The schedule
Everything on this page is derived from your reps. Nothing about your schedule is stored separately, so it can always be recomputed from what you actually did.
One clock per problem type
Section titled “One clock per problem type”falsewrk schedules problem types, not individual problems. “When should you next see a one-way slab?” — never “when should you see slab #37 again?”. Each type has many versions, and any of them will do.
Each type keeps two dates:
- Due — when it needs practice again, from its interval.
- Cold read open — seven days after you last saw it. From then on, its next rep measures what you have kept. See Practice and Retained.
Only the first one ever asks anything of you. A type is owed reps today if it is new or due — nothing else. An open cold read never brings a type back early and never sends a reminder: it only means that whenever you next answer that type, the answer counts as a cold read. Any type with an interval of a week or more has rested at least a week by the time it is due, so its due rep is a cold read anyway.
Days are your local calendar days, not 24-hour periods. Practise on Monday evening with a 3-day interval and Thursday morning is fine.
How intervals change
Section titled “How intervals change”Only the first rep of a type each day is graded — the one you answer cold. Later reps that day come after its reveal has just shown you the method, so they are practice and do not move the schedule.
The first time you answer a type:
| Your first answer | Comes back in |
|---|---|
| Way off | 1 day |
| Miss | 2 days |
| Acceptable or excellent | 3 days |
After that, measured on the actual gap since you last saw it:
| Graded rep | New interval |
|---|---|
| Excellent, under 30 s | the gap × 2.5 — but never less than the current interval, and never more than 3× it |
| Acceptable (or excellent but slow) | the current interval, held |
| Miss | 2 days |
| Way off | 1 day |
Intervals are capped at 60 days.
Using the actual gap matters. Come back late and still get it right, and you are credited for the longer gap you survived. Come back early and get it right, and your interval cannot shrink. The 3× limit stops one lucky late answer from sending a type away for months.
Learning, settled and relearning
Section titled “Learning, settled and relearning”How many reps a type asks for depends on how well you know it.
- Learning — new, or fewer than three good graded reps in a row since its last miss (“good” means acceptable or better). A learning type asks for 3 reps each time it comes up.
- Settled — its last three graded reps were all acceptable or better. A settled type asks for 1 rep: the test.
- Relearning — a settled type whose graded rep today was a miss or way off asks for 3 more reps today, while the reveal’s method is fresh.
What a typical type looks like
Section titled “What a typical type looks like”Someone who opens the app every day and answers one type excellently and quickly each time:
| Day | Why it is owed | Reps | Cold read? | Interval after |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | New | 3 | — | 3 days |
| 4 | Due | 3 | — | 8 days |
| 12 | Due | 3 | Yes, after 8 days | 20 days |
| 32 | Due | 1 | Yes, after 20 days | 50 days |
| 82 | Due | 1 | Yes, after 50 days | 60 days |
The gaps stretch — 3, 8, 20, 50 days — and every return after the first week is a cold read. The type settles on day 12, after three good graded reps in a row, and from then on asks for a single rep each time it comes back. A miss anywhere along the way brings it back in two days and starts the climb again.
Daily limits
Section titled “Daily limits”Two limits keep a day manageable:
- At most 20 owed reps a day. Coming back after a month away, you see 20, not everything at once. Whatever does not fit waits, and is first in line tomorrow because it is the most overdue. Relearning reps can go past the limit — they are the point.
- At most 3 new types a day. Each new type comes back within two or three days, so starting ten at once would bury you later in the week.
The order you see them in
Section titled “The order you see them in”- Every owed type’s first rep before any type’s second, so if you stop early you have still taken every graded rep that mattered.
- Within that: due types first (most overdue first), then new types.
- Learning types’ later reps go round in turn — A, B, C, A, B, C — rather than three of one then three of the next.
When you are done
Section titled “When you are done”When nothing more is owed, you are done for today. You can keep practising as long as you like, and it costs nothing: extra reps are drawn only from the types you have already done today. A type is graded at most once a day, so those reps never move its schedule, and every type that is resting stays untouched until it is due.
On a day when nothing was due, extra practice sticks to the one type you practised most recently — the one whose rest has run least. The rest keep resting.
Why it works this way: every rep restarts its type’s seven-day cold-read clock, and the first rep of a day is graded on the gap since you last saw the type. Spread across every type, a few extra reps a day would keep each one coming back early — its interval would never grow and it would never rest long enough for a cold read. Kept to one type, the rest of the schedule runs as if the extra reps never happened.
You can still choose to practise a particular resting type from its row on Home. If it has rested a week, that first answer is a cold read and counts toward Retained; either way, its next cold read moves a week further away.