I can now remember characters and words extremely fast (it gets easier).
I encounter a new character, look it up in the dictionary and add it to skritter.
The following morning I get up and draw the new word first time no trouble.

The problem is - now the word isn't going to appear for a long time. Wouldn't it be good if I could have those words scheduled 1 week away?

What have other people experienced?

If it's a really easy character and I'm confident that I'll remember it, this behavior is OK with me, and I just let it be. Particularly if it's a character that I have some experience with outside of Skritter.

But if I have any doubts at all the first time I see it, I'll mark it wrong, even if I was able to dredge it up from my memory upon first viewing. Marking it wrong takes it off the "fast track", and you'll have a few more opportunities to review the character in the short term.

How long do they get scheduled for if you get them right first time? There's lots of little variables like this that would be interesting to see for people obsessed with optimising their Skrittering time.

The default is actually exactly a week, but that gets adjusted as you practice just like your other factors. It could be anywhere between two days and a month, depending on your target retention rate and how often you actually get things wrong. Right now for you Zach, when you get something right for the first time it's scheduled for about 9 days, and it's been steadily getting higher over time (after dropping pretty low at first).

And yeah, if you get it right continuously after that, it will grow about 3 times faster than normal until you get it wrong. I think I'll eventually make it so that the fast track tapers off as the review times get longer, though. What do you think of that?

Oh, 9 days sounds about right! In that case its fine. You guys are the best!

Hmm, long term scheduling is an interesting topic. I have no idea if you should let it taper off, but I don't think it will make a large difference either way.