Motivation issues? Trouble sitting down for an hour to pen characters? Need a structure to study? Try out this method!

Here's a link to the Tomato Method, which is a technique I used daily to clear and learn new Skritter words. (http://pomodorotechnique.com/get-started/)

I think you'll be surprised how inaccurate the Skritter timer is (sorry skritter team; I love ya'll)! When you study for 25 minutes in real time, the Skritter timer is usually around the 10-15 minute mark.

I hope my advice helps everyone learn.

Hello klooste, thanks for the advice. I've tried it right away! So far, not much improvement for my retention rate - guess I'll have to persist for more than one pomodoro? ;) Now let me use my 5 min break:

As for the timer, I think it stops after 0:30 min for each tiny task (e.g. writing each character of a word), meaning that if you would need 3:00 min to write a three character word, that still would give you 0:30 min/char x 3 char = 1:30 min time credits only in the Skritter universe - relatively speaking.

NB: Not related to and not paid by the Skritter team, just greatly helped with my Chinese writing

The Skritter timer is not inaccurate, its simply not measuring time elapsed, but rather estimating time "on task." If I see a huge discrepancy between clock minutes elapsed and Skritter time "earned" I know it means I have been "off task" during most of my (alleged) Skrittering session.

I think 30 seconds is a reasonable amount of time to spend on one character, and move on if it can't be recalled during that time period.

For people who like to do dictionary lookups or are composing a lot of new mnemonics you could say that they are being shortchanged, because they truly are doing something that is adding to their learning, but the Skritter timer is simply telling you how much time you are spending working on reducing your queue. I think the fact that it doesn't give "credit" for "idle" time is actually a very clever design feature.

I haven't tried the Pomodoro, but maybe you could do it with the Skritter timer if you found, for example, that on average 20 minutes of clock time gives you 10 minutes of Skritter time, then take you five minute break when you have reached 10 minutes of Skritter time.

You might want to experiment with alternating between sessions where you just put your head down and blast through (i.e. try to minimize the discrepancy between Skritter time and actual time elapsed) and other sessions where you pause and really think about each word that you have missed, re-write it, look up its decomposition, etc. etc. and see if that seems to make a difference in the quality of learning.

@podster I agree; I have two very different ways of using Skritter, and 90% of the time I am just blasting through reviews rather than stopping to investigate a new character.
It also helps that I have extensive review sessions (or sometimes classes) where I am first introduced to a character, and never want to see it first on Skritter because I just can't remember it out of context. Therefore the Skritter timer is very accurate at measuring the time spent reinforcing what I've already learnt.

I think "time on task" is subjective, pod. For me, if I'm spending 15 minutes crushing a leech (which has cost me a total of 45 minutes of study time), then I consider myself to still be on task.

The Skritter timer is accurate for writing characters, that is it. I spend half n hour skrittering, but in total i'll spend 100 minutes (1 totmato)with Skritter, using the integrated dictionary to look up words, to see the stroke order, find example sentences, make example sentences etc. When I'm doing all these things I still consider myself on task.

I used to blast through my ques too, but then I realized I couldn't use 75 percent of the words on my Skritter in daily conversations, I needed a change. I was simply learning how to write characters without using them in context. Now, I read each sentence I make with each character I write. I have sticky notes for characters that I need to spend more time learning, like 呵護 for example, or 阿姨. This method works for me. The timer does not include the time you spend reading your example sentence after you write the character.

You're right: the people who spend time looking up words/making example sentences are being shortchanged, which is exactly why I think the timer is innaccurate.

I've actually found I feel less pressure to blast through my reviews when I am using the tomato method: now I take things slow, and apply context to everything I'm learning while using Skritter at the same time. I don't use Skritter to learn new vocabulary, I learn new words on the street, and then transfer them onto Skritter to solidify my learning. That way I'm not adding meaningless vocabulary from the HSK tests without being given any context of the word.

Before I found myself adding useless (or some may argue useful) HSK 5 vocabulary, which had little context/meaning to me. But today I learned that 番薯 (sweet potato) can also mean idiot in Chinese. 你是大番薯 (you are an idiot (slightly flirty)) is a really useful phrase, and is something I'll remember, not because I blasted through my que, but because I took things slow.
Sorry to disagree!

Be well!

@klooste,
I'm not sure that we really disagree. I say take the Skritter timer for what it's worth. For me it sometimes helps to keep me honest. But I couldn't agree with you more on the importance of context. This is a question of the the power of SRS and the limits of SRS. I'm currently trying to slowly weed out words that aren't in my active spoken vocabulary, or words that I don't think I am highly likely to see in written form in the near future. I'm sure adding HSK items with no context is not a very efficient way to build vocabulary. If the "tomato method" is working for you, by all means 加油！