Refold Hours Tracking: What to Log in Each Phase

For Refold hours tracking, log your minutes each day and label them priming, interactive, freeflow or output. Refold's own guide asks for that much, and says the tool matters less than consistency. Use the Refold App, a spreadsheet or another tracker, then check your mix and hit rate every week.

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What does Refold say you should track?

Refold's effort and time tracking guide sets a low bar: at minimum, the minutes you spend learning each day. Ideally you also tag that time by activity type, so you can check your balance against the recommendations for your current phase.

The same guide makes four points worth keeping in mind:

• A rough estimate beats nothing, and tracking shouldn't become a source of stress.
• Aim for a hit rate of 80% or more, meaning days you reach your goal, rather than a perfect streak.
• Review weekly to spot trends and adjust.
• The tool doesn't matter much. It names the Refold App, a simple spreadsheet, another habit tracker and a paper tally.

How should you label your Refold minutes?

Refold uses four labels. Its freeflow page draws the key line: in interactive work you pause, look things up and replay, while in freeflow you keep going and accept partial understanding. The examples for priming and output below come from our reading of Refold's library, so check its activity pages when you're unsure.

Refold's freeflow page says not to count passive background noise as quality freeflow time, and that material you barely understand isn't ready for freeflow. So if a podcast was on while you answered emails, leave it out or note it separately.

How many hours does Refold estimate per phase?

Refold's roadmap now uses Phases 0 to 7, plus an optional Phase X. If you learned it with the older stages, the labels above still work, but the benchmarks below follow the current phases. Its time estimates page gives these cumulative totals by how far the language is from your own:

Refold bases these on FSI figures, adjusted using its community's experience, and presents them as planning estimates, not guarantees. It says the phase split draws on a few people's experience. Treat them as a way to check whether your total and your phase look roughly in line. If you want to compare other frameworks, see how many hours it takes to learn a language.

Which tool should you use for Refold hours?

Any of these meets Refold's bar. We make LangTrack, so weigh this table with that in mind.

If you follow Refold closely and want its phase comparison, its app is the natural choice. A general tracker makes more sense when you want one log for several methods, or don't want to enter your YouTube time by hand. See tracker vs spreadsheet if you're deciding between those two.

How do you track Refold hours in LangTrack?

LangTrack doesn't connect to Refold and has no built-in phase view, so this is a small workaround:

1. Enter your earlier hours once as a starting total.
2. Log each session with its activity and source.
3. Put the Refold label in the note: priming, interactive, freeflow or output.
4. Look through the week's entries once a week and compare them with your phase.

LangTrack for Chrome, our free extension, can add YouTube minutes for you, as described in how to track YouTube immersion. It can't tell whether you watched interactively or in freeflow. It records minutes, language and whether subtitles were on, so log interactive sessions with your own label if the split matters to you.

Where does Anki fit in Refold tracking?

Refold's Anki guide treats flashcards as study, not immersion, and suggests spending at most 25 to 30% of your learning time on study. That share is easy to check if Anki is in the same log as everything else. Our post on Anki time tracking shows where to read your review time.

What should your weekly review look at?

Five minutes is enough. Look at three numbers:

• Hit rate: the days you reached your goal, out of seven. Refold's 80% works out to about six days in a week, since five is only 71%.
• Mix: your minutes per label, compared with what your phase asks for.
• Study share: Anki and other study as a percentage of the total.

Change one thing at a time, such as swapping a little interactive time for freeflow. A small daily goal you keep hitting tells you more than a large one you often miss, which is the idea behind Refold's hit rate.

Frequently asked questions

Does Refold have its own tracker?

Yes. Refold describes the Refold App as logging daily time by activity type, measuring consistency with a hit rate, and showing cumulative hours against benchmarks for your phase. It's available as a web app and a mobile app.

Does background listening count in Refold?

Only weakly. Refold's freeflow page lists background listening as lower value, and also says passive background noise shouldn't count as quality freeflow time. Tag it separately if you log it at all.

Does Anki count toward Refold hours?

Refold treats Anki as study rather than immersion, and suggests that study take at most 25 to 30% of your learning time. So log it, but keep it apart from your immersion minutes.