I tried it briefly: I really liked it at first but there is one critical flaw; you need to be able to do the flash cards in reverse. Knowing the definition of something by seeing the name is useful, but it's only half of the value of flashcards. I'll come back to it if they add the ability to study the cards seeing the definition side to quiz you on what the name of the concept is.
related ted talk on dopamine, the internet, and novelty seeking
https://youtu.be/wSF82AwSDiU
also related: the modern diet contains alot of calorically dense food, which means less stomach and intenstinal stretching, which means more ghrelin, which activates these novelty-seeking dopaminergic systems in the brain
as for the original question: a) as far as optimizing, I think that approaching the optimal state is less important than making improvements to a consistent performance ethic. Better to do something a little better every day than to miss days trying to do it better than everybody else. b) with information, I tend to focus on information that relates to a particular goal relevant to job performance or general wellbeing and then take notes on any new information and review prior notes relevant to the newest information in order to build an intuitive mental logical structure of the problem/goal and all of its moving parts. But since so few things are scientifically provable, I try to "bet" on certain things based on how more or less likely they are and an informal cost-benefit analysis