[Audio] SRS Pacing, Why Your Productivity Actually DROPS When You Suddenly Get A Lot of Free Time and What to Do About It (Patreon)

SRS is a sprint sport. Reps are supposed to be done in short bursts, 1-5 minutes at a time.

Long marathons are not desirable.

Long marathons are not necessary.

Long marathons are not sustainable.

Sprint. Be Bolt. Run hard. Then stop.

Again, SRS is a sprint sport, requiring intense concentration and mental focus for a brief, preset, limited amount of time. Short is the way. One 5-minute SRS session every waking hour adds up to 80 minutes per day. That's amazing.

SRS is more like American sports than European ones. Bursty. Discrete. Discontinuous. Speed, not stamina. Leave everything on the field. Save nothing for the morrow. Spend yourself totally. Focus like your life depended on it. Then stop.

SRS is like ice hockey: you're not doing anybody any good just being on the ice. You need to be sharp; you need to be fast. You need to be focused. Get on, skate your heart out, get hit by a large man/card, get off. Rest. Repeat.

Immersion is not like ice hockey. Immersion is like skating. Simply being on the ice -- time on frozen water -- is half the victory. No goal except to hear -- be exposed to -- millions of words in your adopted language.

Immersion is like sunbathing. The game is to simply show up and be there. Sleep, wake, whatever.

SRS requires, narrow, intense, stable, brief attention.

SRS attention is exclusive. Solid. Devoted. Intense. Contractual. Limited. Linear.

Immersion attention is promiscuous. Polyamorous. Open. Fluid. Wavelike. Sinusoidal.

Immersion attention is diffuse, dreamlike, ambient, almost oceanic (broad in scope, coming and going in waves).

Trying to SRS once a day instead of, like, 5, 10, 15, 20 times a day is like...refusing to play in the regular season and only wanting to appear in the playoffs. You're probably not gonna make it that far, playa.

You can have the occasional long SRS session, but don't push it -- don't count on these to be your bread and butter: You may be doing more harm than good. Build a sustainable repping habit based on snacking, not binging.

If SRSing is for your training your conscious mind, then immersion is for training your subconscious.

[Don't take this too literally; this is just a broad, binary claim -- not hard neuroscience].

SRS in particular (and timeboxing in general) is a form of what people in the know call "force concentration".

Further Reading:

* [Critical Frequency: A Brand New Way of Looking At Language Exposure | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time] https://bit.ly/2Rb6VHZ

* [Why Do People Who Have All the Time in the World Get Nothing Done? | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time] https://bit.ly/2ACw5K9

* The Procrastination Equation: "The Magic Equation aka Temporal Motivation Theory aka TMT: The Grand Unifiying Theory of Getting Stuff Done" [How To Accomplish Great Things: Small Victories, Winnable Games | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time] https://bit.ly/3df9m5w

* [The Art of War (Sort Of) Applied to Learning A Language: Logistics, Supply Lines and Force Concentration | AJATT | All Japanese All The Time] https://bit.ly/2ZMlJSv