I'm going to be away from Skritter for a couple of weeks and wonder how I should try to minimize the number of items waiting when I come back. I've already kicked everything out of my queue, paused all my active lists, and am trying to keep my review number close to zero. However, the practice page tells me I still have something like 1,700 items due next week, and presumably another huge number for the subsequent week. I've been through this several times before and am resigned to it, but I'm still curious if there's anything that can be done in advance.

If I continue to practice after I get my "due" number down to zero, will this reduce the number of items coming due next week? Presumably this will start giving me items before they're actually due, so I'll be jumping the gun somewhat, but will this actually result in rescheduling some of those items further out in the future?

James

Yes. What you describe is exactly the recommended method and should work well, done far enough in advance of the vacation.

Keep overpracticing for several days and you'll clear out most of your long-term items (you'll be able to watch this happen on the future items graph). You can go down to 60% or 70% readiness if you want, or just do the same amount of time as you usually do when adding. So apart from short-term items, you'll be good to go for your vacation.

O.K., cool. Now I'll just need to deal with the withdrawal symptoms.

Oh, I think many of us will suffer withdrawal from all of James' helpful comments on the forum!

Anyway, I appreciate the suggestions for vacation prep.

Hah, thanks arp.

Hi Nick, I've used the over-practice technique and it *seems* that after clearing the queue the items are loaded based on when they will become due, rather than their percentage due.

So the review order will be this:
FIRST: 50% ready character due in 1 hour
THEN: 99% ready character due in 2 hours

Am I correct? Is it made this way for ease of programming?

Because of this when I over-practice it clears the next day or two very well - but has no effect over longer periods (I get stopped out by 30% ready words I got wrong a few minutes ago).

Bugs! Bugs!

When the Flash first starts up, it'll grab the first thing it tries to load so you don't have to wait. After that it'll load several hundred items based on when they're due. It then sorts those based on readiness. As you practice, it loads further and further into the future (at a rate dependent on how many reviews you've done and how due they were).

So you might see items more due than the ones you have been doing as you practice, especially at the very beginning or when you have a ton of items due. But it shouldn't be very noticeable. I wonder if one of the timezone bugs I've theoretically extinguished is affecting you.

I will increase the number of items it loads to see if it was just stopping short of picking them up.

Seen this bug. Words very rarely appear not long after you've done them with a low % ready. Can't remember if it's always on getting it wrong the first time.

Another bug, while we're on the subject, is on first loading the practice page, sometimes I'll get the first couple of words twice in a row.

Both minor.

(And Nick, I'm not keen on filling in my old words with other peoples' mnemonics.. Automatically for new words only? Or at very very least make sure it's a popular one (X+ users) before doing so).

Yeah, I've got the doubled word adding and the quick-repeated bugs on my list. Or rather, I'm on their list. They're mocking me. They perch, grinning gargoyles, just out of reach on the rafters of my Fogbugz Priority 3 hall. I am beginning to loathe going in there for fear of their torments.

I just sent you an email about the default shared mnemonics. I will have to figure something out about that.