I've been using 0.5 3 15 60 180 540 1440 and then 3-normal or 4 -easy for a long time and it's working great for proficiency. I do recognition with lighter sentence font to ensure I don't get a meaning of a word from it and pitch black word under it.

I rarely fail cards that are relatively new, but I came up with the conclusion that the last step may slow me down or increase the amount of repetitions I make on the same vocab I already know. I can make the all the steps except the last two in one day. Let's say I start studying new words in the morning, I'll be not able to review the card that had 9 hours interval set and that results in that I see the new cards three days in a row.
Isn't it actually too much or the only thing I should change is the length of 540 interval to let's say to six hours, that is 360 and that will not change the number of steps, but I'll see the cards two days in a row in return.

I tried to set the intervals multiplying themselves about 3 times each one after another, so I'll have a smooth time intervals for "brain" to process the information, but I have a feeling that this configuration may make it too long to see the same cards few days in a row.

What are your settings that are most effective and still will ensure that you don't forget too much information?
Thanks.

Once the intervals are passing over to the next day, the per-day scheduling probably works better. I would delete the last two, and set the graduating interval to 1 day.

Also you don't have to have increasing intervals.

My learning/relearning intervals are like, 2 mins, 5 mins (shows up in the same time slice) 15 mins, 15 mins, 15 mins (doesn't show up in the same time slice).

This way if I study in blocks of 10 minutes (which is how I have my study set, although I do sometimes continue...) then I'll just see the new card whenever I do another round, which might be half an hour or it might be 12 hours depending on what kind of day it is.

Of course if you study in long sessions then you might want to use different times to prevent appearing too often in the same session. I don't really see any reason to have a time larger than 2 hours though in your learning cycles - if you're "learning" the word still, then that's a big enough gap to avoid appearing in the same study session and to be a real test of your memory even if you happen to catch it exactly as it times out.

Like HelenF suggests, if you're no longer "learning" the card but "reviewing" it then you might as well let it go on to normal scheduling.

I'm using 1 5 20 75 360 1440 and it seems to work pretty well.  I add my new cards all at the same time after I clear my reviews for that deck so sometimes the first 3 intervals "mush" together.  I still feel it's works well since those first few repetitions embed the new words in my mind better than waiting a few hours for my next study session.  I could go mad trying to tweek further, but I feel a smooth curve is more or less optimized even if I study in 20-30 minute blocks throughout the day and I end up studying a 20 minute card after a 3 hour study break.

My settings:

Decks are in 4 groups, Active::1 Words, Active::2 Sentences, Active::3 Misc and Active::4 Audio

The top-level Active group is to separate the decks I'm using from random stuff I've downloaded just to have a look at. The number in the name is to fix the sort order. 99% of my reading cards are unsuspended from JMdict, so it's handy to have it at the top of the list.

Active::1 Words (single word -> reading/meaning)
Single word decks, now almost entirely subsumed by my JMdict deck
steps = 120 240, easy = 7 days, starting ease = 200%
lapses: steps = 10 50, new interval = 50%

Active::2 Sentences (sentence -> reading/meaning)
Core 10k, Harry Potter deck, 日本語文法辞典 deck, etc
Settings same as words. I add these sparingly because they tend to be slow to review & not terribly useful.

Active::3 Misc
Kanji (-> meaning), names and other junk from back when I was a lot less well organised about it. I will probably separate the kanji and names into different groups at some point, but I haven't added any for ages so haven't bothered yet. I put さん in the template for the name deck so I know when I'm looking at a name.
steps = 40 80 160 240, easy = 4 days, starting ease = 130% (hate these)
lapses: steps = 40 240, new interval = 50%

Active::4 Audio (nothing but audio on front)
Now dominated by my EZClips deck, but includes core6k, Nayr5k, a few subs2srs decks (native audio only). Slow to review but I like audio cards so I tend to add a lot. Also rarely fail them but instead suspend or (more usually) punt - difficult cards can wait their turn.
steps = 120 240, easy = 10 days, starting ease = 300%
lapses: steps = 30 240, new interval = 50%

Thanks for replies!
I've fiddled a bit adding one additional shorter step, deleting the 6 hours interval but after few days of usage of I found it's too much hassle. If only ANKIdroid had something like a sound or notification reminder to inform when the cards are ready to review them into another learning step that would be better. I had to check my phone too often and that was pain.

Then I tried yogert909 steps suggestion and that works like a charm I can add cards up to 2 pm and have no trouble seeing them too often so that it makes it irritating.

I have one last question about a feature/ option (?) that I don't understand fully and that is starting ease.
I don't know if I get it right but it stands for the length of interval where new cards show after learning phase till they show after 20-ish days and become mature? I have it set to 240 as the lowest values were showing cards too often, but I could be wrong trying to set this value up if that's not exactly what it does.

Also what are your graduating interval? I have mine set to 3, as I think that I can forget the learned card if I'll set it higher (I didn't even try higher values, cause I think it's risky).
Implying I learn new words from frequency list Core6k, I'm not familiar with most of the words and some may be difficult. For easiest words I have Easy set to 4.

(2016-05-24, 7:05 am)Sztermel Wrote: I have one last question about a feature/ option (?) that I don't understand fully and that is starting ease.

The default starting ease is 250% (2.50) and the default graduating interval is 3 days. Thus if you ignore the random component that Anki does to help spread out reviews and you always mark a card Good you will get:

3 days, marked good, next interval is 3 * 2.5 = 7.5 days
7.5 days, marked good, next interval is 7.5 * 2.5 = 18.75 days
18.75 days, marked good, next interval is 18.75 * 2.5 = ~47 days

If you mark a card anything other than good then its ease will get permanently changed before the interval is calculated. Thus if you continually mark a card hard it will eventually hit the lowest possible ease which by default is 150% and it will take quite a bit longer for it to mature.

None of this starts until the card graduates from the learning queue which means you will see it for every step along the way before the actual SRS calculation starts.