I began RTK quite a while ago trying to do one lesson per day. I'd complete all reviews and all missed cards so that I had nothing left to do at the end of the day unless I started a new lesson. I'd planned on finish the first book in around 2 months. I burned myself out and eventually put my studies on hold for about 3 months. A few months ago, I decided to try again, but this time only study 20-30 new cards per day. It worked and after about a month of studying I had increased the number of cards I knew quite satisfactorily. Then I encountered burnout again, only for about a week. I'm coming back today to get back on track but wanted to ask about what the community thinks of only reviewing 40-50 cards needing review per day, in addition to limiting myself to 20-30 new cards.

On a side note regarding study cards: are those prioritized over new cards, and should I count them as such? (example: I missed 5 cards from previous day, I study 15-25 new cards, and 5 review cards?) Thanks for your assistance, I'm sure I'll be posting in the "The 'I just finished RTK1, please congratulate me' thread." thread soon once I get this all straightened out. I'll see you there.

P.S. I know, comma splices have always been my weakness...

[edit: Holy run-on sentence Batman!]

Here's what I do and it seems to have worked so far.

1) Open up Anki or RtK
2) Clear out all your reviews
3) Add in all your new cards and stories
4) Review all those new cards and whatever cards expired while you were adding them in
5) leave anki/rtk alone until you're going to bed
6) When going to bed clear out the few reviews you've accumulated.

That'll get things done and you won't have to be distracted all the time.

Also, if you failed a card, I suggest studying it right after you failed it. That seems to work best for me.

So do your RtK reviews, then whatever you failed (the 5 or so whatever), go to the study page and look at them and understand why you couldn't remember (bad story, undescriptive story, story doesn't link to keyword well), fix it, and then go review your failed cards right then.

That's what I've done and I have about 92% retention rate (I'm at 500 cards so I may be behind or in front of where you are now)

I take it step by step. I review all of my due cards for a limited amount of time, let's say 30 minutes (in Anki you can define that time).

After that I tell myself "OK, I learn 5 new cards. That's my goal. Just 5."

Then, if I feel like more, I go for another 5. But I don't have to.

If I still feel like more, I go for another five.

I do that for the rest of the day. I have 20 minutes between two things I'm doing? Why not learn 5 new cards?

That way you won't burn out. Don't force yourself, keep it light and fun. If you only do 5 a day, cool. Do 10? Cool. Do 15? Also cool. Do only 1? Heck - why not?! It's one more than yesterday. Sometimes you're just tired, why not acknowledge the fact that you're tired. You'll do more tomorrow.

Divide and conquer. Many small steps will bring you to your goal. If you run like a madman you'll burn out in no time.

I did RTK adding 100/day so I had tons of reviews as you can imagine. What I did to prevent burn out was:

When you wake up, as soon as you go to the computer to do your usual stuff (check e-mail, etc), open up Anki (or whatever SRS you use) and start reviewing. Review in chunks of 10 minutes. After those 10 minutes are up, take 5 minutes to do some of the stuff you want to do. Keep repeating this until all of your reviews are done. They will be harder to do if you don't do them as soon as you turn on your computer as you'll get distracted easily so get them out of the way asap.

After doing all the reviews, check how many reviews you'll have in 24 hours. If you think you can manage the reviews the next day, add new cards. If you think you're going to burn out, stop adding cards for a while and just keep up your reviews so you don't forget anything. You should be able to review around 50 Kanjis/10 minutes so it isn't that hard to keep up unless you add tons of new cards daily.

Remember it's pointless to rush through if you burn out for months in the process. Good luck.

Some very good advice from all who participated. First off, thanks for your time and your quick responses. I'll be working out a study method today while I'm at work, then finishing up my stack of reviews as soon when I get home tonight. It's only about 170 cards. I really think that reviewing for a small set time, then doing something else for a bit and switching back and forth is a great idea, and I'll surely start incorporating that ASAP. [Thanks Truando and Lightning!]

I've toyed around with Anki for the past few months and I think I'll make the switch to that from RtK's SRS over the next few days. I'm still coming back to RtK for the stories though, the user stories stick in my mind much better than the Heisig stories, and usually set me on the right path making my own. I think one of the features that I'll miss most is the review status page style bar graphs. (http://kanji.koohii.com/main) If anyone knows of some plugin for anki that could do something similar to that, I'd be very appreciative.

I'll definitely try your method there zachandhobbes, you're a few hundred ahead of me at this point.

Thanks again for all your help everyone

Here's my opinion: Don't go for set numbers. Go for a set time, and let your reviews and studying fill that time naturally.

1. Re-study all missed cards (I set anki to show missed cards first, as all mature cards that are missed are retested the next day).
2. Review all due cards (I set anki to longest interval first).
3. Study missed cards as they come up (I set immature cards to 10 minute review that are missed).
4. Study new cards. (I let anki make these an automatic 2 or hard so I see them again in 1 or 2 days.).

So, in that 1 hour, or 2 hours, or 3 hours I'll review/study whatever the time allows me to add. You naturally pace yourself and likely will burn out less. If I miss a day or more, well, I still hold to the standard time though I'll likely not be adding new cards.

Going for a hard number (a chapter or xx number of cards) becomes cumbersome if the reviews pile up or the material is difficult or lengthy.

I haven't read the replies but heres my two cents.

Find your upper maximum limit for daily reviews and don't exceed it or you will burn out. More than anything its important to find that sweet spot that enables you to finish all your reviews and your adds every single day (at least 9/10, no ones superman).

The way in which you do your reviews can also have a big impact on the amount you can get done in a day. For example, when I used to do all my reviews on the compute, I often left it til very late and then did it all before going to bed which I found really tiring. After I got Anki on my iPhone things changed alot, I did everything that was due right upon waking up and I felt so much more receptive to doing so and then I did adds during the day and whatever was due at the end of the day got done before going to bed but this time because I was lying down and comfortable it was much easier. So a small change in how I did my reviews led to a routine that worked much better for me.

Another technique that works pretty well sometimes is watch 1 episode of a show do x% of reviews, watch another ep, repeat. In no time all the reviews are done and you watched something you enjoyed. Can be a real winner.