Difficult Phase

A necessary phase in memorising a date is called the Difficult Phase. Sometimes, some dates are stubborn, and your brain has a problem recalling them. When this happens often enough, TimeToTime.app moves the date to a difficult queue, and a new button will sometimes appear when learning a deck: "Difficult". This initiates the Difficult Phase.

When you revise dates in the Difficult Phase, TimeToTime behaves very similarly to the Learning Phase - where there's a sequence of introductions. The default sequence is:

• The date will be re-introduced to you
• It will be shown to you again, 30 minutes later
• Three hours later, you'll get shown it again.
• Finally, one day after that, you'll be shown it for the last time.

If you succeed in all of these, the date will move back to the Revising Phase. If you don't, it will reset and you will continue to practice it in the Difficult Phase.

It's worthwhile thinking deeply about these troublesome dates. In particular:

• Can you anchor this date to some other date you already know?
• Can you introduce additional dates that somehow make this date more obvious in the context of your other dates?
• Can you add add links that will help connect this date to other dates that you do know?

All of these practices will help you build a stronger deck, and help you figure your way out of the dates causing difficulty.