Start with 3 boxes. Move to 5 boxes after your system is running smoothly and you want longer intervals for well-known cards. Only use 7 boxes if you have a very large deck and need cards to graduate to very long review cycles (monthly or more).
3-Box: For Beginners
Intervals: 1, 2, 4 days. Simple to set up. Low overhead. Gives you the full benefit of spaced repetition without decision fatigue. Download the 3-Box Schedule.
5-Box: The Classic Setup
Intervals: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 days. Sebastian Leitner’s original design. Good for decks of 100–500 cards. Box 5 effectively serves as a “learned” archive. Download the 5-Box Schedule.
7-Box: For Large Decks
Intervals: 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64 days. Useful for vocabulary decks in the thousands or long-term knowledge maintenance. Most learners never need this — 5 boxes handles the vast majority of use cases.
Decision Guide
New to Leitner: 3 boxes. Have been running a 3-box system for 4+ weeks and want to extend intervals: 5 boxes. Managing 500+ cards and some are fully mastered: consider 7 boxes. Read the full Leitner System guide for more context.
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