If you use SuperMemo long enough, your collection will grow to contain thousands of pieces of knowledge. They are called elements. An element can be:
- Item: an active element (i.e., you need to actively recall information). It is usually in the form of a Q&A, where you have to answer the question displayed, and then grade it according to how well you did.
- Topic: a passive element (i.e., you do not need to recall information). Topics are incrementally processed down to Items.
- Concept: a special element to which Items, Topics, Tasks, and indeed other Concepts link to. As the name suggests, a Concept represents an idea.
- Task: another special element which is used in Tasklist manager.
The multiplicity of material calls for a question: in which order should I process each individual element? To address that issue, SuperMemo implements queues: a set of elements ordered according to some criteria (e.g. priority, randomness, etc.)
For the rest of this article we will use the example below, three articles: Circadian rhythm, LTI and Anthropology.
graph TB
el1["<img src='/supermemo/shared/article-ex-1-circardian-rhythm.png'; width='150px' height='186px'/>"]
el2["<img src='/supermemo/shared/article-ex-2-lti.png'; width='150px' height='141px'/>"]
el3["<img src='/supermemo/shared/article-ex-3-anthropology.png'; width='150px' height='211px'/>"]
The priority queue contains all the elements ordered by priority. Priorities are defined from 0% to 100%, with 0% being the most prioritized, and 100% the least prioritized. In our example, let’s assume the following priorities:
| Priorities |
| Circadian rhythm |
LTI |
Anthropology |
| 5% |
75% |
30% |
The resulting priority queue would be the following:
graph LR
el1["<img src='/supermemo/shared/article-ex-1-circardian-rhythm.png'; width='150px' height='186px'/>"]
el2["<img src='/supermemo/shared/article-ex-2-lti.png'; width='150px' height='141px'/>"]
el3["<img src='/supermemo/shared/article-ex-3-anthropology.png'; width='150px' height='211px'/>"]
el1 --> el3
el3 --> el2
¶ Outstanding queue
🚧 Work in progress.
🚧 Work in progress.