Chris - I see exactly what you’re saying. Great points. For my first seven months, I took exactly that approach. I was very aware of the law of diminishing returns.

My thinking now, though, is just that a steady stream of reviewing old content will help it stick better. I learn best through repetition, so this is a method that promises to work well. If not… well, I’ll just modify my methods yet again.

Why review the lessons again??? My favorite rule is the classic 80/20 rule (ok there are many variations) but just assume that you get 80 percent of the content nailed for 20 percent of the effort. The remaining 20 percent of content you find hard to nail takes up four-times as much time.

Do the maths, hit more content instead and eventually you will have absorbed most of a much larger range of content in the same time in fact due to overlap you probably know all of the original stuff now.

I am constantly astounded by the amount of effort some people put into review and re-review. Is this a hangover from classroom mentality? As a self-learner you do not have to sit an end of term test or conform to the content knowledge that your lecturer things you should have .

Check out the 80/20 it has been successfully applied in many other fields. Forget those lessons (done and dusted) hit something else and hit it hard!!!!!

As for the Octagon, I am sure that many people will find it useful, however here is one of my versions… if the 80/20 rule is one of the most important rules for the self-learner, another one is take a little time to study the studying (always a worthwhile investment). I have very little access to face to face Mandarin speakers so for example:
Find somewhere that does acupuncture and I know they speak Mandarin. Book a couple of sessions at times where they will not be busy (get a discount for speaking Chinese to them ). Arrive too early, start chatting. Make an arrangement with one of the assistants to exchange language, spend an evening over coffee exchanging Mandarin for English with said assistant (table strewn with paper, dictionaries scribbling etc.)… repeat…
do the math.

Yes I have been very lucky so far with the resources that have come my way, but I find the more thought I put into it the “luckier” I get. Ok some people may substitute words more closely related to ’sinister’, ‘conniving’, ‘devious’ for thought there, but hey I am trying to learn a language.