Your first review

With Atomus installed and your vault picked, you're one line away from your first review.

1. Write an atom in a note

Open any note in the Atomus editor, like the welcome note or your Inbox, or start a new one in a new tab with ⌘ T. On its own line, write a question and its answer separated by ==.

What did Ebbinghaus show in 1885? == Memory decays fastest in the first day after learning

Everything before == is what you'll see on review. Everything after is what you're trying to recall. Atomus picks up the atom as soon as it's in the note. There's no save button to press and no separate card to create.

That's the simplest shape. Atomus also reads multi-line answers, multiple choice ((x) / ( )), numbered lists, cloze ({{answer}}, optionally with |distractors), and tasks with a deadline (- [ ] ... @YYYY-MM-DD). See Creating atoms for the full set.

If you've set up an AI provider, you can also put the cursor on any line of plain text and press ⌥ A to have Atomus write atoms for it. More in Extraction.

2. Wait for the review

FSRS schedules a new atom's first review shortly after you write it. When atoms are due, a small pill appears at the top of your screen: it drops from the notch on notched MacBooks, or sits at the top center on other Macs and external displays.

3. Answer it

Hover the pill to open the card. Try to recall the answer, press Space to reveal it, then rate yourself with one key.

• 1 – Forgotten
• 2 – Took a while
• 3 – Remembered

The atom goes back into the queue, and Atomus picks a new interval based on your answer. See Notch reviews for every key.

That's the loop

Write what you want to keep. Answer when it comes back. Do this for a week and you'll have a small library of things you used to forget.