I have ADHD too and this resonated so much for me (even the violin lol!). I was very obsessed with Japanese when I was like 15 for a period of 2 years but got burnt out and stopped studying it for 4 years. I am going to Japan for a month-long university course in a few weeks and have begun studying it again over the past while. I feel confident that I will be consistent in this now.
My advice to you would be to take the advice from people online who profess to have the most efficient study methods with a grain of salt. You have ADHD; chances are that many of their study methods are going to be mental torture for you. It doesnāt matter how efficient it is for someone else, if you literally cannot bring yourself to do it, itās going to be 0% efficient for you.
For example, I have decided to only study vocabulary and kanji but not grammar. Every time I try to study grammar, I get burnt out in minutes and neglect studying for increasing amounts of time from days to months (it was why I got burnt out for 4 years in the first place). On the other hand, kanji and vocabulary has yet to have that effect and I can spend hours on it. People on reddit or other websites will say that you need a split between the three and that itās going to impede your progress, but if you have ADHD and it burns you out every time you force yourself to study it; that will be MUCH worse for your progress. 2/3 is better than 0/3 and chances are you will be able to pick up the other 1/3 by immersion.
As for Wanikani and your new lessons, I would just get the reorder lesson script if you canāt bear the vocab. The worst levels for me in Wanikani were 1-3 because it was just so damn BORING to learn the numbers, counting etcā¦ the thing that motivates me the most is seeing my number of kanjis learned going up and obsessively checking wkstats to see the new kanjis that I learned. The vocab also gets less boring and more useful as you continue to level.
Thatās not to say that you shouldnāt leave your comfort zone (youāre already doing that by trying to learn Japanese in the first place), just that you shouldnāt brute force your way through studying.
(If nothing is working for you, I would say that you should talk to your doctor though.)
I thought about another trick that might work for me.
I also used the SRS system of a kanji Android app called Kanji Study. The default amount of new kanji per day was set to 5 and at first I thought this was a good amount. But the program is set up that you learn your new kanji before you do your reviews and soon these 5 new kanji became a huge obstacle for me and I neglected the whole app. After a while I came back and set the amount of new kanji per day to 3 and it worked much better. The default amount of lessons I do in a session on Wanikani is also 5 but with the reorder script I can make it 3! I think this will get the barrier of entry just low enough for me to get them into the SRS 
I can also use the reorder to mix kanji and vocab for some variety.
Just out of curiosity, how serious of a commitment are you looking for with japanese? Do you have any idea as to what kind of level you are shooting for and a timeframe you want to be there by? Its perfectly ok to not have any, but if you do I was wondering if you could share what they are.
I think thatās a great question! I kinda have multiple goals and if I reach one or two I consider it a success.
As for Wanikani, I think about whatās realistic to accomplish in one year, because that is what I paid for. And my goal is to reach at least level 30 in that timeframe, everything after that would be a nice bonus.
I thought about signing up for the JLPT N4 in winter, but now I think next year in summer would be more realistic. I passed N5 only barely 4 years ago, and I donāt want to bruteforce it again.
I have a lot of time because I canāt maintain a job because of my AuDHD struggles, so time at hand isnāt a big factor. Iād be willing to make it a big commitment and my japanese studies are kind of my top priority right now, not only because I want to accomplish something learning the language, but also because I tread it a little like a test run to examine my own behavior working towards a goal. Factors like motivation, distractibilty, momentum, self organisation and so on.
As for concrete goals what I want to be able to do with the language, reading manga/books in Japanese, watching shows without subs and playing Japan exclusive videogames without fan translations would be nice, but I consider these more as nice side effects an not the main thing why I want to learn Japanese. I think a more concrete motivation for me is that learning new things makes me really happy. And I lost that fire for learning something new for a long time because life burned me out, but now itās back and I fear that it slips away from me again if Iām not careful. (and not carefree at the same time, itās a hard balance to hit)
Little update: the babysteps method where I fit in just doing 3 lessons at a time whenever I have a little moment between activities works nicely. This could be a good strategy for low energy/motivation phases!
I feel like my head just wants things to be āoverā at some point and when I kick myself in the butt for several days to get that lesson count down and it just keeps refilling, it just drains all sense of accomplishment for me. This gets me in a āwhy even botherā state with constant shame building up which makes me want to avoid doing lessons even more.
Something like the Total Progress Bar script may help (it was originally made for level 60ās, but lower-level folks can use it too, and items that are locked or in lessons show up as grey by default) as it fills up with different colors depending on all the items you have at different SRS levels. I donāt use it myself, I use Burn Progress which uses light grey for locked/lessons, light gold for āseenā items, and gold for burned items, so itās a little simpler. This is what mine looks like right now:
I think there are other scripts that show total progress too, like with graphs or charts, though I donāt know any offhand. But one of those may help with showing that you are indeed making progress even though your lessons keep refilling.
I just went through something like that (but not quite all the way to 200!).
Just attack it ten lessons per day - maybe even more, if some of the lessons are feeding you kana that you already know - youāll whittle it down in no time. Having a manageable plan of attack (and trying to ignore the big number) can help to relieve the stress.
If I were to focus on the totality of the task ahead of me to get to level 60, it would be intimidating - so I donāt do that at all, rather Iām focused on the here-and-now, ADHD be damned.
I think I need to make a completely new plan about how I want to go about vocabulary, now that I have a feeling for how it works and I see how much less Iām able to tackle new lessons on my low-energy days 
If there was a userscript that would hide the count of available lessons for me, it would maybe help? Canāt say for sure.
I gotchu
Canāt promise Iāll keep it maintained but it was quick to whip up and itāll work for now
Youāll need something like Stylus to use it
That might be an interesting idea. As long as vocabularies arenāt ignored.
Injecting CSS like this, works. (I tried with Stylus.)
.lessons-and-reviews li:first-child .lessons-and-reviews__button-count {
visibility: hidden;
}
Editing to > 42 might need to be done with Userscripts (Javascript).
Thank you so much, this is awesome 
I try my best not to, I feel like now that I donāt get overwhelmed by the number I have a solid chance 
Thank you too!
Only thing I wonder is if I can also apply this on my iPad? 
Also, I wonder, would there be some way to change the illustration of the Crabigator being overwhelmed by turtles to something else? Iām an illustrator, so I can make something that matches WaniKaniās style but feels more morally neutral to me.
For what itās worth, Iām on the spectrum (was formally diagnosed with high functioning ADHD in high school, but more recently was advised it might actually be more high functioning ASD but donāt have the time to complete a full psych eval)
In my case, funny enough this actually works with my ADHD at work, since I also canāt focus or do any single task for more than a few minutes without drifting off into something else (and I would use to drown myself in alcohol and nicotine to maintain some semblance of focus)
Now, however WK has helped me a good bit (WK, KW and Bunpro actually) since instead of making them my main task theyāre my 5m-10m escapes from my actual tasks (and having variety helps prevent it from becoming too monotonous)
So Iām not actively focused on studying, in a sense (since tbh the psychological effect of seeing it as such is quite crippling and demotivating) but Iām more using it as a game to take a quick break from my work. Itās more a change of perspective (and perhaps a change of habit) in the same way Marvel Snap suits the same need for a quick fun way to take short breaks while working so I donāt lose focus entirely
So maybe instead of sitting down and doing them in one go over an hour or more, try doing them 5-20 at a time when youāve got something else more mind numbingly boring and over time it becomes a fun habit. The nice rush of getting something right when everything else in your day is going wrong lol
I guess itās could also be just bec of the ASD part (if it is true, though Iāll find out when I do find the time to get formally diagnosed again) since for me itās like playing a memory game every few minutes, but like all games (or idk if itās just me but even the most fun games if I play it too much at a time I get burnt out real quick so I also make sure to pace myself when playing games even when I get super motivated since the more motivated and no-lifey I get with a game the worse the burnout is to the point I can never touch it again)
And yeah, if youāre getting overwhelmed and anxious especially as the reviews pile up (I swear, KaniWani fucked that for me since I started it when I was already WK13 so I had a MASSIVE backlog, literally 500+ in my review or learn pile which ended up with me absolutely not touching it for weeks til I mustered the courage to brave the beast and soldier through), just take a break (put WK on vacation mode for a day, or donāt take any new lessons and just slowly do the ones you have at your own pace) or donāt look at that growing big number under lessons or reviews (since yeah, super intimidating and for me I CANāT not try to do it all and bring it to 0 since itās kinda like an OCD thing).
Itās a marathon, not a race. (and honestly, tbf I only started WK in late Dec but I hit WK16 despite taking a 2w break when I traveled to Spain and another 1mo break when work got super duper hectic
EDIT (after 4 other edits lol):
Sorry, I make a lot of edits since I really just spew my train of thought but one other thing to help with the motivation! Anime, Music, Lyrics etc
Immersion is always the best way to passively learn and I swear those āahaā moments when you can finally read japanese lyrics, understand their meanings (even if it is broken for now, especially when you donāt have the grammar down yet) or stuff randomly. It just makes me feel rly nice when I pick em up
e.g. recently when I was watching Spy Family, Oshi no Ko, Kaguya-Sama Love is War since theyāre fairly simple (and Kaguya-Sama has those big title cards and text boxes) that feel SOOOOOOO good when you see or hear it it pop up and think āFUCK I CAN UNDERSTAND THATā
It kinda helps keep the motivation going, and it really starts to pick up once you hit WK10 or so (and in my case, finishing NL5 on Bunpro, and currently halfway through NL4)
I also donāt know what subscription tier youāre on, but even though Iām kinda going through WK fairly quickly I got the lifetime subscription anyway (same with BunPro) since knowing Iām on a timer is SO HORRENDOUSLY pressuring and anxiety inducing (though unless youāve got a lot of disposable income I really donāt recommend it). That way, it helps lessen the pressure when youāre having days you just canāt (and yeah, some days I really donāt esp for KaniWani and Bunpro, the latter I only ālearnā new lessons once a week or so when Iām in a more āfreeā headspace since most days I just really really really canāt)
Or would it be possible to display the illustration that normally displays when you only have a small number of lessons available also when you have a lot of lessons?
I just need something that looks like itās manageable and not overwhelming.
small update on my current strategy: Iām trying to do some lessons every full hour, currently 5 at a time but Iām scaling it down to 3 if needed.
Remember that you donāt actually ever need to get the lesson count down to 0 to be advancing at a good pace! If you want to reach your goal of hitting level 30 in a year, thatās about 5000 lessons to take, so you will need to take about 15 lessons a day on average. Clearing your lessons pile to 0 requires you to take a lot more lessons than this.
I have almost the exact opposite strategy to you - I donāt take lessons a little at a time, I take them in big chunks, but only on days where I have energy and when there arenāt too many apprentice items in my pile already (especially not too many Apprentice 1 / 2 items).
I do this because I find lessons need a lot more energy than reviews for me, so taking them on low-energy days is just painful and ultimately not efficient anyhow. I want to learn quickly but also I need to make sure itās sustainable for me!
I really like [Userscript] Overall Progress Bars for feeling a sense of progress 
thatās really helpful to keep in mind, thanks!
edit: just calculated that my average lessons per day have been ~18 so far, that means Iām still on a very good pace I guess 
I think this is a good way of looking at it.
I totally feel that! I think for me itās like I need to constantly change up my strategy to make it feel new. So there are big chunk days, small chunk days and also no chunk days, like yesterday 
I managed to get that big 200 down to 160 today with my āsome lessons every full hourā strategy. Hiding that number was nice, especially because being able to just turn it off made me feel like I was in control again 
The numbers canāt hurt me, they are not real!
I think calculating the average is such a good idea, that I decided to make a spreadsheet where I can easily see it for every day. So I can see that a day or two where I donāt have the energy to do any lessons donāt affect the average that much and I can still change things around with one or two productive days!
As long as Iām not falling below the magical 15 lessons / day Iām all good.
Hopefully Iām able to maintain that spreadsheet for a little while!
Hi, Iām coming back to my own advice because, in a nutshell, I got new data, and new data changes how I see certain things weāve talked about here.
The new data is that Iām also in the autism spectrum, and I realized that the concept Iāve described here is my way of coping with both conditions by playing ping-pong between over-regulation (autism) and hyper-stimulation (ADHD). In other words, my method of choice is to provoke a hyper-focus from autism, which is why Iām so obsessed with finding my passions, which will lead to more interest, what triggers joy and excitement which triggers the hyper-stimulation from ADHD, allowing the two conditions to sync rather well - unless work or social obligations force me to break the flow.
Here was not the first time that my attempts to connect with other ADHD are falling short of your actual needs and struggles, and I can see now why my advice is pretty much unavailable to you under normal conditions. I also want to apologize for my not realizing the difference sooner. But for what itās worth, Iām glad for what my words were able to give you.