Comments on: Timeboxing Trilogy, Part 8: Don’t Those Super-Short Timeboxes Make Timeboxing Meaningless?

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

Wed, 27 Oct 2010 15:01:26 +0000

[…] previous installment of the trilogy is here, first installment […]

By: jean-Paul Setlak

jean-Paul Setlak — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 02:23:32 +0000

Hi.
I read about time-boxing here and liked the concept. I didn’t have a timer and I’m a non-linear in the moment kind of person. So I just invented for myself the non-timed random just-feel-it time boxing.

I recently accepted a teaching post in 2 colleges in Illinois. I will be teaching 4 college French classes at the end of the August. I have taught languages for a long time but never in an academic environment. Good God! There were dozens of things to do and organize and sequence and.. and…… So I started to random time-box, moving from one course to the next, one book to the next, one syllabus, one set of tests to the next…etc. I got it all done in about 10 days. The constant recycling and moving to different tasks – but with purpose – actually allowed me to go deeper faster and to make many more useful connections.

I timed nothing, but I listened to the intuitive feeling that said: “Move on now!”” Sometimes 60 seconds, sometimes 30 minutes. I kept the idea that movement through ALL I had to do was the primary directive.

It also eliminated the feeling of burden and overwhelm. It was replaced by excitement and a feeling of power ,, like a good computer game.

By: khatzumoto

khatzumoto — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 04:01:34 +0000

@Ken
>If Khatzumoto had titled the first one “Part One of the Timeboxing Octology” (“八部作”?), maybe he never would have started. (Seriously, who would start on a “part 1 of 8″? That sounds like *work*.) But he has no trouble writing 3 blog posts, and then he just kept going. Momentum is a strong force. My guess is the only reason he thought to make it in 3 parts (instead of 1) is because he didn’t want the pressure of having to make a single timeboxing article “complete” — do a little now, and fill in the rest next week.

That is PRECISELY what happened, actually 😀 ナイス洞察力!

By: Ken

Ken — Fri, 20 Aug 2010 22:53:57 +0000

I believe the last one was published as “The fifth book in the increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker’s Trilogy”.

Perhaps the form of the lesson is meant to be part of the lesson. If Khatzumoto had titled the first one “Part One of the Timeboxing Octology” (“八部作”?), maybe he never would have started. (Seriously, who would start on a “part 1 of 8”? That sounds like *work*.) But he has no trouble writing 3 blog posts, and then he just kept going. Momentum is a strong force. My guess is the only reason he thought to make it in 3 parts (instead of 1) is because he didn’t want the pressure of having to make a single timeboxing article “complete” — do a little now, and fill in the rest next week.

I’m going go to 1/2 a set on my SRS. That sounds pretty easy.

By: Han

Han — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 07:24:41 +0000

Don’t worry, Douglas Adams has a trilogy in five parts called Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. You’re definitely beating him ^^.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 04:05:49 +0000

Hi all! This is my first time writing anything on this site. Long story short, no actually, long story kept long (I apologize for this btw). Well, I have been studying Japanese for about 2 years now (not serious study though, I have to admit). Anyway, immersion is not a problem for me, I love basically EVERYthing Japanese, though I cannot commit to full immersion at the mo.
My problem is, for a while now, I have had a lack of concentration. Not matter what I do, it feels like I am barely progressing. I have only just got into Srsing. I had Anki for a good while on comp, but didn’t use it till I got the ipod app. Got ipod touch in April and love that it is great for Japanese! Anywho, I find srsing to be a great idea, whether I stick to it or not is another thing. I’m lazy and tend to forget to use things.
Now, when I was a child, I always had a facination with things from China, Korea and Japan but didn’t as a child understand the different cultures. The cherry blossom tree in my neighbourhood, started everything. But 2 years ago, a book in the library caught my eye. It was a travel guide to Japan. I leased it and while flicking through it, saw an amazing picture, of toriii gates in Kyoto. It took my breath away and from that moment I decided to had to go there one day. The phrases at the back were so beautiful and easy, that there was no giving up. I was becoming Japanese.
I’ve never looked back. My family and friends think i’m crazy, but the Japanese culture gripped me and is my life, an obsession.
Only the other day, In order to motivate myself, I asked myself the question: “If I gave up Learning Japanese, how would my life be?” I hesitated. “Would I still watch Japanese movies and drama’s? Would I still like the culture?” I realised (though I knew just didn’t question it before) that I couldn’t give it up. I think of something to do with Japan and Japanese with basically every thought I have, and if it were possible, I would lose everything that goes with it, because I’d feel like a failure for giving up. I wouldn’t be me. My dream from day one (since I saw that photo) is to live in Japan.
I am 19 now and am wondering what to do. I have no degree, nor am I in college at the mo. Ireland is very limited when it comes to courses. I would love to do something to do with Japanese but the requirements are ridiculous. I did German for my Leaving Cert (oh God that was so boring, I learned more Japanese by myself in a few weeks, than I did in years with German) No offense to the Germans, it was just a bad school system. Anyway the LC required higher level C3 (and I did ordinary) along with other stupid requirements, that have nothing to do with Japanese. Pathetic.
Also Japanese people are hard to come by in Ireland, to put it simply I know none.
Sorry I sound so gloomy!
But my question is: ‘How hard is it to get a job or enter college in Japan if you have no degree?’ Providing that you self study Japanese and can prove profiency.
I know this probably sounds like a stupid question, or one that comes up too often, but I would appreciate an answer. Thank you. Love the site. Sorry about my rant!

Sarah aka ‘Waynetta180’

By: Warp3

Warp3 — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 19:48:36 +0000

Koneko: I did something similar with my SRS configuration a while back and it does seem to help. My “session length” in Anki is set to 2 minutes (that’s a bit low, but it works well for me). If I’m ready to keep going when the 2 minute session ends, I just click “continue” and keep at it, if not I stop and do something else for a while. If I’m not feeling motivated to work at all in the SRS, but I know I need to, I tell myself I need to do one session of each language (I’m studying 2 languages at the moment, so that’s a total of 4 minutes required) then I can stop, if I want. Sometimes I do stop after that 1 session of each deck; other times I get interested and keep going until the queue is empty for a deck.

By: Ed

Ed — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:39:46 +0000

One more part and its a trilogy of trilogies.

By: Drewskie

Drewskie — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 16:33:45 +0000

If you want to see how valuable a single minute is, watch one go by on a clock.

By: Koneko

Koneko — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:59:04 +0000

I never used to understand timeboxing, but I hated SRS reviews… So they just didnt get done. Today I decided to try and make it work, and I love it! I’ve done two (about 10 minutes apart because Im kinda lazy, and I ended up reading one of your posts in that time) 5 minute boxes. I’ve reviewed 30 cards, which is far more than I normally get done, and I’m just waiting untill I finish typing this comment to go review more. So… What Im saying, I guess, is thanks for making it fun 😀

By: Irwin1138

Irwin1138 — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 15:19:49 +0000

I tend to dislike timeboxes that are too short. Maybe for the very tiny things that one can do they might be helpful, but they are way too distracting to keep lots of them in succession e.g. 60×20. It’s nearly impossible to focus when you are distracted every minute to reset the timer.

However the 60 second timebox has an immense value of being a startup timebox. Sometimes to do what I wanna do I need to feel like doing it, and I don’t. I know though that I will immediately begin to feel like doing it when I immerse myself into it, when I get started. So after the initial 60 second timebox, I usually annoyingly reset the timer to 20 minutes and happily continue werking. Then watch some anime/read some manga and more 20 minutes. If I feel like it.

My biggest problem is to get started, and 60 second timebox helps me do just that.