The Key To Learning Anything

June 27, 2023

If you want to learn or make progress on something, then turning it into a daily habit is about the most powerful way to do that. Much has been written on this topic, but the one that stuck for me is The Seinfeld Strategy: “Your only job is to not break the chain”.

Readlang has had a streak feature for the past few years, but two things bugged me about it:

1. It wasn’t very visible, so it wasn’t obvious when I’d achieved your goal, and because it wasn’t that prominently displayed, it wasn’t something I cared about that much.
2. The reading component of the old daily goal was based on the number of words you’d translated. I didn’t like that it was based on the number of words you translated rather than the number of words you actually read.

This changed a few weeks ago with the new streak feature which, if you’re a regular Readlang user, you’ll probably have noticed already! Here’s how it works:

At the top right of the page you’ll notice a flame icon with a number next to it:

In the above case, the number 10 means that you have a 10 day streak. The faded flame means that you haven’t yet met your daily goal. And the circle filling up around the flame represents your progress towards reaching today’s goal. The circle fills up as you read and practice, and once it’s full, the flame will appear brighter and the number will increase by 1 extra day.

Importantly, this is even shown within the reader page, so that you can tell as soon as you’ve reached your minimum reading goal for the day:

The goal is to read 500 words or to practice 10 words, or some combination of the two, every day. The idea of this goal is to be easy to achieve every single day to encourage you to show up every day. I realize many learners will want to go beyond this, but whether you want to study intensely or casually there is huge value in the habit of just showing up and that’s what the daily streak is all about. It’s a small but meaningful amount of practice that should feel easy to accomplish even on busy days.

So get started on that streak! Don’t break the chain!

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