semperanimus
Member
From: united states michigan
Registered: 2011-07-19
Posts: 46
How to spend japanese study time on japanese instead of coming back and forth through forums etc... for some reason i'm not able to do more than 10 vocab words before I'm back to google or this forum looking up some crazy thing I happen to wonder about.
How did you guys overcome this?
semperanimus
Member
From: united states michigan
Registered: 2011-07-19
Posts: 46
on second thought, I guess the ones who don't answer my question are the only ones who have succeeded at this.
or if they do answer maybe they've found some kind of compromise, e.g. don't look at forum till 50 vocab words more.
Last edited by semperanimus (2012 March 14, 1:33 pm)
quark
Member
From: Canada
Registered: 2011-10-11
Posts: 201
For me, studying on the computer is too much of a temptation. Focusing purely on doing flashcards or reading vocab is really difficult, and pretty soon the Internet starts calling.
Do you use Anki? Maybe spend some time writing out your new vocab words on paper first before you add them to Anki. Or start doing grammar lessons from a textbook instead of using a website. Read paper books and manga instead of text files or scans.
Or maybe you could start setting a timer for yourself. You could either time your study sessions, or set a timer to limit how much time you spend reading forums or playing
Right now I'm in the process of cutting back on how much time I spend on the computer. I've come to the realization that Anki isn't working for me (for various reasons) and I'm now starting to move back to more traditional study methods, and to increase time spent on reading. Hopefully it will have the added benefit of keeping me from using the Internet as a distraction.
overture2112
Member
From: New York
Registered: 2010-05-16
Posts: 400
I'm pretty bad at getting myself to do just a few vocab words but personally find it significantly easier to keeping doing it once I start and "get into the zone". I usually end up doing a mix of half-study half-play (eg, do reviews / add cards while watching tv, maybe requiring myself to do at least X per episode before I can continue the next) throughout the day combined with just sitting down, removing sources of interruption (silence phone, get away from people, etc), and slugging through stuff until I start to lose track of myself and don't care to stop.
Of course, getting into the zone is a pretty fickle thing and sometimes you can't control your interrupts as much as you'd like.
I also find reviews much nicer when sitting back and using a game controller in a very relaxing manner.
Last edited by overture2112 (2012 March 14, 1:59 pm)
chamcham
Member
Registered: 2005-11-11
Posts: 1444
I know this sounds simple, but get a small whiteboard.
Write down all the tasks you need to do to accomplish your goals.
Make the tasks small enough so that they're easily done in a short period of time.
For example "Grammar: <name of books you'll use>, Kanji <name of books you'll use>".
Put the list in an area of your room that is the most visibile.
Anytime you're bored or wasting time, looking at
the whiteboard and do one of the things you wrote down.
For me, this is more effective that putting the list on my smartphone, laptop, or desktop.
Because the list is out in the open and always there to remind you.
Fadeway
Member
From: Sofia Bulgaria
Registered: 2012-01-01
Posts: 90
I also do the half-study half-play overture suggested. I've been constantly multitasking when on the PC for 4 years now, I can hardly watch an anime episode without multitasking during it (really, I just can't resist, alt+tab is my best friend), so watching anime while doing anki came naturally. I can generally get my 250 kanji + 300 german words (the latter are easy since I know most of them and take 2 seconds per card, but still..) within 5 - 6 episodes, i.e. 2 hours, as long as I keep my rule to never pause the episode - since pausing inevitably leads to browsing the Internet for 30 to 60 minutes.
I've also recently found out that I'm very concentrated and ridiculously productive when I get up early. I wake up at 5 am, and from 5:10 - 5:30 I can generally get 150-200 kanji done without feeling my usual compulsion to multitask. I leave for school at 6:30, and for several days now I've been able to do all my decks (except for core6k, I hate that deck) in that 90-minute interval, with enough time left over to watch 2 anime episodes.
Regarding core6k, that's the deck that I for some reason never do in the morning, despite it being my only period of not-multitasking. It's also hard to do in the afternoon, since I have included the sound files, and my ears metaphorically bleed the deck is pronouncing a word and my anime is talking alongside it. I tend to do that in 5 - word increments between episodes or other tasks.
Last edited by Fadeway (2012 March 14, 2:28 pm)
rahsoul
Member
Registered: 2012-02-29
Posts: 63
I timebox. Set a timer for 20min (or whatever you think you can last), do pure work for that 20min, timer goes off stop work, do play for 20min, rinse repeat. Helps you concentrate in the 20min, and kinda makes you want to go back to working because usually you break off working before you really want to.
Inny Jan wrote:
Zgarbas wrote:
For the online studies part (iknow et co) I installed Chrome. Firefox is for browsing, Chrome for studies.
Interesting. Aren't you using Rikaichan?
Chrome has rikaikun 
.
And I try not to use it much... I find that with rikaisan I would indeed get the content of what I was reading but I would almost never learn anything new(and, truth be told, instead of forcing myself to recognize words i already knew I'd just use rikaisan as a shortcut). I decided to force my self control by staying offline with this, e.g. download whatever I want to read or focus on paperback books.
I also kind of made up a weird system to get myself to associate certain type of drills with breaks.
So, say I finish one of my anki decks for the day.
Take a break to use Iknow.
As a reward for doing this, I get to play on kanjibox(I'm smitten with Kanjibox these days).
As a reward for that how about I watch an episode of something(just one, must be in Japanese) or listen to a song.
Repeat.
I find that I stagnated with RTK and Spanish because of this since it's so hard to fit it into this type of schedule though... But the schedule itself is a work in progress.
Last edited by Zgarbas (2012 March 15, 2:34 am)
