You can easily take notes and then there's a built in reminder system which is most efficient for keeping things in your brain's long-term memory.
I notice the reminder system also ends up making me much more creative, since I can more easily combine things together to make new ideas. That is a huge bonus.
- "Card browser" lets you view the cards in various sorting orders. Alphabetical, time of creation, last reviewed, next reviewed, etc. This is already better for going through cards than the Memo app on my phone.
- You can tag cards and sort by tags. (I think doing this also creates a memorization deck for each tag, too. I just don't use this feature...)
- I like to put "elements" into Anki which I think could potentially become a part of a creative idea. Being reminded of those things makes it easier to think up new ways to combine things, different ways to do things, etc.
- Like Michael Nielsen (who works for Y Combinator), I believe in putting everything into just a single deck. So I see a lot of random seemingly unrelated cards one after the other. I feel like this helps my brain to make unusual connections and relationships. (Nielsen's writings about Anki and spaced memory repetition- https://www.reddit.com/r/Anki/comments/8xi9r4/augmenting_lon... https://twitter.com/michael_nielsen/status/95776322945477427... )
- Cards can be starred or suspended.
- Visually, the design and flow of the Anki app is fantastic, in my opinion. I genuinely enjoy using it. Tons of user controlled settings, and nice Anki forums.
- Use of shared decks can be fun (publicly available decks).
Really though, the most important thing is getting the reminders, and having control over when I see Anki cards next. By keeping everything "alive" and stronger in my brain, it just makes it easier to remember things, think of things, see different possibilities, etc.
And you can put literally anything in there. I put in literally everything I think is worth reminding myself about. Attitudes, knowledge, quotes, tasks, task elements, ideas, notes about the people in my life, things that are fun, memories from my life, exercise ideas, foods, supplements, etc. etc.etc.