Best Resources on How to Engage with Our SuperMemo Community
Welcome to the SuperMemo community! You’re one of us now. As explained in Why is incremental reading not popular, not that many people:
1. are interested in learning how to learn
2. realized the problems with current learning approaches (passive learning, cramming etc)
3. discovered the needs for learning how to learn
4. are ever going to discover SuperMemo (or Anki for that matter)
Therefore, it’s very difficult to find like-minded people to interact with but such interaction is important. Here’s how James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, explains the importance on being a part of the tribe:
Nothing sustains motivation better than belonging to the tribe. It transforms a personal quest into a shared one.
Previously, you were on your own. Your identity was singular. You are a reader. You are a musician. You are an athlete. When you join a book club or a band or a cycling group, your identity becomes linked to those around you. Growth and change is no longer an individual pursuit. We are readers. We are musicians. We are cyclists.
The shared identity begins to reinforce your personal identity. This is why remaining part of a group after achieving a goal is crucial to maintaining your habits. It’s friendship and community that embed a new identity and help behaviors last over the long run.
No despair! When I started out there was so little online information about SuperMemo that I almost thought this program was dead. I didn’t want to read the super-long SuperMemo official articles and guides. Now after a few years things have changed. The Internet has helped gather many SuperMemo users around the world. If you want to learn more how other people are using SuperMemo or interact with us, here’s my starter guide:
One List to Rule Them All: Community-curated List
This list has everything you need (or everything you’ve got) that reflects the current state of SuperMemo resources. It’s well-put by the community, for the community. I promise you that you can’t find any more complete list on the web.
One Discord Channel to Rule Them All: SuperMemo.wiki
A lot of the people behind the Github list are active on this Discord channel. When I first interacted with my fellow SuperMemo users, I was like “wait he’s interested in that too?”, “wait he’s read that book too?”, “wow the article he shares is really interesting!” You’re likely to expand your knowledge beyond SuperMemo.
Sometimes, I’m reluctant to share my experience or my particular SuperMemo usage. I may very well be wrong and I don’t want to mislead you. Hence I would have more faith in the collective wisdom and the best way is the get multiple perspectives from different SuperMemo users on this channel.
Side note on decision paralysis: I understand that too many options and links and recommendations can lead to decision paralysis. So if you stop reading now, I hope you check out the Community-curated List on Github and join our SuperMemo.wiki Discord.
What to Do When You Have SuperMemo Questions?
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Ask in SuperMemo.wiki Discord. You’ll likely get the quickest response from other active and committed SuperMemo users.
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Ask in the r/super_memo and you may get a response from the intelligent alessivs or from me.
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Ask in SuperMemopedia to get in touch with Woz, the creator of SuperMemo. What’s better than asking the SuperMemo creator himself?
My Two Cents
The following are some of my two cents on some resources listed above, many which are created by members in the Discord channel.
Subreddit super_memo: I helped create this r/super_memo. If you want to interact with the intelligent alessivs it’s your best place.
SuperMemo Community YouTube channel: a community-effort YouTube channel.
Official SuperMemo YouTube channel that rarely gets updated.
Pleasurable Learning SuperMemo YouTube channel: a SuperMemo user with previously more than 10 years of Anki experience. He can give you another perspective (other than mine) on the differences between Anki and SuperMemo. Also he has a lot of tidbits of useful SuperMemo info and tricks.
SuperMemo Assistant wiki: The best starter guide for using SuperMemo Assistant wiki.
Georgios’s blog: I believe Georgios is the author of the Procedural SuperMemo blog.
My recommendations if you want similar content you find here: JamesB’s, strategypattern’s, Naess’s and Fowl’s.
Golden Nuggets Podcast: The only SuperMemo podcast in the world, created by the thoughtful jamesb and strategypattern.
Conclusion
The SuperMemo community has grown a lot since I first started using SuperMemo: it’s more vibrant, richer and most importantly, you’re not alone in your SuperMemo journey.