Give it a try.