The last time I used flashcards was in college. I always found that making cards turned into an activity in itself. It helped me cut my (bad) habit of rereading material, but I did end up spending more time organizing than learning.

Transitioning from traditional flashcard platforms (like Quizlet) to NotebookLM feels liberating. I can set up my learning environment in minutes. The Studio tools are great but we can learn more actively by combining them with five proven scientific learning techniques.

I tested the approach on something practical: retirement planning. I became my curriculum manager.

I start with retrieval, not rereading

Make NotebookLM test what you know

Re-reading feels productive because the material looks familiar. Retrieval practice challenges that. It means trying to recall information without looking at the answer. And no peeking. It’s one of the most reliable (and uncomfortable) ways to test ourselves, and NotebookLM’s quizzes make it easy to use.

I always had a tendency to skim. With NotebookLM, I uploaded my financial-planning sources and prompted it to quiz me without showing the answers first. Paradoxically, getting answers wrong helps to cement them better in our head. I also suggest you try it out before starting a new topic. The struggle will tell you where you need to put your focus.

Create a 10-question quiz about [Topic]. Ask one question at a time. Do not reveal the answer until I respond. Mix factual recall with questions that require me to apply the concepts to a realistic retirement scenario.

I also use NotebookLM’s built-in Quiz feature when I want a quick microlearning session. You can customize the difficulty, number of questions, and focus, so I don’t have to build every test manually. Sometimes, I do find it better as I don’t have to scroll unlike the 10-question quiz from the prompt. The absence of review notifications is the tradeoff you have to make with NotebookLM.

You can even ask NotebookLM to generate a Studio quiz from the chat interface. As you can see in the last screenshot in the gallery, NotebookLM also quizzes you in the chat interface alongside the Studio artifact.

I space out my practice

Stop cramming and come back later

Our memory fades along the curve (famously called the Ebbinghaus Forgetting Curve). Spaced practice is an antidote. You just have to spread learning sessions over time instead of cramming everything in one sitting. Research has found a strong advantage for distributed practice over cramming when the goal is long-term retention.

NotebookLM still doesn’t have a feature to automatically space out the learning on a schedule like Quizlet. Instead, I use the learning app to create a new challenge from the same material instead of simply rereading the same answers. For example, I might study retirement withdrawal strategies today, then return several days later and ask questions that require me to recall them.

Prompt: Test me on [Topic] using information from this notebook. Prioritize concepts I have previously struggled with. Ask questions that require recall rather than recognition, and do not repeat yesterday’s questions.

You can also retake the same quiz. NotebookLM saves your progress and flags which cards you got wrong, so you can retest just those. NotebookLM also has the option to generate a new set of questions in a fresh quiz. The important part is the gap. Sequencing several short sessions is sometimes better than one long tiring session with your topic. The main advantage here over Quizlet is the variation. In Quizlet, you see the exact same card wording every time while NotebookLM can generate fresh questions every time.

I blend topics instead of studying in blocks

Go against your brain’s auto-pilot

Interleaving means mixing related topics rather than studying one topic intensively. Research suggests it can help learners distinguish between similar concepts, make connections, and decide how to approach a problem from different angles.

That works particularly well with my study topic of retirement planning because the subject contains concepts that overlap. Instead of doing 10 questions about asset allocation, I can mix asset allocation, inflation, Social Security, withdrawal rates, and tax planning.

Create a 15-question retirement-planning quiz that deliberately interleaves different topics. Do not group similar questions together. Make me identify which concept applies to each scenario before answering.

This feels harder than a normal quiz, and that’s partly the point. When questions jump between topics, I can’t rely on the answer from the previous question. I have to figure out what kind of problem I’m looking at. A more specific prompt can look like this, where you pick the topics:

Build one flashcard deck mixing questions from my 401(k), Social Security, and asset allocation sources. Shuffle it so no two questions from the same topic appear back to back.

Pick similar topics for interleaving. The trick is to mix related topics or problem types. Context switching won’t be too drastic and you can stay focused while studying.

I make NotebookLM explain the why

Explanation turns facts into connected knowledge

I know I have understood something when I can explain it to someone. The learning method behind it is called “Elaboration.” It’s simply finding why something is true and connecting new information with what you already know. This feels very awkward as we are used to instant answers from NotebookLM. Typing out my own explanation felt slower than just asking NotebookLM to explain things to me.

Stay at it. I found this especially useful when I encountered retirement concepts. Instead of memorizing that inflation reduces purchasing power, I asked NotebookLM to make me explain why. That forced me to connect inflation with future expenses, investment returns, and retirement income.

Give me five important concepts from my sources. For each one, ask me a “why” question that requires me to explain the concept in my own words. After I answer, identify what I got right, what I missed, and what connection I should understand better.

The trick is not to let NotebookLM do the explaining immediately. It’s in the push back from NotebookLM if your explanation is thin, which then forces you to fill the gaps.

I use visuals to build stronger connections

Give difficult ideas more than one form

Dual coding combines words with visual (or even audio) formats. I use it when a concept is better understood with its relationships to others. Research says that our brain stores images and words through different channels. NotebookLM’s Mind Map and Audio Overview tools let you generate both at once from the same sources.

Seeing the relationships gives me another way to think about the same information.

Create a simple visual learning aid for [Topic] using only information from my sources. Show the relationships between [Concept 1], [Concept 2], [Concept 3], [Concept 4], and [Concept 5]. Keep the visual simple enough for a beginner to understand.

The visual shouldn’t be merely decorative. It should support the text and add more to your understanding. For instance, a mind map can make you instantly see how your 401(k), Social Security, and savings connect and make the whole system click.

Turn all five techniques into a learning loop

The biggest change was realizing that these techniques work better as a sequence. I start by retrieving what I know, return to it later, mix it with related concepts, explain why it works, and then represent difficult relationships visually. NotebookLM gives me the prompts and the Studio tools to support this learning system.