What are some suggestions to be consistent in reviews without relying on motivation?
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Iāve been quite burnt out as of late myself. What I do is just do reviews, and do other things. Getting demotivated early on is much harder to recover from than if it happened later on. In my case, I go watch tv or read a book. but when I was first starting, I was heavily relying on motivation.
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Set Bunpro as your homepage in your web browser. Whenever you go to use the internet, the reviews will be right in your face without any effort on your part.
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On my phone I donāt have any games, and set my parental controls for 1 hour each for social media and browser.
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I also like doing anki / bunpro while walking. But when the weather is cold, I want to put my hands back in my pocket so bad. If your house is big enough to pace, it does really help me think.
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This is a really interesting question - I think the key is to reframe it a little to focus on how to have more control over your motivation, rather than how to proceed without it!
I think the first step is to refamiliarize yourself with your goals, and try to set āSMARTā goals, which are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-based. With languages this can be hard, because a lot of us might think, āI want to be fluentā or something along those lines, but thatās really hard to measure, and it can make progress feel slow. Having short term goals that you know are directing you towards your main goal gives you more motivation to work hard!
I think itās also important to set āapproachā goals versus āavoidanceā goals, which basically means goals that focus on a positive outcome that youāre approaching, rather than avoiding an outcome you donāt want (i.e. studying to pass rather than studying to not fail, which invoke two really different mindsets!).
Iād also say itās important to reflect on what kind of motivation pushes you to do your best based on past experiences - are you typically driven by intrinsic, internal motivation, or do you do better with external motivators? Iād recommend thinking about that and then trying to set yourself up in circumstances that suit your personal motivation style! It might mean combining several styles, too, to cover your bases!
Overall, itās really normal to go through phases of feeling motivated versus not. Iāve been studying for years, and have had a lot of both. But this is the kind of stuff that helps me, so I hope itās useful!
Best of luck!
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For bunpro specifically, on a good day itās the first thing I do in the morning. I wake up and do my reviews while Iām still laying in bed. That way I donāt have to worry/forget about them the rest of the day. Cuz the last thing I want to do at 2am when my eyes barely stay open is try to chug though and fail my reviews cuz the day got busy all I wanna do is sleep.
I have mine set to come in all at once at 3am so they donāt trickle in throughout the day.
I end up checking bunpro in my downtime throughout the day anyway tho. Like when Iām waiting for tea to steep, in a line, waiting for my order at a restaurant, in the bathroom etc. I usually only have about 30 grammer reviews. If Iām really bored Iāll plow through them all in one session otherwise Iāll do some and come back. Because some days splitting it up is just less draining. And less draining = higher want to do them next time.
I used to rely only on motivation and that was okay in the beginning cuz it kept the process positive for me. If I hated it I wouldnāt continue. But the further I got the more annoying this became because I wanted to want do it but burnout said no and it never happened. So I incorporated it more into my daily routines. Listening to Japanese podcasts while having tea or walking dog sort of thing. Interestingly the consistency gave me motivation. I would look forward to that part of my day. And understanding something I wouldnāt have the months before, because of that consistency, just increases that motivation. Itās a nice synergy
TLDR
Combine it with something you already do or while youāre waiting for something to happen
Have morning coffee? Review while brewing/drinking
Boiling water for pasta? Review
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I think making reviewing habitual instead of just based on motivation and timing would also be a good tip here. Motivation then can be realocated to potent fuel instead of your sole reliance, preventing burnout.
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Routine.
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Do what humans (and other animals) have been doing for literally millions of years: Build a habit out of it. Thatās what are brains are largely built for!
Pick a regular time period that you can commit to; I would recommend picking āonce per dayā. Now, here is the key foundational step to building SRS into a habit:
- Do at least one Review Session per your chosen period ā even if you only do a single review in the whole Review Session.
- [There is no step 2, just keep doing step 1 every chosen period.]
So, for example, do at least one Review Session per day, if youāve chosen āper dayā as your period. Now, suppose you lack the motivation to do a bunch of reviews. Ugh! Itās overwhelming! Well, fear not. Just do a handful of reviews. You donāt have to do them all.
Canāt even do a small handful? Well, at least do a single review, and then immediately press the āFinish or Wrap-Upā button (or press the number ā0ā), and wrap up the session.
Done! Yes! Thatās all! Success for the day!
As long as you successfully finish your daily Review Session, your brain will reward you with some dopamine, the key neuro-chemical involved in habit-building.
And surely you can manage to do a single review in your single daily Review Session, right? So, in other words, you are guaranteed to successfully complete your daily Review Session.
And just keep doing this, day by day, one successful daily Review Session after another.
If you can keep that up for about 30 days in a row (very roughly speaking; it may take fewer days or more, depending), then your brain will automatically, naturally, build a habit circuit for you.
Once youāve got that initial habit-circuit built, you can then build on top of that. For example, go from the bare-minimum of 1 review per session, increase it to say 3, or 5, or 10, depending on how you feel. Then eventually that new minimum will become your new habit (give it whatever time is necessary).
Then you can advance to doing more than one Review Session per day, and so on.
In order to avoid burning out, just gradually increase number of reviews/session and number of sessions/day. If things start feeling overwhelming again, slow down until they arenāt.
Eventually, your brain will automatically and naturally build up the habit so that if you miss a day, you will really feel that youāre āmissingā the habit, and thatās how youāll be able to stick to the habit in the long run, without requiring external or artificial āmotivationā.
[Oh, and slow down ā or even halt temporarily ā on your new Lessons until you have your daily Review Session habit in place. Otherwise your Review stack will pile up and things may start seeming overwhelming again.]
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I really wish I could create habits so easily like this. If thatās all it takes for you, Iām very jealous.
Now for the question, I think itās primarily routine as well. If someone can keep duolingo streaks for years, why couldnāt I maintain a streak on a tool that actually matters? Although it pains my conscience to do this, I at least do 1 review.
One other thing that helps, is that I never actually leave the ājapanese learner mindsetā. In the back of my mind, Iām always thinking on japanese related stuff (my hobbies are pretty japanese centric, so it helps a lot), so I never needed any notifications/reminders to do reviews or something like that. Learning opportunities, whenever they come, Iām ready.
Whenever I turn on my phone in the morning, jpdb and bunpro icons are on my title screen, looking down on my soul. I do a lot of reviews before allowing myself to get out of bed, and if I can learn my new cards by then, itās a huge win for the day already. Rince and repeat.
Thatās the day, every day, and Iām happy about it. Until the day I donāt need it anymore.
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Yeah as others have mentioned I have the apps for wanikani and bunpro on my homescreen, along with a little motivational message about learning Japanese lol.
If Iām on the train in the morning, open my phone and see the apps right there itās often like āahh letās check how many reviews there areā then āahh may as well just do like 10ā and then I end up perhaps just doing them all.
You hear a lot on YouTube etc something like āmake your habits as convenient possibleā, like if youāre choosing a gym, take your gym clothes to work and go to one thatās on your way back from work. Having the shortcuts on the homescreen is kinda like that 
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Actually, building (positive) habits is very hard for me, despite what I said about the brain being built for it. On the flip side, I find myself falling into negative habits very easily.
The method I described is one of the few major cases where I was able to build a positive habit. Thatās why I think it will work for most people ā cuz if it worked even for me, then it seems likely that it will work for others.
But then again, itās just my anecdotal experience, and I donāt really know that it will really work the same for others. I hope it will, though.
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I think most people are like that. It takes 3 weeks to build a habit, but only once to break it. A few weeks ago I went to Osaka for a 3 day vacation and swore not to use bunpro while doing so. Iāve been struggling to get back onto the horse, so to say.
I can be a pretty self-motivated guy, but I can assure you it is far easier to play 12 hours of Runescape for a week straight than it is to study grammar for 1 hour every day for a week.
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- Keeping everything on the same weekly & daily schedule will turn motivation into habit.
- Lots of books on ājust do 5/10/15 minutesā because usually itās easier to keep doing something than to start.
- Pomodoro technique if you want to break longer periods of work into intervals.
- Know the difference between āworkā and āfunā for immersion. Donāt burn out on āfunā that is actually āworkā.
- Slow down - most burnout on SRS is because there are too many items. SRS review counts donāt peak until 4-8 months after your first review.
- There is no distinction between āgoodā and ābadā when it comes to practice/habit building. Practice makes permanent.
- If youāre spending time on researching how to learn, watching the 50th āhow to become the ćć©ćć© in the ę„ę¬čŖ in 30ē§ from native ę„ę¬äŗŗć®ęåø«ā, or reading a 7 bulleted list on the forums about how to learn, forgive yourself today and tomorrow, spend that time on just 1 review or lesson.
Donāt click the like button on this post. Donāt reply āthank you hx9ā. Just doing one review right after this post is thanks enough for me.
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iāll add to all the above by saying, Iāve had particular success by:
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making Bunpro reviews my āsocial mediaā replacement. Need to kill 10min? Donāt scroll Insta, do some Bunpro then surf the forums. Critically, though donāt do all your reviews. You can make this even easier by adding app time limits to your social media apps and adding Bunpro as an app to your homescreen. Hijack that ādonāt know what to do so Iāll look at my phoneā part of the modern brain
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Do Bunpro as a break from your day-to-day work. Am I in need of a break from writing the hundredth debug print statement? Time to make some tea and do a little Bunpro while I drink it. The idea is to reframe your outlook so that Bunpro is the āfun thing you do to break up the boring day job stuffā Again, just a few reviews donāt get it in your head that you need/must do them all.
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It is ok to not do all your reviews for that day.. Use the forecast map on the dashboard to your advantage. If tomorrow only 1 review is being added, who cares if you donāt get all 30 done today? Just do 4/10/12 whatever, and do the rest tomorrow. On the flipside, is the forecast that 20 are going to be added tomorrow? In that case push a little and try to get down to 0 or some number youāre ok with holding over to tomorrow.
- Naturally this means you need to pace your learning. For example I only learn new things on days where the added review forcast is less than 5. I find this gives me a really nice spread, where there will be multiple days that few to no, reviews are added.
As you can see above, even if I donāt do any more today and only to 7 tomorrow Iāll still be sub 20 reviews on average. This makes it super manageable though admittedly the pace is slower
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This post is full of gold.
Exactly what Iāve settled into. SRS is for the long term so play the long game. Find the minimum amount of study time, including reviews, that it takes to make significant (to you) progress and that you can guarantee every day. It might be smaller than you think. Err on the side of less when it comes to adding new things. Favor longer intervals between seeing items instead of shorter.
For where Iām at with kanji right now itās 1 hour (reviews + studying new things). Any more and I canāt guarantee it (and SRS will start to spiral out of control). Any less and Iām wasting my time. But that balance ensures that I make good progress. And my days go best when I get it done first thing in the morning before work and the day carries me away. If I have to do it during the day Iāll go to the library because Iāve successfully associated the environment with studying.
Anyway, everybody has to find their own style. I think consistency eventually comes as long as one doesnāt give up.
I found my excitement, productivity, and a sense of challenge came when I focused instead of on the Bunpro reviews but on the CRAMMING lessons in the various levels.
Everyday I learn 1-2 more points, then I cram the points Iāve done in that lesson and the previous lesson, but I cram with a multiplier of at least 3, sometimes 4. So if there are 17 points in that lesson, and 20 in the previous lesson, I cram 20+17 all times 3, or 111 reviews. If that is too much, I just drop the multiplier. Iām on N3, lesson 6.
I also, as time allows review all previous material.
But I think most importantly, pick out a Manga in ę„ę¬čŖ, and start trying to read! Blue Box is a good starter and Smoking with you behind Super market.
You can find all these for low prices at
https://manga-republic.com/cart/thank_u.html?cart_id=30115&tid=66P47504WS797433R
Theyāre a fun bunch. Always wrap candy in and shipping from Japan is always free.
Thatās my äŗå worth!
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