Spaced Repetition Scheduler
Enter the topics you're learning, the day you first study each one and the date of your exam. The scheduler sets review dates on expanding intervals — one, three, seven, fourteen and thirty days later by default — squeezes them in proportion when the exam comes sooner, and merges every topic into one review calendar you can export.
Topics
Whole days separated by commas. 1, 3, 7, 14, 30 means reviews one, three, seven, fourteen and thirty days after you first study a topic.
Name at least one topic and choose your exam date to see the review schedule.
How to Use the Spaced Repetition Scheduler
- 1. Add your topics. One row per topic, with the date you first study it — today for something you learned this morning, a later date for a chapter you'll reach next week.
- 2. Set the exam date. Every review is scheduled before it, the last one no later than the day before.
- 3. Keep or edit the intervals. The default 1, 3, 7, 14, 30 means reviews that many days after first study. Type your own, separated by commas, and choose whether to add a last review the day before the exam.
- 4. Review on the dates shown. The calendar lists each day's reviews across all topics. Export it as an .ics file to get the reviews in Google Calendar, Outlook or Apple Calendar.
How the Review Dates Are Set
Intervals count from the day you first study a topic, so the default schedule reviews it on days 1, 3, 7, 14 and 30. The gaps between those reviews — 1, 2, 4, 7 and 16 days — grow each time, which is what makes the intervals expanding. If the exam is well beyond the last review, the scheduler can add one more the day before the exam; it skips that review when it would land the day right after another.
When the exam comes before the last interval would, the schedule is compressed rather than cut off. Every interval is scaled by the same factor so the last review falls the day before the exam, then each review is kept at least a day after the one before it. With fewer days than reviews, you simply review every day.
Compressing intervals to fit
fitted day = round(interval × days available ÷ last interval)
then held between "one day after the previous review" and "late enough to leave a day for each review still to come"
Worked example
You first study photosynthesis on Monday 5 October 2026. With the exam on Friday 4 December, everything fits: reviews fall on 6, 8, 12 and 19 October and 4 November (days 1, 3, 7, 14 and 30), plus a last review on Thursday 3 December — six in all.
Move the exam to Monday 19 October and only 13 days are available, so the intervals shrink by 13 ÷ 30. Day 1 scales to 0.43 and is raised to 1; day 3 scales to 1.3, which rounds to 1 and is pushed to 2 to follow the first review; day 7 becomes 3, day 14 becomes 6 and day 30 becomes 13. The reviews land on 6, 7, 8, 11 and 18 October — still five reviews, still spreading out, and the last one the day before the exam.
The Forgetting Curve and the Spacing Effect
In the 1880s Hermann Ebbinghaus memorised lists of nonsense syllables and measured how much time he saved when relearning them after delays ranging from twenty minutes to a month. Most of what he lost went in the first day; after that, forgetting slowed sharply. That shape is the forgetting curve. He was his own only subject, but a 2015 replication by Jaap Murre and Joeri Dros produced a very similar curve.
The spacing effect is the finding that the same amount of study is remembered for longer when it is spread over separate sessions than when it is massed into one. It is among the most reliable results in memory research: Nicholas Cepeda and colleagues' 2006 review in Psychological Bulletin pooled hundreds of experiments, and later work by the same group found that the best gap between sessions grows with how long you need to remember the material. What research has not settled is whether expanding gaps beat evenly spaced ones — studies disagree, so treat 1, 3, 7, 14, 30 as a sensible default rather than a proven optimum.
- Make every review a test. Close the notes and recall: answer questions, explain the topic aloud, or work through flashcards. Retrieving information strengthens memory more than rereading it.
- Keep reviews short. A review is a few minutes of recall per topic, not a second lesson. Spend the time on what you got wrong.
- Start reviews early. The schedule only works if first study happens weeks before the exam; topics first met a few days out get a cramped, every-day plan.
Frequently Asked Questions
- What is spaced repetition?
- Spaced repetition means reviewing material at increasing intervals instead of all at once: soon after first learning it, then again after longer and longer gaps. Each review comes as the memory is starting to fade, and recalling it then makes it last longer. Flashcard apps apply the idea card by card; this scheduler applies it to whole topics on your calendar.
- What are the best spaced repetition intervals?
- There is no single best set. Reviewing after 1, 3, 7, 14 and 30 days is a common rule of thumb, and research suggests longer gaps suit material you need for longer — a final exam months away can take wider intervals than a test next week. Edit the intervals to suit your timeline; the scheduler fits whatever you enter before the exam.
- What if my exam is less than 30 days away?
- The scheduler compresses the intervals instead of dropping reviews: each one is scaled by the same factor so the last falls the day before the exam, with at least a day between reviews. With a two-week runway the default becomes days 1, 2, 3, 6 and 13.
- Is spaced repetition better than cramming?
- For remembering material beyond the next day, yes. Cramming can produce a decent score on an immediate test, but material studied in one long session is forgotten faster than the same study spread over several sessions. Spacing is especially worth it for cumulative finals and for courses that build on earlier units.
- How is this different from Anki or another flashcard app?
- Anki schedules each card individually and adjusts its next interval according to how well you recalled it. This scheduler plans whole topics on fixed intervals against a real exam date, so you can see your review load on a calendar in advance. They work well together: use the calendar to decide when to review a topic, and flashcards to do the reviewing.
- Can I add the review dates to my calendar?
- Yes. "Add to calendar (.ics)" downloads one all-day event for each review day, listing the topics to review, plus the exam itself. Import the file into Google Calendar (Settings, then Import & export), Outlook (Add calendar, then Upload from file) or Apple Calendar (File, then Import). Nothing you enter is uploaded or saved by this page.