Mind maxing, studying toward a date

October 10, 2026

Mind maxing is how we think about studying toward a date. You pick something you want to be ready for, write the cards yourself, and work the decks until they're maxed before the day comes.

What a maxed deck is

A deck is maxed when the last time you saw each card, you rated it a 5. It doesn't stay that way forever. Cards come back on a schedule, and one miss drops the deck below max until you get that card again. Staying close to max is the point.

Be specific about the goal

"Learn SQL" is hard to study for. "Answer the SQL questions in a phone screen without looking anything up" is easy to write cards for, and you'll know when you're there. Do the same with the date. "The organic chemistry final on December 12" tells you how many days you have and roughly how much to study each one.

The steps

1. Write down the goal and the date.
2. Split the goal into topics and give each one its own deck. Writing a card makes you decide what the answer actually is, and that's the first pass of learning it.
3. Study ten cards at a time, most days. A few short rounds a day beat one long session the night before. Here's why.
4. Watch the mastery bars. The red and orange cards are the ones you keep missing, and they come up most often.
5. Plan to max the decks a week or so before the date, so the last days are reviews instead of new cards.

When the date moves

Interviews get scheduled early. Exams get moved. If you're behind, add a round or two a day. If you get there early and want to be sure, reset a deck and run it again. Your history stays, and the cards you already know come back quickly.