I consider myself to be fairly consistent with Skritter. I try to shoot for 30 minutes a day; typically my "shot" goes into the hoop, but sometimes I feel a bit sluggish...

This question reaches out to every skritter: how do you deal with days where you just don't feel like penning characters? I remember one of Hacking Chinese's articles: the slumps kill you the most. Thoughts? Opinions? Inspiration?

Good question klooste! And it is one that I have been thinking about for a while. If I had a short answer to your question, it would be to treat Skritter as just a review and ingrain mechanism and to do the actual learning outside of Skritter. However, seeing as though you are going for around 30mins a day, it seems as though you are already doing that.

I went through a period where I was just adding words without any context. I found that it was okay for a while, but when I came back after some time away, I did not have a clue why that card (usually single bounded form characters) was added in the first place.

So after a bit of a think, what I decided to do was ban all my words (about 6000 or so). I got this idea from Hacking Chinese (http://www.hackingchinese.com/chinese-character-challenge-towards-a-more-sensible-way-of-learning-to-write-chinese/). What I decided to do, was only re-add the card if I had a knowledge of what context it was added, this was done through making my own definition (based of John De Francis's ABC dictionary on Pleco) and adding a couple of example sentences or collocations from ChinesePod or a news article I got the word from. Example:

1) N. pulverised or powdered coal (e.g. ～燃烧) [i.e. used in coal-fired power generation]
2) B.F. calculate or compute (e.g. ～划 or 统～ or 设～ or 会～)
3) B.F. pavilion (e.g. 太鲁～)

I have added about 1500 banned words back in and my reviews are very very manageable (averaging under 30mins a day). The great thing is that I have been able the add in around 200 new words over the past fortnight with this method. I do like to feel that I am making progress. So I make sure that I go into the Skritter list, change the definition, add the example sentences and then add into my reviews on the next day. My context of the words is so much better, and, because of that, so is my comprehension.

Way back when the first iOS app came out, I was doing sometimes over 2 hours a day. Hopefully, with this new method, those days will be a thing of the past :-).

I just ignore the slumps - I'm not on a particular timeline for studying Chinese at the moment so if I'm busy at work or just not in the mood for study I'll do other things for a while until I regain my interest. I like checking the progress graphs in Skritter, they match the amount of time in pretty well, but that's not enough to make me want to study when I'm thinking about other things.

I don't really worry too much about missing days here and there or having a big queue of characters that I don't have time to get through, I know when I start studying again I'll get through the queue sure enough. Even a few minutes of practice is valuable, I always feel I learn something even if I only manage a few characters in a day.

When these times hit for me I use one of many iPhone apps to read Chinese
short stories or try to get into a short novel like Alice in Wonderland. I copy and paste the Chinese text into Pleco's clipboard reader and go to town reading in an assisted fashion. That usually gets me past the slump times, then I hop back into Skritter to eat through the backlog. Like others I don't have much time. It's an after work, after the kids go to sleep kind of time, so everything has to work for me off an iPhone or iPad. Having goals also helps. For example I'm studying to take the HSK 3 test, so I'm working on that word list and borrowed a study book from a local university.

Nice idea USB! Do you need to pay for the clipboard function, or is it free?

I watch some favorite shows on Youku.

When things go south, I always revert to fun.

I do the things that I love about China, and Chinese culture, and especially about Taiwan. I always fail back to just having fun. Skritter and Anki are always there for another day.

Things I've done recently when burnt out:
Waste time on Youku.
Reread a favorite manga in Chinese.
Pull up Google maps and look at all the restaurants I've started in Taipei. Read the reviews. Look at the pictures.
Explore Alishan on google street view.
Watch all the Google Taiwan ads on YouTube.
Look at cute girls on FHM Taiwan.
Just start some favorite Chinese music playing.
Read a recipe in Chinese and make it.
Go shopping with my shopping list in Chinese.
Spend 10 min visualizing a perfect day, where I'm only allowed to think to myself in Chinese.
etc........

Have fun!

@klooste, yes the clipboard reader is free.

@snowcreature, for me it's also music with interesting lyrics that usually gets me， e.g. "Matzka - 一朵花“ （KTV版）