Comments on: Timeboxing Trilogy, Part 4: Decremental Timeboxing

By: [Immersion] Why You Should Stop Trying to Control or Measure Time | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time

Mon, 05 May 2014 19:37:05 +0000

[…] Timeboxing Trilogy, Part 4: Decremental Timeboxing […]

By: BrownStudies : On using timers and timeboxing

BrownStudies : On using timers and timeboxing — Tue, 31 Jul 2012 13:10:30 +0000

[…] interesting twist on the timebox is the decremental timebox system (hat tip to a poster at Mark Forster’s FV forum for the link). I’ve not used it much […]

By: マルク

マルク — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 10:42:01 +0000

Thanks for the Kenan and Kel shout-out. It goes to say that you practice what you preach. You add in jokes and references and that gets me to read the whole article every time. Just like putting on Japanese music makes RTK not really all that bad. I really dig the method and I’ll keep going with it so long as it stays fun and works =)

By: Days 87-100 of AJATT SilverSpoon | tanoshimini

Days 87-100 of AJATT SilverSpoon | tanoshimini — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 08:30:53 +0000

[…] nothing has changed much lately but we have been introduced to Decremental Timeboxing, which is something that I’ve read before on the AJATT site but haven’t really applied […]

By: Don’t Plan Your Day, Plan Your Environment | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time

Mon, 21 Feb 2011 03:50:42 +0000

[…] minutes is an eternity to me. That’s why I came up with all this crazy incremental/decremental timeboxing crap, because 10 minutes feels like forever to […]

By: Timeboxing Trilogy, Part 9: Birthlines And Timeboxing | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time

Sat, 30 Oct 2010 06:07:57 +0000

[…] this technique combines decremental and incremental timeboxing with birthlines. What happens is that the birthlines keep decrementing […]

By: Timeboxing Trilogy, Part 6: Q&A | All Japanese All The Time Dot Com: How to learn Japanese. On your own, having fun and to fluency.

Sat, 24 Jul 2010 17:09:02 +0000

[…] Oh, go here to read the series from the very beginning, and here to read the previous installment. […]

By: My (Current) Timeboxing Tools: Hardware Timers | All Japanese All The Time Dot Com: How to learn Japanese. On your own, having fun and to fluency.

Sun, 18 Jul 2010 15:36:16 +0000

[…] if you’re doing “microtimeboxing” with 60~90 second blocks (see dual timeboxing, decremental timeboxing for details). So, for now, hardware is the way to go. Besides, not all my timeboxing is done in […]

By: Timeboxing Trilogy, Part 3: Dual Timeboxing | All Japanese All The Time Dot Com: How to learn Japanese. On your own, having fun and to fluency.

Sun, 11 Jul 2010 17:36:52 +0000

[…] the basic idea. Tune in next time for the second type of nested timeboxing – decremental timeboxing. Share and […]

By: d4veg

d4veg — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 12:31:00 +0000

What kind of stopwatch do you use? Does anyone have a program or stopwatch that you can set all the times in the timeboxing ahead of time?

By: Tony

Tony — Sat, 10 Jul 2010 01:28:08 +0000

When I read a textbook using 30 minute time boxes, it felt too easy at the beginning. After a few sessions I got tired, so 30 minute periods seemed too long. Consequently, I switched to 15 minute sessions. The problem is the first 15 minute periods feel too easy. I’ll try a decremental time boxing. I’ll do 30 -> 25 -> 20 -> 15 minute sessions thereafter.
P. S. When I have a short break between study sessions, I lie on the sofa and do nothing. I think listening something in your target language could be a good break activity.

By: Tyler

Tyler — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 03:58:27 +0000

So… There is a 2 minute break between each timebox, correct?

By: Peeled Cucumber

Peeled Cucumber — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 02:27:20 +0000

@ Michael

Whenever I’m doing a time-box task like Kanji, I like to have a TV show, etc. on in the background. During the short breaks between time-boxes I’ll just kick back, enjoy the show, and munch on some snacks. That way I don’t have find something to do, it’s already there. Variety Shows are _excellent_ for this.

By: MC

MC — Fri, 09 Jul 2010 01:40:56 +0000

I love these articles, and especially your writing style! There are a few things I am confused about though:

1. You say that one only needs a single timer for decremental timeboxing. How it different than dual timeboxing, in this sense?
2. How long should one break for between timeboxes, and what are recommended activities?

Thanks! 🙂

By: Michael

Michael — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 23:31:35 +0000

With timeboxes so short, what sort of things do you do in the in-between time to make sure you’re savoring that “completion dividend” you mentioned in the first post?

If I do 10 minutes of kanji, I’m a bit confused as to what to do during the 2 minute gap between that and the next time-box.

By: Einar

Einar — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 20:30:57 +0000

Timboxing triology part 3 -> Timboxing triology part 3,5

Decremental timboxing in paractice?

By: WC

WC — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:25:07 +0000

lol That series of asterisks makes it look like I said something MUCH worse than I did. Next time, I’ll use its less offensive cousin ‘crud’. 😀

By: WC

WC — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 17:23:55 +0000

Somehow it was the washing dishes comment that hit home. I need to seriously look into timeboxing the crap that I hate doing. (Which, oddly enough given that’s what this site is about, doesn’t actually include studying languages.)