I’ve been thinking about this for a while, and I feel like there’s a gap between what Anki is incredibly good at and where many users actually struggle.
Anki is excellent at deciding what I should review. But for me (and judging from the number of reminder-related posts on this forum, for plenty of others), the bigger problem is often something much simpler: opening Anki in the first place.
What if Anki experimented with an optional mode focused on helping users start their review session?
I’m not talking about changing the algorithm or turning Anki into anything else. The review experience itself could stay exactly the same.
I’m talking about applying some well-established ideas from behavioral psychology to reduce the friction of getting started.
For example, instead of a generic “Time to study” notification, imagine reminders that adapt to when you’re most likely to study, or tell you “Today’s reviews will probably take about 3 minutes.” A single tap would take you directly into today’s reviews.
The goal wouldn’t be to increase screen time or make Anki addictive. Quite the opposite. The success metric would simply be: did the user start today’s review session?
One thing I’ve noticed is that people often recommend using a separate habit tracker or reminder app. While those certainly work, they also introduce another step. Every extra step is another opportunity to think “I’ll do it later.” Keeping the behavioral support inside Anki itself seems like it could reduce that friction.
I also think this would fit well as an experimental or opt-in feature. Some users prefer Anki to remain as minimal as possible, and that’s completely fair. But it could be interesting to see whether this kind of behavioral layer actually improves review consistency for users who choose to enable it.
In my opinion, the core functionality is just great. My general problem is just returning to the Anki to actually study. Social media apps are quite good at it, but we know how much ethical they might be. Anki in my opinion has legitimate reasons and I suggest this because I think it’s good to experiment with some behaviour psychology stuff to make beginner like me actually come to study back, cause I am not that much used to whole lot of stuff like this.
I’m curious what others think. Has this idea ever been explored before, or are there technical or philosophical reasons why Anki has intentionally stayed away from this direction?