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+--- Thread: time hacks (/thread-2421.html)
time hacks - nest0r - 2009-01-14
So what kinds of time-related techniques are you using for getting through reps in Anki? I was inspired by RLC Blitzer, Anki's recent timeboxing integration, this hack, and stuff I'd been doing in a less focused way to come up with this:
I set aside 45-60 minutes, and then I start out with say, a 20-30 minute set of reps, and when the timer runs out and it goes to study options, I quickly switch over to some kind of 'null' media for a few minutes, then come back, reset the timer for 10-15 minutes, and continue reducing the intervals while increasing 'intensity'. Usually by the time it winds down, I'm ready to keep going in a less structured way.
By 'null' media, I mean, find some kind of Japanese-related media that's relaxing in regards to spoken/written language, yet stimulating in a more abstract way. Something that doesn't break the sense of Japanese immersion during this 1 hour. Examples might be a song by a Japanese artist for the aural ambience, since the vocals are often skewed just enough to make it optional to follow along actively (I like Japanese hip hop for this); or what I like visually is Japanese tumblr sites--plenty of images, minimal Japanese text, and heavy on the reblogging, so you can navigate them through the 'via so-and-so' links without a lot of scrolling (some of them even have a 'shuffle' button for entries).
Here's a randomly chosen tumblr site: http://ginzuna.tumblr.com/page/2
I kind of like this whole idea of nested timeboxes (blocks of minutes within an hour within a day), because it allows me to have a well-rounded, focused and productive hour of total immersion in Japanese that I can stick anywhere within a given day.
time hacks - Tobberoth - 2009-01-14
I only have about 20 reviews a day, often spread out so I'm not using any techniques. Get up in the morning, do all my anki reviews in like.. 5 minutes tops. Check again in the evening and complete the ones which have expired ^^
As for RtK, I usually just pick a column and do 10 expired cards as fast as I can. Then I pause for a while and do 10 more.
time hacks - nest0r - 2009-01-14
Ha. My reps are getting (way) up there, I'll just say that.
time hacks - alyks - 2009-01-14
I'll put down what I'm reading every chapter or two and timebox five minutes throughout the day.
time hacks - kmoeini - 2009-01-17
Reviews first thing in the morning and just before bed work best for me too.
Here's a web-based timer (requires java).
time hacks - nest0r - 2009-01-17
So far, I've found that the (10+2)*5 hack works really well for procrastination.
time hacks - tibul - 2009-01-17
I tend to do my kanji reviews straight through in the morning usually have around 70 to do on average, sentences i timebox 10 minutes and see how many i can get done, doing this i usually have all my sentences around 120-130 a day done in about 30-40 mins.
time hacks - tibul - 2009-01-17
Tobberoth Wrote:I only have about 20 reviews a day, often spread out so I'm not using any techniques. Get up in the morning, do all my anki reviews in like.. 5 minutes tops. Check again in the evening and complete the ones which have expired ^^woah only 20 reviews how i dream of such a day lol
As for RtK, I usually just pick a column and do 10 expired cards as fast as I can. Then I pause for a while and do 10 more.
time hacks - Tobberoth - 2009-01-17
tibul Wrote:Nah, I'm just lazy, I'm not putting enough into Anki. Various reasons why I don't (currently I'm focusing a LOT on watching Japanese stuff, especially gameshows and it's hard to mine sentences from that). But yeah, I'm too lazy. If not from the Japanese novels I have, I should be mining from Kanzen master or at least KO. I just don't... feel like mining when I can spend time watching gameshows ^^Tobberoth Wrote:I only have about 20 reviews a day, often spread out so I'm not using any techniques. Get up in the morning, do all my anki reviews in like.. 5 minutes tops. Check again in the evening and complete the ones which have expired ^^woah only 20 reviews how i dream of such a day lol
As for RtK, I usually just pick a column and do 10 expired cards as fast as I can. Then I pause for a while and do 10 more.
time hacks - nest0r - 2010-05-08
So anyone else trying any new time hacks besides the above and the (10+2)*5 hack? Pomodoro needn't be mentioned.
To repeat something I half-seriously posted to diss on AJATT's paywall some more, a little while ago:
"... shortly thereafter, I went from the nested descending intervals/(10+2)*5 with 'null media' microsegments using dual timers as mentioned above to triple timeboxing, where Tea Timer: http://sourceforge.net/projects/tea-timer/ takes care of the largest block, Anki the middle boxes, and for the 'null media'/microsegments I use Firefox's tea timer when not relying on song length. However, you can do it all with the non-Firefox tea timer program as well, re: setting multiple timers, I just had started using the Firefox addon first so I never got around to changing the habit this year and solely using system tray Tea Timer.
I've also found nesting's not really necessary if each of the main middle timeboxes are different tasks rather than Japanese/mono-thematic, i.e. not aiming for a block of portable temporal immersion, thus no need for null media microintervals to maintain the immersive binding between intervals or 'refresh', as the task-switching alone does the trick."
As I mentioned in another comment, I'm not a fan of timeboxing new/failed cards, but I was thinking (this was in blackmacros' old thread about workflow or something) of adding new cards in 2-3 minute segments between larger non-Japanese timeboxes. Never got around to trying that, though.
One of these days I'll start adding 'nest0r's rambles' to the wiki or something.
A lot of my timeboxing segments consist of cycling through the interconnected decks as part of this method: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?pid=97049#pid97049
Edit: Oh and I mentioned reblogging/shuffling for tumblr/null media, and later I found this Greasemonkey script for adding a shuffle button to any tumblr: http://forum.koohii.com/showthread.php?tid=5267 - I'm assuming it could be modified for other sites?
time hacks - caivano - 2010-05-08
nest0r Wrote:Here's a randomly chosen tumblr site: http://ginzuna.tumblr.com/page/2gyaa you got my hopes up for a good japanese tumblr. do you know any ones that are more like photos, music, quotes and less like manga / anime / short skirts?
for me doing reviews either in a cafe or in a park works. if I have to do it at home then I usually half watch a Japanese movie I've seen before. My thinking is that in real life conversation situations there are distractions anyway.
time hacks - nest0r - 2010-05-08
Haha, that tumblr wasn't that bad when I first randomly posted it. I have like a hundred tumblr thingies in my bookmarks I don't really pay attention to, I just click the reblog links until I'm on the other side of the web.
This is one I visit often, but mostly for the visual art: http://hysysk.tumblr.com/ ; http://kagami.tumblr.com/
Here's one I randomly clicked from my bookmarks: http://firedfly.tumblr.com/ (火蛾の図譜)
Also: http://7nana-mizuki-lovers7.tumblr.com/ (写真だけ)
http://nanospectives.tumblr.com/
http://moji.tumblr.com/
From the reblog 'via' links you can find many more... Example: http://firedfly.tumblr.com/post/568276108#notes - There you have a lengthy list of mostly Japanese tumblrs run by people of a mutual aesthetic preference, at least partially, based around a given entry...
time hacks - caivano - 2010-05-08
cheers, I'll explore. about a year ago I unfollowed nearly all my English tumblrs in favour of japanese ones but could only find anime, idols and Perfume so for a year my dashboard has been 95% Perfume :$
time hacks - Blahah - 2010-05-08
As of this morning I'm using (10+2)*5 (not for Japanese at the moment) with Minuteur (Mac) setting the pace and gently telling me when to work and play. I'll have some useful feedback after more use, but so far it seems effective in eliminating procrastination.
Update (after about 7 straight productive hours): The ticking clock feature on Minuteur (and various other multitimer apps) is incredibly good at stopping me from losing focus. Every time my mind wanders the ticking drills into my brain and reminds me to refocus. And those little two minute breaks come so suddenly that I always have to pause a task right in the middle of something, which makes me eager to get back to it after the break.
time hacks - nest0r - 2010-05-09
When you say 'ticking' do you mean it makes a sound? That would get on my nerves. Tea Timer has like a 'digital stopwatch' that you can enable/disable and adjust the opacity of when you activate timers.
time hacks - Blahah - 2010-05-09
Yes it makes an audible ticking sound. I thought it would get annoying too, but I let it stay for a few minutes and it became useful. I'm usually very susceptible to sounds - I get irritated by repetitive or loud noises - but for some reason this one is nice. I still notice it, but it just helps me not to get distracted.