One date in. Seven dates out.
The J method spaces the reviews of a course at widening intervals. The app holds the scale; all you need to know is what falls today.
A class learned on Monday 7 September
This is what the app lays down. Not illustrations: the calculation, applied to one date.
- J0the classMonday 7 September. The only date you enter.
- J1+ 1 dayTuesday 8 September.
- J3+ 2 daysThursday 10 September.
- J7+ 4 daysMonday 14 September — exactly one week after the class.
- J14+ 7 daysMonday 21 September. From here the gap passes a week.
- J30+ 16 daysWednesday 7 October.
- J60+ 30 daysFriday 6 November.
- J90+ 30 daysSunday 6 December. Last mark of the default scale.
A Monday class falls on a Monday again at J7 and J14. That is not a design intention, it is arithmetic — but it is convenient, and the app will not undo it without a reason.
If you have an exam, the scale stops before it
A deadline you enter truncates the series: marks that would fall after the exam are not laid down. Revising a course three months after sitting it serves no purpose, and the app does not pretend otherwise.
Three steps, then nothing left to decide
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You note a course and its date
A title, a subject, the day you had it. Under a minute.
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The app lays out the dates
The seven marks, counted from that day. You can define other rhythms if this one does not suit you.
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It tells you each day what's due
Open the app, see the day's list. Do it, or push it back — that call is yours.
Ten days away does not mean twenty reviews to repay
This is where the app differs most from a plain calendar. A missed review is not a debt to be repaid line by line.
Overdue reviews are grouped by course, and the app offers you only the most advanced one of each course. Doing the J14 makes the missed J7 pointless: the earlier ones are folded underneath, and marked as caught up when you complete the one above.
Twenty-three overdue across eight courses is eight things to do
Not twenty-three. Same information, counted the way it is lived rather than the way the database stores it.
It moves nothing without telling you
When a day exceeds the revision time you allowed it, the app flags it and offers to lighten it. You accept, or you don't. An automatic mode exists in the settings if you prefer the opposite, but it is not the default.
You can also push any review back by hand, without justifying it and without the course's scale being recomputed behind your back.
What the app does not do
- It hosts no course material: no editor, no attachment, no document import.
- It does not quiz you and marks nothing. The revising is yours to do, with whatever material you like.
- It does not score your performance and does not adapt the scale to answers you would give it.
Spacing your reviews, and testing yourself instead of rereading, are two of the best-supported study techniques: see Cepeda et al. (2006) on distributed practice, Roediger & Karpicke (2006) on the testing effect, and the review by Dunlosky et al. (2013). The J method is one common formulation of it. That research describes the method — not this app.