What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby leosmith » Wed Mar 22, 2023 3:06 am

Lisa wrote:one day is trivial; and a few hundred reviews a day for months are as nothing :-) After your deck reaches thousands of cards, though, the numbers creep up and you go away for the weekend and can't catch up and eventually you'll be thousands of cards behind and trying to do 500 reviews a day and getting farther behind, and feel like you're on a never ending treadmill.
I hear this sort of thing a lot, and I’ve experienced it too (but with Supermemo), so let me tell you how I resolved it. It dawned on me that srs is just a tool, and it’s ridiculous to let it burn me out. I never intended to spend so much time reviewing, so first order of business was to put a 1 hour limit on daily reviews. More than that tends to burn me out if I let it go on for very long, and I have heard the 1 hour limit suggested from more than one source. If you are spending more than 1 hour a day, ask yourself how you’d feel if it was cut to 1 hour. Wouldn’t it be a big relief?

Now that I’d decided to limit it to 1 hour, how did I want to spend that hour? Again, srs is just a tool, so why not use it in the most effective way? I’ll tell you one thing that’s not very effective – reviewing old cards. If you don’t know a card that’s been in your deck for over a month, will adding another month change anything? And if you do know it, will adding another month change anything? It probably helps, and having old cards is fine when everything is going smoothly and you aren’t close to being overwhelmed. But clearly, reviewing old cards is not as helpful as reviewing new cards. Imo, srs is really helpful and efficient for about a month or so, but after that its usefulness greatly diminishes. So deleting cards older than a month is a reasonable thing to do if you are trying to get the most out of your hour.

The last part of the equation was input – I wanted to add as many cards as possible without going over the 1 hour review time limit for cards less than 1 month old. The number of new cards varies from language to language, and what types of things I’m adding (words vs sentences, L1 to L2 or L2 to L1, etc.), so it takes some experimenting to establish.

I am convinced that this is the way srs should be used to get the absolute most out of it in an aggressive learning spurt. But most people hate these suggestion. They are more interested in manicuring their decks and keeping their cards forever, even if it burns them out. It’s funny; they are so convinced that what I’m doing is “wrong” and that somehow it makes srs malfunction. I say things like “Why keep the old cards? Just delete them, and if they stump you in the future, just put them in as new cards”. But no – that’s not how Gabriel Wyner learned German in 2.5 months...I have pictures and Wikipedia articles in every card...I can’t delete them...I’m doing 1000 reviews a day, and this is the hill I’ll die on. Wait...am I ranting now? Sorry ‘bout that.

(edit)
I forgot to add that there is also the option of limiting your daily reviews via a setting in the srs. This really messes up the algorithm, so I only use it if I’m in maintenance mode and just want to see a few random cards a day to keep in contact with the language.

Finally, as others have said, you can delete all your cards and start over, but know that if you do that you will not be getting the majority of the benefit of the srs for cards that are younger than 1 month old. I would first delete all cards older than 1 month, then delete the rest after a month. Then you can start with a clean slate.
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby luke » Wed Mar 22, 2023 5:38 am

Anki is a tool to help your memory. Some people have really good memories, even if they might imagine they don't. Maybe they're very happy and their mind is working well. They may be inclined to delete a card after a month. Or maybe they have started using the word actively and know they no longer need to review it. That would be the ideal.

As far as Anki is concerned, deleting old cards shouldn't be necessary, imho. You hit the "knew it easily" button and the card goes from 30 days to 90 days to 9 months to 2 years to 5 years. My point is that the review time for an "easy" card quickly become extremely light. With decks with 1000s of cards, these reviews still add up, but they do let you know you're making some progress, which is helpful for preventing burnout.

I'm definitely in the camp of capping the time that one does Anki each day and reducing it as early as possible when reviews are beginning to get out of hand. It's a balancing act, which ties back to the topic of burnout. If one imagined they'd master a 5000 card deck in 50 days by doing 100 cards each day, they quickly realize they have to cut new cards to 50, then 25, then 10, then 5, then 1, then 0; as they realize a 5000 card deck will take a few years instead of a few months.

Multiple sessions with Anki were mentioned. One way I use multiple sessions to fail less cards is to not fail the card at all. Simply go back to the deck without selecting the failed button. I typically count 5 of these "fails" as plenty for one sitting. Later, I either get the card and call it "hard", or it gets pushed again later in the day where it will still get a "hard" rating, but not a "fail".
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby leosmith » Wed Mar 22, 2023 6:18 pm

luke wrote:One way I use multiple sessions to fail less cards is to not fail the card at all. Simply go back to the deck without selecting the failed button. I typically count 5 of these "fails" as plenty for one sitting. Later, I either get the card and call it "hard", or it gets pushed again later in the day where it will still get a "hard" rating, but not a "fail".
This is a big mistake ime. Being brutally honest with your grading is crucial with srs. If you fail a card and pretend you didn't, it will be too long before you see it again, which will likely cause you to fail it again. Multiply that by many cards over many weeks and you will wind up with a deck full of stuff that you don't know very well. Trying to fix it by starting to tell the truth at any point after you began this technique could result in a rapid increase in reps.
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby Lisa » Wed Mar 22, 2023 7:47 pm

I think Luke means a cancel, not a pass vote - I do this for example when I really know a word but was confused and blurted out the wrong thing.

My anki is generally about 30 minutes, much over that I just don't finish. Stopping reviews on a card after a month would definitely not work for me, but I think you have to know your own memory. I kept learning words fast and then after the interval got to about a month, by the next time I would have forgotten. So now I keep a deck for new words on a 1-month max review cycle, and then periodically move them to another deck with a longer cycle.

In german, I don't have masses of important new words to learn - the new ones are mostly less common - so I'm not sure the value of brand new words would be greater than the value of reinforcing words I do know but not very well. Certainly words I definitely and completely know don't need review.... although I have noticed that while I learned all the genders to those now well known words, that part of the card has since faded. I don't need the gender of salad to read, but it's the kind of mind-numbing detail that one does need to learn.

New words are much more fun, of course.
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby brilliantyears » Mon Mar 27, 2023 3:04 pm

german2k01 wrote:I have come across this term a lot from many language learners on different forums. Does it really exist? If it does, what are its possible symptoms to experience as a language learner?

As someone who's both been (fairly innocently) burned out on language learning (quite regularly), and has experienced a real, actual, life-altering burn-out, I'd be happy to answer this question. If that's what you're really asking, of course.
(Yes, it definitely really exists.)

german2k01 wrote:For the last three years I have been very intense in my language study of learning German, nowhere feel I any symptoms of burning out. On the other hand, I feel like I can concentrate better for a longer period of time and my subconscious mind adapts to its rigor all the time. It is almost like weightlifting. Body adapts. Mind adapts.

Perhaps. And perhaps you'll be fine doing these things for a long time to come. But it's also easy to get overly confident and find yourself burning out when you least expect it. It's good to be aware, and not to believe you're immune because you're doing ok now (that's the fastest way to burn out).
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby Lisa » Thu Apr 13, 2023 7:03 pm

pinkyslippers wrote:I think burnout is a complex thing and while inefficient study methods might contribute to burnout, they are not the same thing. Maslach (1997) developed a scale for burnout and it has three main symptom groupings 1) emotional exhaustion, 2) cynicism and 3) lack of self-efficacy.


That's very interesting! It didn't occur to me that burnout would be studied, but of course it would be. I googled, and it seems like most of the work is done on job-related burnout; wikipedia doesn't seem to even have an entry for non-job burnout. But I can find some mappings from my experiences (depersonalization corresponds to that lose of engagement with individual anki words, they all become little problems not "learning"; and cynicism seems to match that sense of pointlessness for the whole activity).

There are sprinters and there are marathoners when it comes to life's activities. I'm a sprinter, and I think sprinters have to be extra careful when it comes to language learning. Sprinting is essentially a short-term goal where your effort is expended at an unsustainable rate...
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby LexiHope » Sun Apr 16, 2023 11:54 pm

pinkyslippers wrote:three main symptom groupings 1) emotional exhaustion, 2) cynicism and 3) lack of self-efficacy. Motivation is linked to burnout.


In my experience burnout is highly linked to my mental health (diagnosed chronic mood disorder, mild anxiety) and in that case those are not so much symptoms of burnout but symptoms of the mental health disorder that cause burnout or at least cause a lower threshold for burnout. I didn't read the study/ies, but it does seem like there's evidence that it can go both ways like that.

Study habits actually can play a role in relation to the mental health aspect as well for me. I'm bad at routines at the best of times, and when my mental health is really bad I may go weeks without studying even when I want to. So when I do get some motivation to do things I try to do a lot all at once to make up for lost time. (Although that could also be because I have bipolar; when I was younger I had what I consider manic episodes, but it's hard for me to consider my more recent bursts of productivity to fall in the same category because it feels quite different. Nonetheless my diagnosis has been changed from depression to bipolar for several reasons, so that may be what it is.) In this sense perhaps for me bad study habits are more of a symptom than a cause.

My mental health is currently really well managed. I feel stable, even sort of a calm contentment which is new and pleasant. I don't have to fight my brain every step of the way to do even things I enjoy let alone chores and whatnot. But I still have to be careful. I get frustrated that I'm not doing as much as I'd like. But my daily capacity for productivity is pretty low. I'm not sure it will ever feel like I can get as much done as an average person, but if it is going to I will have to build it up gradually. Otherwise I'll just burn out again. I'm better at listening to my body about that now.

Burnout where a person's job has them doing too much in too few hours for an extended period of time is also fairly common, in my understanding. In this case it can be really hard to get out of because they need the money but the burnout makes it hard to do anything outside of work.

If you (german2k01) haven't experienced burnout then I'm happy for you. But it's definitely a real thing. What to look out for? I guess, if you start to feel like you're doing too much and it makes you tired. If just the thought of doing something, especially something easy or something you usually enjoy, makes you tired. If you're having nightmares or want to cry whenever you think about studying (this is more applicable to work though, people will usually just back off something optional before this stage). If you need more breaks than you usually do, that may be a sign that you're starting to get burnout and should ease up a bit so that you don't end up needing extended periods to recover. Some of these may be more related to depression, but like I said I think they're pretty intertwined.
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby LexiHope » Sun Apr 23, 2023 12:37 am

Hopefully I'm good to post links now. A therapist I watch sometimes did a video on burnout today, going through the history, causes, personality traits that are more susceptible, and stages of burnout. She touches on a number of points made here, but she's very thorough and explains it all way better than I ever could.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XQRuBBejTZo
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby Xenops » Sat May 06, 2023 2:37 am

Burnout for me normally happens after a few days of intense focusing on one project, where afterwards I need a break of a week or several. With this burnout, even thinking about the activity brings a sense of dread; doing the activity, my brain keeps telling me "I want to do something else. I want to do something else. I want to do something else, now!", even if I just started again.

With Japanese, I'm finding it's a different kind of burn out. With learning this language, my efforts have been sabotaged from the beginning: first I lived in a rural area with no native speakers and spoty Wi-fi access; open disapproval from my family members; inconsistent study; and being disorganized with my study materials. All these combined over 10+ years, and I am frustrated at my lack of progress. So frustrated. When I have been inspired to study intensely, I get short-term burnout, which leads to more frustration because I want to make up for lost time, but with a language like Japanese, I can't binge-study it. I often wish I was a different person in this regard: I wish I could have the fortitude like Khatzumoto (or other language learners) and do "All Japanese, All The Time". But I can't.

I realized I might have a long-term form of burnout when I look at the https://jisho.org and look up kanji, and revulsion smacks me when I see the two lines: "kun(yomi), on(yomi)". And I realized that I hate kanji. I don't hate Chinese characters: I just hate kanji. Hate is a strong word, but the added complication of having multiple pronunciations for one character makes me want to cry. I wondered if I would feel this way about learning hanja, or Chinese characters for Korean--and in contrast, I find it interesting. Possibly because I don't "need" hanja, but also possibly because every Hanja has. One. Single. Reading. I acknowledge that Korean has consonant assimilation and these pronunciations are subject to change, but the pressure isn't there like for kanji. I even learned recently that traditional Chinese characters tend to follow a pattern of pronunciation. But not kanji.

And so I concluded that I need to give Japanese a break--maybe a really long break. In the meantime, I feel justified to begin with Korean. Unlike my Japanese, fewer obstacles exist to hinder progress with Korean, and I can experience what learning a category 5 language with consistency looks like.
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Re: What is Burning Out and What are its symptoms?

Postby diaconia » Sun May 14, 2023 4:58 pm

....What are its symptoms?


1. Fatigue and being indifferent to the task
2. Loss of feeling (feeling "vacant" or "numb")
3. pulling away from the task
4. looking for reasons to escape
5. physical manifestations (faster pulse, headaches)

Our docent for psychology gave us that. I think the orig. source was Freudenberger, but I can double check if anyone is interested.

It's imperative to have a time to regenerate/recover. Anybody who's familiar with the fight or flight stress response knows that it can't go on indefinitely. That could be a great topic here, "What do you do to regenerate between periods of intense study" (or some similar wording). It might provide some positive feedback on how to avoid burn-out (i.e., stick with Anki instead of deleting all decks). ;)
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