I've got to 696 kanji entered into Anki since starting in early December, and for the first time will not be keeping up with repititions as I'm going away for two weeks (ironically to Japan!). As I've got 60 cards due for tomorrow, I'm fairly sure that in the two weeks most if not all of my desk will be due!!
Get the feeling this will be incredibly demotivating...but suspending the deck somehow isn't the answer, right?
I feel like 696 is good going, and I just need to keep the spirits up and carry on! Don't want 696 reviews when I come back to be a distraction (which they obviously will be)
yukkuri_kame
Member
From: Florida US
Registered: 2008-05-30
Posts: 185
Due to the nature of my work, this happens to me about once a month. It has been really hard to keep pace with RTK. This past fall I fell off the wagon entirely, over 500 cards, the vast majority were expired. It was incredibly demotivating.
Now I've cleaned up the mess, added another 100 and am battening down the hatches for my next business trip, starting this weekend. This time my resolve is stronger to keep up with reviews while out of town.
RTK is really meant to be done intensively, and breaks in the learning really do set you back. As well, breaks in your study mess with the algorithm, which is what the SRS is all about, isn't it?
It's not the end of the world, but avoid getting behind like me.
frlmarty
Member
From: EC
Registered: 2009-01-25
Posts: 123
spoonsman wrote:
Psht, I went on vacation for nearly a month. I came back with a cache of 200 previously failed cards plus 1000+ expired.
It took me almost three weeks until I could wade out of that mess and start adding new cards again.
spoonsman,
do you remember how many new cards you had added each day before your vacation?
I can imagine when you added 20+ cards every day, you get stuck after the vacation.
but with a low rate like 30-50/week it should not become a mess.
the first 2 stacks are due every day.
but once the cards reach the 3rd and 4th stack, it should not lead to a big mess after 1 month.
I have not reached my first month yet, I noticed so far the 3rd pile grows, every day it gets higher and higher, no expired cards from stack 3 so far)
Delina
Member
From: US
Registered: 2008-02-12
Posts: 102
This happened to me recently. I finished RTK, then my review habits deteriorated because I got a real job where I couldn't actually slack off and study Japanese all day while pretending to work. 
I probably ignored both Anki and RevTK for two or three months, and I had more than 1000 expired cards on RevTK when I picked it back up.
My strategy was to give myself a limit of 50 reviews, after which I could quit or do another 50 if I felt like it. I reviewed the expired cards in the leftmost columns first (since I figured the fewer times I have seen it, the more harm it will do to wait one more day until reviewing it). I think you may be able to set Anki up to show you younger cards first, too - I know you can set it up in the opposite manner (oldest cards first, which makes the first reviews easy).
My failed cards hovered around 100. I force myself to actually write down the story if I fail a card, so it was slow going bringing this stack down, especially since I was failing more cards with every review. I treated these like new kanji and passed no more than 25 per day so that my future review rates would stay reasonable.
It took me about a month, but I'm caught up now and it feels great! Best of luck, and enjoy your trip!
Thanks for all your replies. I had a great time in Japan, am back and have plowed through the due cards. Unfortunately some 193 are now in the failed pile! I guess I just need to plow through them and repeat and repeat until I know them once more (if I ever did know them well enough- hmm, there's a thought).
Anyway as someone above said RtK really should be done as an intensive study thing I believe- I've now mapped out my targets until the end, being on 696 now and doing 20 a day (weekdays) I have this week to clear the failed pile, then should hit 1000 on 21st March, 1500 on 25th April, and 2000 by the 30th May! Motivation is the key, right 
