Thank you for this response. Ideally I'm looking for a way to improve my general abilities so that I don't need flash cards, but instead I would just remember something someone has told me, do you know of anything like that?
You can ensure the physical machinery of your brain is functioning well enough to operate at it's best. There's four keys to help here, first sleep enough to be well rested, second regularly exercise aerobically so your circulation pushes enough blood and nutrients around to feed your brain adequately, third and related take some ginko biloba but do not overdo this (make sure you research this) and finally drink enough water. If your brain was already 100% this will make no change, but for most people they can get significant to dramatic improvements to achieve their latent memory potential.
Then you can program your mind to consider what information is important and attach emotional significance to it, which will help you remember further and easily without repetition or memory palace techniques, though they will take you even further.
I haven't found a way to improve general abilities, but Anki has worked well to keep my memories fresh.
(The cost is that I spend an hour a day refreshing my memory. The benefit is that I recall everything that's in Anki.)
I know some students in medical school, and they swear by Anki to learn all the data they have to learn.