What learning methods are you going to stop using?

[lechuan]

Filling out the 2021 aims and objectives thread got me thinking that it is equally important to decide what learning methods to stop using in order to free up time for more effective learning methods. Any methods that you are planning to stop doing?

 

For me, I think I'm going to stop using flashcards (and flashcard type programs). I feel like I end up learning vocab of dubious value, reviews end up piling up, I forget the words (because I never use them outside the review) and I start to dread using whatever SRS based app I was using. At times it feels like I'm just learning useless words "just in case" I run into them in the future. Instead I'd like to try relying on "natural SRS", just go through whatever materials I happen to be learning, and if I run into the same thing over and over, I'll remember it, if I don't, then it probably wasn't that important to remember. I'd rather just try having a conversation (with myself if necessary) using the words I have recently learned instead of just quizzing words in isolation.

[imron]

I wouldn’t stop using flashcards completely, I’d just look to keep them on a shorter leash.

 

Firstly that means setting them up so that you spend almost zero time creating or maintaining them. I detailed my Pleco settings for doing this here.

 

Then, in order to avoid the problems you list, it’s important to make flashcards a secondary activity. This means that on any given day you can review flashcards, but it should never be the activity that you spend the most time on and it should be used to supplement the other activity (e.g. drilling of words learnt that day/week etc). 
 

The way I manage this is by deleting decks once they start taking too much time to review, where ‘too much’ is defined as different thing for different people, but for me when I am in vocab learning mode, is about 30 min a day. 
 

Definitely do more reading though ?