Secrets to Smoother SRSing, Part 6: Maintain Only the Baseline/SRS Holidays - AJATT: Narrated

[@Thomas5k]

I enjoyed this one. You seems to enjoy reading it. Thanks for the uploads!

[@togeffet]

Yes, I probably had a bit too much fun reading this one🤣 Love Khatzumoto's writing

[@togeffet]

Fairly reasonable advice. What you don’t review today will be there tomorrow. Just review either a set time or a set amount. Carry on with the rest of your day. When your reviews end so fast that you have free time you set aside for studying, start adding new stuff. Basically, find a pace you’re comfortable with. Don’t take the “I must finish them all today” mentality cause soon you won’t have time in that day, so you then begin to not review “since I can’t finish today”. Don’t be afraid about forgetting stuff. If your SRS timing is set up correctly, you’re forgetting about 10% to 20% of every review anyway. The thing is knowing “only” 80% of 8000 things is better than knowing 99% of 1000 things. Just pace yourself. In time, what you remember is spaced out far enough that you begin finishing daily reviews faster. Again, add new stuff if you have enough allotted time left over. Put it this way: Marathon runners do not run at a 100m dash pace, as the Marathon would be over in like what, an hour? How can you sell enough “Goo”(tm) in only an hour to pay advertising costs? No, pace yourself for that 26 mile run. But we’re not even talking a marathon. We’re talking 2 miles a day, every day, for 500 days. If you miss 3 days, don’t try to make them up by doing 8 miles. Just do 2 miles and carry on. The goal is not going anyway. PACE YOURSELF. Luke didn’t run around Daggabah with Yoda on his shoulders TWICE at a sprint (it’s true, look it up yourself in the novel adaption), he paced himself with the Force. You can too. Commented by Nukemarine on January 14, 2009

[@togeffet]

One feature of the SRS is that it spreads learning and review over time. One disadvantage is, that it spreads learning and review over time. When I have a shit ton of free time (like this Winter break when my GF was in Tokyo) I’m tempted to spend a lot of time on the SRS. That often means, adding a lot of cards. At the time, I’m cool with the consequences, cuz I have time to burn. But when the consequences really start rolling around, I don’t have the time any more. You gotta keep in mind that the cards you add today, will mostly be clogging the SRS in the next month to come. Commented by Glowing Face Man on January 14, 2009

[@togeffet]

I haven’t been doing my Japanese SRS reps for a while now. I don’t feel it matters though, I feel like I am fluent now and could enter 10,000 sentences in a day if I had time. (Though I did do like 12,000 sentences in 18mths). I pretty much started khatz’s method as soon as his website started up. The method works. I’m still using Japanese now. I’m watching GITS SAC right now. Thanks Khatz. Using your method plus　英語は絶対勉強するな’s for Chinese now. cheers. Commented by 慈英武素 on January 14, 2009

[@togeffet]

I threw out the SRS a few months ago. My Japanese life has never been happier. The main reason I did was because I believe it can be detrimental to the learning process. I used to shake my head in disbelief when I would go to classes in college and see people scribbling furiously as the professor rambled on and on, because they were so afraid of missing something. The scribbling would of course lead to nothing. All they had to do was trust their minds and listen. The SRS is dangerous for the same reason. In using one, you are essentially telling your mind, “I really don’t trust you to remember this, so I’m going to store it in this separate memory bank for you.” The result? You probably won’t remember. Oh sure you’ll get it in time because after so many reps of the same thing, it just turns into the rote method of memorizing. My personal solution was to give it up and focus on reading. Now when I come across a new word or phrase, I pay attention to it. I break it down, write it, say it, act it out, find related words or uses, draw it, etc. I always mix up the reading material to keep it interesting and fun. I have found this MUCH funner than being tied to a SRS. Plus, I believe coming across learned words and phrases in new material with new context is far more beneficial for learning and processing the language than repeating the same sentences over and over. I actually try to avoid this site as much as possible (sorry Khatz!), because it is my main English temptation, but I thought I’d share my thoughts on this for anyone else who might feel tied to the SRS and want an alternative. Commented by Rob on January 14, 2009

[@togeffet]

Easy for you to say! I haven’t added anything since JUNE and its still killing me. (At that time I added JLPT 2 list of 3000 I didn’t know and 1500 of the JLPT 1 list. ) Doesn’t help that miserable Windows Mobile Supermemo doesn’t support cutting drills, so you have to tap the screen 500 times to “manually” clear a drill and then you end up marking “Perfect” on a number of daily rep items and corrupting your data. Thanks for another inspiring one though… I’ll have to reread it after I climb out of this whole some time in the next century. Commented by justin on January 14, 2009