A new method to analyze 1st‐ and 2nd‐order reaction rate curves as appearing in, e.g., thermal desorption and thermoluminescence is described. It is based on the concept of the ’’characteristic time’’ &psgr; of the process. It is shown that for constant temperature and hyperbolic heating schedules, the reaction rate depends on &psgr; only, while for the linear temperature sweep there is also a slight dependence onE/kTmwithTmbeing the peak temperature. The method is based on these facts, and, contrary to previous methods, makes use of all experimental data points, yielding both activation energy and frequency factor. The new method is demonstrated for a thermal desorption and a thermoluminscence peak.