Right‑Size Your Anki Load: Limits, Ease, and Leeches

You open Anki’s options and stare. New cards per day? Ease factor? Leech threshold? Numbers everywhere. And somehow, all of them matter. It’s normal to tweak these and still feel overloaded a week later.

Here’s the trick: start with time, not numbers. Your daily minutes are the budget; settings just spend it wisely. Once you think in minutes, everything else becomes easier to tune.

The Time‑Budget Mindset

A lot of people set new cards based on ambition: “I’ll do 50 a day.” For a few days, sure. Then reviews mushroom. Why? Each new card comes back again and again. That’s the multiplier effect.

A simple picture:

• 30 new/day feels fine now
• By week 4, you’re staring at 200+ reviews
• By week 8, it’s a wall

It’s not a moral issue. It’s just math. So we flip it: pick minutes first, then set new cards and review caps to match.

Three Practical Presets (Tweak as Needed)

Use these as starting points. Adjust a little based on your reading speed and topic difficulty.

20 minutes (light)

• New/day: 5–8
• Review cap: ~100
• Goal: quick, reliable sessions

40 minutes (solid)

• New/day: 12–15
• Review cap: ~180
• Goal: main study channel

60 minutes (intensive)

• New/day: 20–25
• Review cap: ~250
• Goal: exam sprints (for a short stretch)

If a week gets noisy—big project, travel—pause new cards. Nothing breaks. You’re just protecting the budget.

Parent vs Child Deck Limits (Quiet Power)

Nested decks are common: Anatomy under Medical, Contracts under Law, and so on. Use parent limits to cap the entire tree. Set the parent to your daily target (say, 150 reviews and 15 new). Child decks inherit, so no single subject hijacks your day.

This also reduces decision fatigue. You’re not micromanaging four decks. You’re steering one system.

Ease Factor, in Plain Language

Ease affects how quickly intervals grow after you press “Good” or “Easy.” Press “Hard” a lot, and ease drops, which shrinks intervals, which brings those cards back too soon. That spiral has a nickname: “ease hell.”

Good habits:

• Be sparing with “Hard” on new or messy cards—rewrite instead
• Use gentle learning steps (like 1m → 10m → 1d) so early memory sets well
• If you see lots of cards with very low ease, check the wording first—most problems are phrasing, not memory

Leeches: Set the Tripwire and Act

Leeches are cards you keep failing. They waste time and morale. Set a threshold that suits your budget (6–8 lapses is a healthy range). Then use this simple 24‑hour protocol:

Hour 1—Inspect

• Is the question vague?
• Is it testing two things at once?
• Is the answer too long?

Hour 2–24—Act

• Rewrite (shorter, clearer)
• Split into multiple atomic cards
• Add a hint or tiny mnemonic
• Suspend if it’s low value

Example fix:
Original: “Causes, symptoms, and treatment of heart failure?”
Better: three cards—cause (e.g., ischemic heart disease), symptom cluster, first‑line therapies.

Filtered Decks for Catch‑Up (Without Panic)

Life happens. Use filtered decks to handle overflow cleanly.

Overdue Rescue

• Search: is:due prop:due<=-3
• Limit: 50
• Reschedule: No
• Purpose: chip away at older cards without overwhelming today

Today Only

• Search: is:due prop:due>=0 prop:due<=0
• Limit: 100–150
• Reschedule: No
• Purpose: finish current load, then tackle the backlog

High‑Yield Focus

• Search: tag:important OR tag:exam
• Limit: 30
• Reschedule: No
• Purpose: protect the material that matters most

Helpful Add‑Ons (Small Tools, Big Calm)

• Review Heatmap: keeps streaks visible, which nudges consistency
• Load Balancer: spreads reviews to avoid spikes
• Reset Ease (use gently): for a clean slate after a rewrite phase
• More Overview Stats: makes patterns obvious so you can adjust settings with confidence

Light AI, Firm Hand

AI can:

• Suggest new‑card counts from your actual session times
• Flag leeches early based on patterns (slow responses, repeated lapses)
• Recommend gentler steps for complex topics

AI shouldn’t:

• Flood you with new cards because a chapter was long
• Suggest settings that ignore your daily minutes

Keep the rules simple: daily new cards follow your time budget; every suggestion is yours to approve.

A Weekly Calibration (Ten Minutes, Tops)

• Check: are you staying within your time budget?
• Adjust: +/– 2–3 new cards based on the past week
• Review: ease distribution; lots of low‑ease cards = rewrite pass
• Scan: leech tags; fix a handful now, not a pile later

FAQs You’re Probably Thinking

How do I know my settings are working?

You finish within your time window, retention holds around 85–90%, ease doesn’t nosedive, and you don’t feel dread when you open Anki.

Should I use the same settings for every deck?

Start with one preset. Nudge per subject—languages may like shorter steps, complex science might like longer learning steps and fewer new cards.

What if I keep missing my daily target?

Cut new cards by 25–50% for a week. Or split the session in two. You might also be carrying too many leeches—fix a few and the load eases fast.

Is it okay to cap reviews?

Yes. A cap protects your time. If you never finish, Anki becomes a guilt machine. Better a steady flow than a flood.

Settings That Fit Your Day

You don’t need perfect settings. You need settings that hug your day. Pick a time budget, set new cards and review caps to match, use parent limits for balance, and treat leeches like early warning lights. A small weekly check keeps everything honest. That’s how decks stay friendly and, frankly, boring in the best way—reliable, steady, and kind to your future self.

If you want help tuning your settings from actual performance data, let a tool suggest small adjustments. You still steer. Your minutes are the ground truth. Keep them safe, and your deck pays you back.