Hi,

I would like to know about your experiencie.
Normally, when I study skritter I make it at full concentration. But, with the worldcup, sometimes I have the game in the tv and I am skritter with a bit less intense concentration.

The point is that I am seeing that, even though my quality is a bit affected it still works for me to do skritter without that much concentration level and it's a bit easier to do.

What's your experience? Do you feel skritter is better to be done 100% concentrated or you feel it sometimes can be done with a lower level of concentration?

My point is that, depending on how tired you are and your motivation level at a give moment, skritting with a softer demmand on yourself is still better than not doing anything. It's like running a bit softer one day.

Thank you!

Luis

One thing cool about Skritter is that it has allowed me to learn a lot about my brain. I was shocked at how much worse I do late at night, compared to the afternoon. I also can tell when I am concentrating well or not. Sometimes when I am in a good mood, relaxed, and feeling great my memory is absolutely amazing. Other times it's awful.

One thing I found is you better be focused when you do it. Harder characters sometimes take stepping back and redoing them back to back, till you get it down then going on. If you are consistently missing the same things over and over again and you have a less aggressive setting on, I'd suggest stopping of focusing more.

Basically if the computer says you should be getting it right (around 100%) and you are missing it a lot, you aren't nearly focused enough, if you are missing 200-300% questions thats a-whole-nother question.

Hey Dane :)

I also discovered Mr Grumpy Bear, which was interesting. I start Skrittering and there's a phase where I get annoyed at getting things wrong and forgetting stuff I know - knowing that if I quite now I've just gone backwards. In the end I get pissed off and draw horrid squiggles to PUNISH skritter.

If I keep it up Mr Grumpy Bear goes away after a few minutes and we get down to business. It's funny though :)

I do my best not to get distracted, but I'm often working while I'm Skrittering so I'm constantly switching back and forth between Skritter and unrelated things, which is not very good for my learning statistics.

Sleep is often a powerful medicine, by the way. I often find myself studying late at night and forgetting everything. Then I go to sleep and when I wake up, I remember 80-90% of what I was having trouble with. It's almost spooky.

James

I Skritter pretty casually, so I like to do it while listening to music or when the news is on. I'm not quizzing myself for a class or anything, though-my objective is just to keep my familiarity level by making use of spare moments. If you're studying for a class or are pressed for time, I don't know that I'd recommend it. But multitasking with Skritter works well for me as a casual user, and listening to music has a nice pace-setting effect that helps the time pass as I go over and over characters I tend to forget.

I Skritter whenever I can. Sometimes it's single focus concentration, but sometimes I am watching a movie or news program that is mildly interesting but not demanding all of my attention. As others have mentioned, how my memory is operating seems rather random: there are times when I seem to be really sharp and other times, I'm missing obvious things all over the place. If it's truly going badly, I stop and come back later -- though that's a last resort. I love to Skritter, so I'm always back for more.

I'm not sure how others work with the different modes of Skritter. Sometimes I have everything at once (writing, reading, definition, tones) and other times I try to concentrate on one area at a time. I'm not sure really which works better, but I enjoy the variation of different approaches.

This was an interesting question. Thanks for asking it! I'm enjoying reading the responses.

I don't think I could Skritter whilst doing anything else... whilst I do tend to do it as many do here last thing at night, as long as I am not positively falling asleep, I find I retain things quite well. Sometimes after a while I may find myself getting into a "Skritter frenzy"... especially if I am "trying to finish up" I will start scribbling and racking my brain ever more quickly and furiously.

I actually do Skritter whilst I'm doing tons other stuff (TV, Music, Friends) just because it's like that my brain is working, I can't concentrate on a single task.

So far it works well for me (I've spent my whole life doing the same for school/college/grad I think I'm trained now) because I try to skritter quite often (2 or 3x a day).

Makes a huge, huge difference to me. When I skritter after a few hours of intense Chinese class I do pretty poorly but since this is what fits into my schedule best it's when I usually study. The result is that I keep forgetting and forgetting but then I do remember a character and it becomes automatic (from long-term memory). When I want to clear out a backlog of review items I generally get enough sleep and start mid-morning, works wonders. And like others who have posted here, it is amazing to really see how important rest, concentration, and sleep are.

It varies for me. Sometimes I will do a few minutes while I'm at work here and there. The longer sessions, though, I've been doing in the evening... sometimes while casually watching TV, and sometimes completely focused.

So far it's been working well. I like the ability to come and go as I please from skritter.. there's no rigid lesson plan I have to follow... it adapts to me, rather than me to it.

I seldom do very well when distracted. I am also one of those who has observed that sometimes I really surprise myself with what I can remember and at other times can't seem to remember a thing. My biggest dilemma is when I have a big backlog to work off and now is the time I have available to do it, but I am in "can't remember a thing" mode. Will working on Skritter then do more harm than good? It certainly kills my stats, and then the next wave of reviews is even bigger. But if I don't review, the backlog will also build up. It's a no-win situation! But I guess I assume that even poor quality studying is better than nothing - but maybe not better than sleep.