In some cases, the challenges motivate Skritter users to exceed the challenge itself and forge ahead for their own learning. In this case, Hannu went above and beyond the qualifying time for the challenge and reaped more than 100 new characters as a result:
“Before the start of the challenge I had my doubts whether I could really go through it. The challenge felt very extreme as I was used to spending 10-20 mins a day for Skritter and besides spending days at work, I have a lot of things to do at home. But what wouldn’t you do for a free prize? The word “free” penetrates deep into our heads and makes us do all kinds of crazy things!
At the start of the challenge I tried to use up all my free time (and occasionally work time…) to practise characters and do more than an hour, in case I’d get sick during the month or had other problems preventing me to practise. It indeed felt quite intense. During work I spent my coffee breaks skrittering, in the evenings at home I spent most of the time after necessary household chores skrittering. I was happy to have my wife’s support, which really pushed me going (she is Taiwanese, which motivates me to learn Chinese as much as possible).
At some point in the challenge, the routine kicked in and I became kind of numb to it. I just did my daily hour, sometimes a little more, sometimes a little less. Of course, I always enjoyed seeing the rising figures on the statistics page, which encouraged me to work even more. I actually then decided to have an extra challenge of my own: why end after 25 days while I could do the whole month? So, after I had already secured my 1 hour average for the first 25 days of the month, I pushed on to study 31 hours in May! It doesn’t sound much compared to the most diligent Skritterers out there, but to me, personally, it’s a lot. Many times before I had tried to break the magical 20 hour monthly limit without succeeding and now I surpassed that by more than 50%!
After getting 130 new characters under my belt, I feel very surprised that I actually found the time to do it every day. As always after conquering a big challenge, I have these three words on my tongue: tired but happy.”