Learnt some new kanji this morning and then got super busy during the day. For the first time I couldn’t do my reviews at the 4 hour mark (I mean sometimes I’ve stretched it a bit but usually I try to do it at 4 hours). I ended up doing them 12 hours later and wow my accuracy was abysmal. Really goes to show how good the spacing of the intervals actually is. I probably would’ve been better off not learning the new stuff until I got home after work.
Do you guys tend to learn new things in the morning or evening? I’m thinking maybe for the sake of consistency I should start learning things after work so I can review right before I go to bed.
I don’t have any set time, currently I am just doing it. And yes, sometimes beyond 4 hours I just get destroyed by the SRS non retention, but you’ll see the item again very quick because it’s so low level anyway.
I’ve had much the same experience. I always make sure to review once the same day I do the lessons, and I’ve found if circumstances push that beyond 6 hours or so, it gets noticeably harder to remember. I know some people swear by hitting all 3 intervals in the first day if your schedule allows that, but personally as long as I hit the 4 hour one on time, it seems to work pretty well for me the next day. So I think you’re right to schedule however works for you to make at least roughly the four hour mark happen.
I usually do it later in the day just because I feel like getting most of my reviews for the day out of the way first, but I try to do it around 9pm-ish because I don’t close my pc till like 2am so I know I’ll be able to catch the 4 hour mark before I sleep. after that it shows up after 8 hours but I probably don’t do it until after 13 hours but that doesn’t really mess me up. As long as I catch the 4 hour one I’m good. That being said I do sometimes do it earlier it’s more like I try not to do it after 9pm
It’s recommended to plan the SRS intervals a bit, meaning doing the lessons so that you can do the reviews at the time they become available to you. As you noticed, it’s about initial retention as you need that repetition for the new items to settle in. The first couple of SRS-intervals are the most sensitive I find.
Yeah, I’ve noticed that the first two review intervals massively affect my retention, too!
I plan my WK schedule around my work schedule. Since I work part time, I can do my new lessons (and any reviews from overnight) in the morning, go to work for four hours, then come home and do the 4 hour review interval, and have enough time left in my day to do the 8 hour interval before I go to bed.
If I worked full time, I would probably do the lessons after I got home from work, then the 4 hour interval before bed, and the 8 hour one in the morning. Some people are able to do their reviews during their lunch break, but I’m pretty attached to my userscripts, so I don’t like to do WK on any device besides my main computer.
I used to be terrible at doing lessons in the morning. I actually got better at it from doing WK although I still preferred to do lessons during my noon session even towards the end.
i very much agree that that 4-hour review is hugely important.
that’s actually another reason why i love the reorder buttons, to reorder reviews by srs level. that means i can do the 4-hour review even if my total pile of reviews is too large to get through at that point in time ^^
Yeah I basically never do a lesson at a time when I won’t catch the 4-hour review, and hopefully the next one as well, at least close to on time. So, assuming I’m awake for about 16 hours a day, usually I’ll either do them first thing on waking up (which gives you leeway to miss the first review and still get the 4- and 8-hour review on time) or within the next few hours, or around 4-5 hours from the end of my day which lets me get the 4-hour review in my last set before bed and then wake up (close) to the 8-hour review.
I’ve noticed that prestudying the level beforehand, a couple of days before leveling and doing the first couple reviews as they pop up has increased my accuracy from 75 to 92ish percent. It is crazy. This phenomena should be in an announcement of some kind.
Yeah. Either i do lessons in the morning and make sure to keep the 4h interval or i’ll study new items just before going to bed and do the first reviews first thing next morning.
I do lessons shortly before bed once or twice each level. Basically if I start the day with no available lessons, but then some apprentice IV reviews come up at like 8-10 PM and they unlock new lessons, then I’ll still do 10-15 lessons quickly before bed.
My retention on those was pretty bad the next morning, but then I started using the self-study script to drill the new lessons 2-3 times before going to sleep and that has helped tremendously. Retention is still a touch lower on those ones the next morning (probably 85-90%), but I’m happy with that.
If you really don’t care to speed through WK I would definitely recommend just waiting to do lessons the next day instead.
Depending on how often you do reviews, when to do lessons can be a big help to avoiding huge piles of reviews in the morning. I generally do lessons in the evenings so that the first review is first in the morning. The ones I get correct will end up as mid afternoon reviews, assuming I get them right again. The ones I get wrong end up as evening reviews, since I’ll review them again that same day.
But I used the Apprentice I review as a guide of what to study. I spend very little time on the lessons. I’ve found that for a given group of lessons, about 50% of them will just stick, even if I just scan them quickly. The other half I need to study. But I never know which half will be the easy half. So I let failing the App I tell me. After that review, I look at and actually study/make mnemonics/concentrate a bit more. It saves me a lot time in the end, because I only do focused study on those things which I fail.
I don’t find WK’s intervals particularly great. I’d like something a bit more flexible. But I like the short intervals for helping me sort out which ones need greater attention.
before hell levels I didnt have any problem with retention, it was aroung 90% all the time, but since lvl 31 many words I dont see in the wild maybe that’s why they dont stick to my mind as well.
I will try to use more self study quiz for failed last review and see if it changes. Problem is free time and disposition to do this more everyday at night.
I know it feels that way but this is the part I want to cherry-pick out to disagree with. Would you really be better off waiting? I say no.
Let’s say you did them at the earlier time, and then you couldn’t go back and do the 4-hour review for… let’s say something ridiculous like 24 hours. (This happens to me all the time)
Now there are two groups of items.
Ones you get so really lucky, or they were so easy, that you get them right. Seems like that 4-hour review wasn’t that important, eh? Good job.
Ones you can’t remember. It’s like you waited until now to see them for the first time. In fact, it’s exactly like that. Certainly not worse than that because you have seen them in your lifetime at least once.
So I think if you wait until you’re sure you can do the 4-hour review on time, you’re throwing away the first group and a free look at the second group.
Here ends today’s episode of “Overthinking a Simple Thing.” Please like and subscribe.
If you’re fine wasting time on doing some extra reviews and revisiting a lot of the lesson material because it didn’t stick the first time, this strategy can work, but I think a lot of people would rather spend their study time doing other things rather than relearning stuff they already tried to learn earlier in the day. I’m not too concerned with maximizing my study efficiency, but I feel like if you can get much better results out of your studies just by slightly changing the time that you do them, it’s worth doing that.
(This happens to me all the time)