I don't think turning kanji learning into a life or death situation is very healthy. It' s supposed to be fun, your not supposed to have a gun to your head. Sure, you might get it done, but what do you have to sacrifice in order to do it?
"Oh, sorry kids, I can't play with you this week, I have to learn these kanji."
"Sorry mom, I can't make dad's funeral because I have to learn these kanji."

If you try to learn too many kanji too fast you will just epic fail imho.

I don't really understand why you would need to go to such lengths to simply learn something your interested in. I wake up every morning wanting to study Japanese, so I don't have this problem. Whatever works for you though

Funny, I was thinking of posting about Steve Pavlina as well before.

Here's Steve Pavlina's article on Will power. It is part of a series on Self Discipline, part 1 is about "Acceptance" and that was really the "click" for me for getting up at the same time every day: accept first that you have low discipline (not that you are a "looser" or such because that's self-loathing, which is pointless and won't get you anywhere).

On his article on will power, it doesn't matter if you start with small or huge will power. His point is that will power requires a lot of concentration, all thoughts are on the goal, but most of us can not sustain that amount of concentration for more than a few days or weeks. Eventually, the goal disappears from our sight, and we're back to square one, or worse: getting discouraged from another attempt. Instead, he recommends to use that super boost of concentration that comes with the initial motivation to prepare a good plan and think ahead everything; so that later when doubt or fatigue sets in, everything is in place for maintaining the new habit.

So for RtK for example that may mean really planning ahead an extra hour of study each day, make sure the wife/kids/boss/girlfriend/family knows about it so other than urgencies of course, you can find the time.

I think the key to his article really is that when we have the initial boost of motivation we usually DONT want to plan stuff; because that's boring, we just want to dive in!

Interesting.. 

While I agree that it should be somewhat fun for you, let's be serious here.. Drilling thousands of cryptic markings into your head is often a chore, and perhaps this technique could be used every once in awhile.. Particularly during a period of ill motivation.


If I didn't have bigger things to worry about right now (finishing up what should be my final semester of college) I'd consider doing such a thing..   Though I hardly have a dime to spare right now

mbagsh55 - I can send you an email.

Shirow66 - To be honest learning kanji is not enjoyable to me, especially detached from context like it is with heisig. I am learning it like this because ultimately in the long run I think it will benefit me. If you are sick or some circumstances come up such as a death, then of course kanji should take a back seat. What I find is that I will have a normal week with plenty of time and I still only accomplish about 10% of my kanji potential for that week, and more importantly I am failing on my goal, week after week, it's not a way to live.

Caledee - Heisig is not japanese, you are learning pictographs, squiggly lines... eventually this can become japanese with additional work.

Virtua_leaf - I think it could work well for you, good luck.

ファブリス- I don't think that was the exact article that I got the inspiration from, but thanks for digging it up. The problem with just scheduling an extra hour is that even if I have that hour it's likely I won't do it. I will rather search the net, shampoo my luxuriant hair or have a nap. For me, I really need this extra kick. The thing is deep down I really do want to get through this kanji and become fluent in japanese, but I need extreme methods to draw it out of me.

wccrawford - This sentence tells me a lot about you "I've never had a problem getting up whenever I choose". You are a lucky man. I sleep all the time. It's likely that you have a lot more self-discipline than me. It works for more than 175 as well, you just need to renew the contract. Do it again the next week, up the ante if you like, give them another $50, make it 200 kanji or keep it the same, whatever puts the fear of god in you.

Thora - For me I know which one produces better results. If I go with the flow, the flow will allow me to rot in my bedroom, a monolingual prisoner of my own laziness. For other people this might be totally fine.

Cerulean - You sound like you get it/ it's a fit for you. Try it when you finish your last semester.

Tobberoth - Same thing that I said to ファブリス. Some people are just stronger willed than others, for me I think I need this, to get it done. Sometimes I actually enjoy it while I am learning the kanji and the satisfaction that I get when I see that wow I now know another 25 of these crazy things, but sometimes it is such a struggle to start...

Some of you guys (this is not critcism, I am just noting) seem to have the attitude that everything should be enjoyable. I wish everything could be enjoyable, but it's just not reality, let's make things as enjoyable as we can, but sometimes plain hard work is required.

Let me pose the question: if you could use this method to say learn 500 kanji in one week, wouldn't it be worth all the (possible) stress and hard work?

Virtua_Leaf wrote:

During the day sometimes I just feel so lethargic to actually do any learning. I wake up and think, 'okay, today I'm going to make sure I'm better at Japanese than I was yesterday', but when it comes down to it it's like my body physically shuts down. I can't stop yawning, I eventually realise it's pointless trying and just go on the internet etc. (ie. now).

I have this problem too, and I think it has ultimately boiled down to my internet addiction.  I would stay awake late into the night for no reason surfing the web, which led to poor sleep habits.  Also, since surfing is so mindless, I tend to choose it over something which challenges my brain.  I am learning to control this by not allowing myself to use the internet a few days out of the week (except for Japanese language sites - this one doesn't count).  I've felt so much better and gotten much better sleep the days I've done this.  You just have to get past that mild internet withdrawal syndrome.

No Thora, it's totally cool, I enjoy the feedback. I guess I am looking to do things better and that includes listening to other people's ideas.

This method actually sounds good. Except, I don't have that kind of money and I'm not going to take a picture of myself naked. >_>

thegeelonghellswan wrote:

Caledee - Heisig is not japanese, you are learning pictographs, squiggly lines... eventually this can become japanese with additional work.

Oh you thought I was talking about learning Kanji just? No, I meant Japanese in general. I've already done RTK1.

thegeelonghellswan wrote:

I just wanted to share a technique that I have just implemented in my kanji learning.

I didn't invent it and I think the guy I got it from (Steve Pavlina) probably didn't either.

Basically if you have a small amount of will power you can use it to set up a larger consequence that creates more will power than you naturally have. I hope this makes sense... I will give how I use it with kanji and you can figure it out, I hope it's helpful.

I want to learn 175 new kanji by the end of the week, but I know based off past experience I will probably end up doing far less than that as I get distracted/demotivated. So what I do is give $100 to someone I trust and I tell them if I haven't learned 175 kanji by this time next week, spend the money, do whatever you want with it, DO NOT give it back to me. If, however, I do learn 175 kanji the money returns to papa.

I am a poor university student so $100 is a big deal to me, there is no way that I can afford to lose it, I must learn 175 kanji. I will do anything to learn 175 kanji. That is basically how it works. It's kind of like "We have kidnapped your daughter and she will be executed in 24 hours if you do not deliver $100,000 to us", you WILL find a way to get that money.

If you are wealthy put the amount up - $10,000, $100,000? Whatever. If you do not care about money, take a picture of yourself naked and tell them to post it on the internet if you haven't done it by a certain date, you get the drift...

This may seem a bit extreme, but if you are having trouble getting over the line why not try it. It does require a little bit of initial will power to do this to yourself however.

がんばって。

What happens when you get lazy to the point that no amount of money (or anything else) will get you to move?

I think the easiest way to leverage your will power is to just do it. After a while of just doing it you start to think about not doing it less and less.

The problem comes when you find an easier way to get your $100 back than by studying the kanji... begging or lying that you really did do them...

...or it's the last day before your deadline and you haven't started yet ;D

Here's another good article from Pavlina, most relevant to completing RtK: Passion vs Self-Discipline