It was Labour Day weekend here in Canada. And between going on a day trip to Niagara Falls with my family on Saturday, and just generally bumming around not wanting to do anything, I broke my 100+ day streak of studying on WaniKani (I did do like 50 reviews on Saturday, none at all on Sunday, and maybe 5 yesterday before I decided to watch anime instead). So I woke up today to 358 pending reviews.
It got me wondering, what’s the most reviews you’ve allowed to accumulate in “regular” studying? How many days do others allow for a “break”? By regular, I mean: I know some people pause their subscriptions for weeks/months at a time and come back to thousands of pending reviews… Nah, that’s not what I mean. I mean just taking a day off or two here and there.
I think I had 300 or so once. July was intensely and unexpectedly busy, so I wasn’t able to log in much right when a bunch of guru and master-level items came up for review. 'Twas a trying time. I try not to go more than 24 hours without logging in, but alas life often gets in the way (I didn’t log in at all over the weekend because I lost power and had to clean up from the storm .)
Typically don’t really take scheduled breaks, but sometimes life does overtake you. First few days while camping this year I completely forgot about doing reviews, so took that as an okay will activate vacation mode for a few days. Haven’t missed a day since.
Pandemic has the benefit of not having missed a day so far I think. I’m sure that’ll change if I ever get to have an actual life again lol.
Did miss some very few days on Anki though. WK is fairly easy going since it’s just typing, but Anki I write out with pen and paper, which takes a lot more time and also requires a flat, steady surface. However Anki taking more time is a reason to especially not miss a day, cause ugh, double reviews. So I try to at least get the low interval cards done each day. Most reviews in one day was 157… but I think those were just naturally due, not missed lol.
I was on vacation for 8 days at the beginning of August. I didn’t break my streak (currently at 248!), but I’d only do 40 or so reviews a day in idle minutes. Review count got up to around 500. I worked it down over about another week by doing as many reviews as I gained each day + 50-100. Percentages were awful, of course.
I occasionally take weekends off, or one weekend day, if I’ve got a lot going on and feel a little burnt out. Though I try to do a minimum 50/day on weekends/holiday days, just to help keep the review numbers down.
July and August had other priorities pop up and I had around 300 reviews stacked up at one point as I wasn’t able to zero out (or even close to zero out) the reviews every day.
I only bought a subscription in January, but didn’t really get started till June (oops haha). I’m currently on a 93 day streak, but that includes days that I only did 20-50 (instead of the 100-200 I usually have).
I actually hid in the bathroom on Saturday and did a handful of reviews just to keep my streak up
But you need to remember that life comes before WK! It’s okay to miss a day or two, as long as you keep going back to it
The most reviews I ever had to do in one day was 374. That was a rough one. But I made it through! And it motivates me to stay up to date so I never have to deal with that again~
Came back to 700+ one time after being busy for a few days. I personally don’t mind banging out all my reviews at once, but I know not everyone is like that. That said, I was able to finish in about 2 hours.
I’ve never paused my subscriptions and the only times I “take a break” are usually just by bad luck, i.e. a string of events over consecutive days. I feel like if I every paused my sub, I would be less likely to come back, but hey, that’s just me.
i know the moment i take a break and the reviews accumulate, my chance of burning out increases tenfold. the srs system just punishes even single missed days so hard.
Thanks I was using Shirimono for a while but I stopped when I got a little busy at work. I can start again soon, hoping to knock out N5 grammar before the end of the year
I find taking a day off from lessons is more helpful as a break than taking time off from reviews. I’d rather fumble through a stack of reviews with 50% accuracy than to skip them. Even getting it wrong, that’s another instance of exposure that will help me get it right in the future.
“If something is worth doing, it’s worth doing poorly rather than not at all.”
.)
