Managing Your Memorization Schedule

Posted on July 20, 2011 Andy 86 comments

We recently introduced two new features to help you manage your memorization schedule but we have not really explained how they work. The two features are:

Reset Schedule - this is a button that appears on the 'Memverse Today' tab of the home page when you have fallen behind in your memory verse review.

Pending Verses - this allows you to set verses to an 'Inactive' status.

First, there are two definitions that you should understand.

1. Target Time - This is an option in your profile menu where you specify how much time you would like to spend memorizing each day.
2. Required Time - This is the time that Memverse calculates you need to spend each day to not fall behind on the memory verses you are currently working on.

The 'target time' has only two functions at the moment: 

1. to determine when to convert verses from 'Pending' to 'Active' (if you have checked the box on the profile page that allows Memverse to automatically convert verses from 'Pending' to 'Active' status when your required time is below your target time.)
2. to determine whether new verses start as 'Pending' or 'Active' when you add them.

The 'required time' is used in determining whether your verses are 'Active' or 'Pending' as outlined above.

It is also used to determine when to give you the option to reset your schedule. The 'Reset Schedule' button will appear when the number of verses you have due on any given day is more than 3x your 'required time'. For example, if your current required time is 10 minutes per day but you have 35 verses due for review that day, you can reset your schedule. Memverse will reschedule the verses into the future in such a way that you will have about double your required time for the next while.

If you are finding that you have too many verses to review each day but you are never seeing the 'Reset Schedule' button, then it's because you quite simply have too many active verses and you should convert some of them to 'Pending'. Take a look at the required time that Memverse thinks you need. If you don't think you can allocate that amount of time each day to memorization, you should reduce the number of verses you're working on.

Recommended settings

We recommend that you use the following settings:

• repetition interval = 1 year
• target time = about 3/4 of what you think you can manage each day (this allows for the occasional missed day)
• 1st letter prompts = 'Learning' or 'Never' (these are a big crutch and you won't really remember verses unless you stop using them)
• 'Always show feedback' should be unchecked. (this is also a big crutch and you're unlikely to become fluent in your verses if you always use it)
• 'Add verses as needed' - this is up to you. It's useful to have it checked because then you don't need to worry about converting verses from 'Pending' to 'Active'

Those settings above will work well if you're planning a long term memorization program as you will be less likely to get overwhelmed and you will really start to memorize the verses properly. With these settings, if you go away on vacation for a few days or take a break, you can then reset your schedule when you return and you will soon be back on track. I can't emphasize enough the importance of keeping your work load manageable. This is a marathon not a 100m sprint :)

These probably aren't the best settings for those of you who are working towards the Bible Bee competition but you can share your settings in the comments below.