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30 days: How to improve self-discipline | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Learning Techniques, Methods & Strategies |  | |
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4085 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes  Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 33 of 39 03 April 2014 at 4:04pm | IP Logged | |||||
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I was thinking about this: why restrict a time unit to be only one day? One could
define a time unit to be 3 days. Here is how such a system would work. You have a countdown timer which starts at 3, and counts down to 0. It decrements by 1 each day. However, whenever you do your goal activity, it gets reset to 3. You get to put a checkmark on the calender each day that the counter is non-zero. Here is a sample "good run" example, where each day gets a checkmark. I denote a successful activity day as Y and an unsuccessful day as N. The counter values are written according to the rules above. 3,N 2,N 1,Y 3,N 2,Y 3,N 2,Y 3,Y 3,Y 3,N 2,N 1,Y 3,N ... The goal is to keep the counter always above 0. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
 emk Diglot Moderator United States Joined 5535 days ago 2615 posts - 8806 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish, Ancient Egyptian Personal Language Map | Message 34 of 39 03 April 2014 at 5:15pm | IP Logged | |||||
This is a really, really good idea. But at least for me, it runs into two problems: 1. It's much easier to build a habit where I "do something every day" than it is to build a habit where I do something "twice a week". If I do something every day, then it simply becomes part of my routine, and it feels strange to stop. But if I do something two days a week, then I don't do it five days a week, and those five days can easily expand to seven. 2. The accounting overhead is a bit of a nuisance. "Did I study today?" is easy. "What's the current value of my counter, and did I remember to update it yesterday?" is hard. So how to do I handle Egyptian, where my goal is to study one Assimil lesson per week? Well, here's what my progress graph looks like: 
You can find a live version of this here, with a detailed description of my actual goal:
As you can see, I've been procrastinating on Egyptian, and I'll fall below the "line" in 1 day and 13 hours. So either today or tomorrow, I need to spend 25 minutes going through lesson 45, and make at least 7 cloze cards from the material. What happens if I don't? Well, the first time, nothing but my pride gets hurt, and Beeminder automatically schedules me a week break to get back onto track. But if I blow it a second time, I've got to cough up $5. A third time? $10. Then $30, then $90. And Beeminder is scrupulously fair: If I fail, they send me an email asking whether or not this was a legit failure. Did I fail because of a problem with their system? Or because of true emergency? Or did I fail because I was being lazy and procrastinating? Now, this kind of financial penalty doesn't make sense for every person or every goal: Only for those things where you actually desire real penalties with teeth. And it helps that the Beeminder people are so scrupulously fair and honest in all their dealings. In fact, if you want a tool like Beeminder, but without the "sting", they actually have a very nice list of competing products on their blog. The other clever idea with Beeminder is the idea of an "akrasia horizon": While most people are pretty weak about today, we're happy to make all sorts of promises about next week. So Beeminder allows you to change and adjust your goals, but only one week in the future. If I wanted to stop doing new Assimil lessons for two weeks, perhaps because I was out hiking the Appalachian Trail, I can simply dial in a break a week in advance. Of course, in this case, it's easier to just study a couple of extra lessons and get some breathing room. So basically, I don't have an actual habit of studying Egyptian, not the way I do with French. Instead, I have a tool that tells me when I need to get off my backside and actually do something. And if I'm a wimp, well, Beeminder can offer more serious consequences. One of their many mottos is "safety rope for slippery slopes." (And of course, studying a language for 45 minutes a week has other complications: You really need to use SRS software to remember material between lessons, and you need to be OK with the idea of only reaching B1 after several years. But sometimes, that's the right tradeoff for a cool-but-impractical language like Egyptian.) 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4085 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 35 of 39 03 April 2014 at 5:40pm | IP Logged | |||||
Not that much of a nuisance, you keep track of the counter each day. Eg, for each day box on the calendar, write down the "2N" type entry in a small portion of the box, and and color the rest. Day to day updates are easy. You dont have to remember anything. To be precise, you would write the "2" for the next day, and the "N" for today. Then the next day you might write "Y" for that day, and enter "3" for the day after. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Jeffers Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 4912 days ago 2151 posts - 3960 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Hindi, Ancient Greek, French, Sanskrit, German | Message 36 of 39 06 April 2014 at 12:35am | IP Logged | |||||
Is this something you've been doing? I'd be curious to know how it went after a month of trying it. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4085 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 37 of 39 06 April 2014 at 7:48am | IP Logged | |||||
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I'm strongly considering it. Although not for language learning, but for work related
learning. Anyone know of a site where one can maintain a journal of daily activities geared towards some goal? Where procrastinators can post? 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| luke Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 7208 days ago 3133 posts - 4351 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Esperanto, French | Message 38 of 39 06 April 2014 at 10:13am | IP Logged | |||||
I've been meaning to look for a site like that. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gemuse Senior Member Germany Joined 4085 days ago 818 posts - 1189 votes Speaks: English Studies: German | Message 39 of 39 06 April 2014 at 10:58am | IP Logged | |||||
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^^ Pun intended? :D Edited by Gemuse on 06 April 2014 at 10:58am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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