(If you don’t know what this project is, read my first post here.)
Today (Monday, September 15, 2025) marks the end of my first two weeks with this project. The plan is to make roughly-weekly or biweekly updates. In general, these updates will include two parts. First, I will discuss how well I did over the course of the week maintaining my Japanese habit, including any possible pitfalls. Second, I will identify my next objectives, including possible ways to improve, explaining why I think those strategies may be useful.
Progress Report
The First Attempt
Before jumping into the progress report, I have a confession to make: this is not the first “run” at this project.
My original plan was to undertake this project in the summer, starting in July and August. The problem was consistency. In the summer, my work schedule is highly variable. I went from days of having almost no work to days of having long shifts. Ironically, the days of long shifts were actually better for my studies than the free days. On free days, I spent a lot of time socializing, cooking, and generally making plans that had no defined end time.
The result? I procrastinated on my reviews and ultimately was unable to stick to a schedule. By the end of July, I had fallen behind my goals. In August I left the project on hold completely until I went on vacation.
Two Weeks In
This time around, things have been much better. In the first two weeks of the project, I’ve made the following progress:
Migaku
Reviews: From September 1 to September 14, I did reviews every day. I completed all my reviews on every day except Sunday, September 7 and Saturday, September 13, when I only did some of them.
Lessons: I focused on completing the Kanji Academy – Level 1 deck. I had to increase my new cards for a period of time (missing the reviews on Sunday, 9/7, meant having to do 40 new cards a day instead of 30 to compensate), but I successfully completed the deck on Sunday, 9/14. I gave myself more leeway on the Academy – Level 1 deck. My original plan was to do 30 cards a day, but this became unrealistic. I instead reduced it to 10 cards/day and decided to not count “completion” in this deck towards completing my reviews for the day (more on this below).
Anki
I missed reviews on September 7, 8, 12, and 13. On many of the days I studied, I completed most (or all) of the reviews. However, I prioritized completing the Migaku reviews.
Bunpro
I decided to add a third resource to my reviews during this time: Bunpro. Originally created as a sort of “WaniKani for grammar”, Bunpro includes concise grammar lessons and vocab decks. Importantly, it also includes decks based on existing resources, such as Genki, the textbook I use with my Japanese teacher. This allows me to review vocabulary and grammar that I have seen in class with relatively little time investment (that is, not having to create my own Anki cards for everything).
In Bunpro, I did reviews every day except 9/7, 9/8, 9/10, 9/12 and 9/13. Again, this is because I prioritized Migaku on the days that I had little time. Every day, I study 6 new grammar points (3 from the Bunpro list of N5 grammar, 3 from Genki) and 5 new items of vocabulary from Genki.
Conclusions
These first weeks were a good trial period. In this time, I was (more or less) on vacation, visiting family and friends in the US. The missed days reflect those moments when I simply did not have the time to sit down for the ~2 hours it takes me to get through everything. These were the first real challenges for the project, and showed me the sort of habits I’ll need to develop to keep momentum as the school year begins.
Next Objectives: The Habit Plan
My plan to continue this habit of reviewing Japanese every day, despite my work schedule. The goal is for this to essentially be automatic. My immediate plan for the next two weeks (from now until the end of September, basically) is to try to maintain habit using four tools.
Weekly/Daily Goals
What is it?
This is a very simple, but effective, productivity system. Every weekend, you write in a notebook the goals you want to achieve in the next week. Then, every night you write on a separate list some of those goals (or parts of them) to work on the next day. That Daily Goals list (with items taken from the Weekly Goals list) effectively becomes the next day’s task list.
There are two benefits to the Weekly/Daily Goals system. First, it allows you to keep track of what you need to do on a given day. Second, it helps you feel productive. Finishing the tasks on your daily list is the goal. Basically, it gives you objective tasks like “Complete Anki reviews” as opposed to subjective ones, like “do a lot of Japanese studying”. This prevents you from constantly chasing the myth of “perfect productivity”, constantly increasing your workload until you burn out.
WD Goals Problems
While I’ve been using the system for years, I don’t always use it as well as I should. I am often unrealistic when it comes to my weekly goals. I put on things that I want to eventually do instead of things that I can realistically get done. This isn’t that big of a problem; the Weeky Goals list is meant to be flexible. The bigger issue is that I’m often unrealistic on the Daily Goals front as well. I often put on too many tasks, and thus can’t always trust myself to actually finish the items on my list.
Why is this a problem? Well, because the WD Goals system is based around taking impulsive decision-making and procrastination out of the equation. The idea is that, if you look at the list and see “Japanese Anki”, you do it and then check it off. You do not give yourself the option to decide not to do it.
However, if your list is too long to possibly complete, you must make decisions about what to do. You say, “Oh, I need to do Japanese reviews, but I also need to clean the fridge. I guess I’ll clean the fridge first.” When your time is limited, this allows you to procrastinate and defeats the purpose of using the system in the first place.
Implementation
During last few weeks, I was pretty good at completing my lists. Moving forward, though, I will need to be more realistic, as I will be working full-time again. While most people consider 7 daily tasks a good absolute maximum, I will probably need to stick to 4-5 during these first weeks. In this way, I hope to ensure that my top priorities (my job, exercise, and the Japanese reviews) all get completed on a daily basis. Then, I can scale up and add in other hobbies if I find that I still have time and energy.
One important change this week, compared to when I tried this project back in July, was that I put Migaku, Japanese Anki, and Bunpro as separate items. This sounds irrelevant, but is surprisingly important. In July, I previously had “Japanese: Migaku and Anki” as a single item. The result? Some days, I checked the box by completing Migaku, and leaving Anki incomplete. Other days, I did the opposite. The result was less consistency on both sides. I did this because, without doing so, I would have more than 7 things on my list. The real issue, though, was that I was combining items to (unrealistically) try to put more things on my list than were possible.
I also stuck to clear objectives with regards to Migaku, Anki, and Bunpro. I only let myself check off “Migaku” if I completed all my reviews and kanji lessons. “Anki” only got a tick if I completed reviews (even if I didn’t complete new cards). And I only checked off Bunpro if I completed all my reviews. This prevented me from getting into a situation where I could say, “Well, I did enough for today” without actually completing what I had set out to do.
Pomodoro Technique
What is it?
The Pomodoro Technique was created by Francesco Cirillo in the late 1980s. It involves working in 25 minute chunks of time, in which you devote your full attention to the task at hand, followed by a 5 minute break. (The name of the technique comes from the Italian word for “tomato”, after the tomato-shaped kitchen timer Cirillo used at the time.)
The Pomodoro Technique is simple, but effective. When we procrastinate, it’s because the pain receptors in our brains activate upon thinking of a task we don’t want to do. However, this sense fades away once we actually start doing what we’ve been putting off. The Pomodoro Technique forces us to focus on the process, not the product. We focus on “just working for 25 minutes”, and not on any specific end point. This subtle psychological shift makes it much easier to actually get down and do the work.
Implementation
I have long used the Pomodoro Technique for fiction writing. By telling myself “I will write for 25 minutes, and then take a break,” I avoid focusing too much on the quality of the product. It’s a great way to avoid writer’s block.
For this project, I have returned to it, using the cross-platform Focus To-Do, which allows me to create recurring task lists. I have also been making use of the Focus Mode on my devices, disabling notifications or apps that could be distracting. This has been very useful, not only for focus but also for planning. I now know that, in about 4-6 Pomodoros, I can complete all the daily reviews and lessons.
Eating Your Frogs First
What is it?
This strategy comes from a quote attributed to Mark Twain. Supposedly, he facetiously said that the best way to start your day was by eating a live frog because then everything else in the day would certainly be better. When applied to learning and productivity, the idea is simply to do your most important (or most dreaded) task first thing in the morning. The slightly less exciting name for this is the MIT (Most Important Thing) method.
Implementation
In my case, as this is my main priority for the project, the goal will be to do my Japanese reviews before starting my day. During the first two weeks of my project, I tried to do them immediately after waking up. I may have to wake up earlier, but getting at least some reviews done before I go to work will make it easier to complete them later if necessary.
Habit Stacking
What is it?
Habits are incredibly powerful. While we are most familiar with the idea of bad habits, like smoking, overeating, or biting your nails, our lives are also filled with good habits. These can include having a coffee in the morning, brushing your teeth, doing daily exercise, and so on.
I’ve known how important habits are for a while, and have recently been reading up on them. In brief, the habit loop (discussed at length in Charles Duhigg’s The Power of Habit) is essentially: Cue –> Routine –> Reward. The cue is the feeling, time, location, or reaction that starts the loop. The routine is the actual action that is taken to fulfill a need (which Duhigg calls the craving). Finally, the reward is what you get for carrying out the habit, and is what makes the habit “stick.””
To change or create a habit, we must create a new routine in response to a cue. This is where habit stacking comes in. Habit stacking (the name for which comes from James Clear’s Atomic Habits) is the idea that you can create a new habit by adding it to another one. When you do your existing, ingrained habit, you then use the end of that habit as the cue to segue immediately into the habit you want to create. You basically use a habit you have as the cue for the habit you want. In this way, you can chain habits together.
Implementation
In my case, one of my habits this year is that, after waking up, I make a myself a coffee. I then usually sit on my couch and watch YouTube videos about… coffee. The goal is to replace my video-watching habit with a Japanese review habit. I will also likely wake up earlier to give myself a bit more time to do the reviews. My hope is that, even if I can’t finish all my reviews in this time, I will be able to do enough of them to reduce the intimidating number of reviews that await me every day and avoid procrastination.
Specific Objectives
Moving forward, from today (Monday, September 15) until the end of September, my plan is the following:
Migaku
Keep on top of reviews. There are no more cards in the Kanji Academy – Level 1 deck, so those should take less time as I begin to learn those characters better. In the Academy – Level 1 deck (which focuses on vocabulary and grammar), I have 1570 cards as of today. My goal is to finish the deck by December 15 – three months from now – by doing 20 new cards a day. This places me at around 78 days, if I don’t miss any.
Anki
Keep on top of reviews, and complete the WaniKani vocab cards. As of today, I have ~2300 cards up for review in the deck, and am on level 6 out of the 26 levels I need to complete to “catch up”. The goal is to do about 200 reviews a day and 30 new cards.
Ideally, I will be fully caught up by the end of 2025, so that I can return to WaniKani itself in 2026. This may be a bit ambitious (I honestly don’t know how many cards I have to do in order to catch up), but I think 30 new cards a day is a good starting point. While I will probably also start creating my own cards again based on my class, I am more focused on completing the ones I already have pending.
Bunpro
Keep on top of reviews and lessons, reorienting as I reach certain “milestones”. Right now, I have completed 68/127 of the Bunpro N5 grammar lessons and 64/99 of the Genki I grammar lessons (there is some overlap between these, so one lesson sometimes counts for both).
It’s hard to say exactly when I will catch up completely. However, I would imagine that between the end of September and mid-October, I will have finished the Bunpro N5 and Genki material. The compete Genki I deck includes material from these two decks, and also vocabulary from the Genki book. As of today, I have completed 111/798 items.
Once I complete the grammar decks, I will likely increase my vocab lessons (I do 5 right now) to complete the Genki vocab deck. Once I fee confident in the Genki material, I will move on to N4 grammar. I also may add the Bunpro JLPT N5 Vocab deck to learn more vocabulary. The deck has 1100 items, some of which I will have likely seen already.
Future Plans
The goal of all of this is to move on to other, more authentic materials as soon as possible. Specifically, I hope to move on to using Migaku to watch anime and series. (Migaku’s main use is as a Chrome extension that allows you to look up and add words directly from Netflix subtitles). I will also use Satori Reader. Created by the Human Japanese team, it is essentially a website of graded Japanese readers.
In future blog posts, I will also analyze and review some of the materials I’m using. In doing so, I hope to give advice for any Japanese learners who may stumble across this blog.