I got overwhelmed this week and stopped doing lessens to cut down on the reviews I had to do. I was finding that I was getting way too many wrong cos I was trying to learn so many new words. I made it to level 5 today (yay!) and now i have 110 lessons because of the backlog I created! At least I feel like I’m slightly more in control. Does anyone else feel like it’s totally overwhelming sometimes? What strategies do you use to get through that??
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The early levels do have a lot of kanji and vocabs because these were designed to give you a good foundation in kanji knowledge, introduce you to some of the most common kanji (of which there are quite a lot). This is why every time you level up, you get a lot of lessons.
Once you reach level 27-ish, the number of kanji and vocabs per level will drop somewhat, and you’ll be able to manage your review pile more easily.
See how many radicals/kanji/vocabs per level at https://www.wkstats.com
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Level 27…i can only dream of that day! 
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Yes. My lesson pile has not been 0 since around level 6. Each time I level up and get that big lesson dump it goes back up to 100+. There are ways to fight that number (hopefully other people will share their methods) but I just do what I can and keep pushing forward. I’d like to say it gets easier but really you just get used to it.
crappy answer I know
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You’re learning the kanji component of Japanese. The single most overwhelming aspect of Japanese that even native speakers struggle with in their day to day lives.
It’s perfectly normal to be overwhelmed. Don’t forget to revel in the fact that seemingly random squiggly lines are now the carriers of meaning in your noggin.
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Thanks Plantron…thats an interesting link!
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Oh you are so right about those squiggly lines! And I love the humour that the mnenomics put into the stories when they combine them to solidify them in your memory! 
You’re doing absolutely the right thing to hold off on the lessons for a while and just get to grips with the kanji you’ve already learnt. Don’t see the lesson count as a backlog, see it as a mark of your success - they’re only available because you’ve managed to guru the last lot of kanji/radicals - and then do them in your own time.
It will feel overwhelming at times but for me the joy of coming across kanji on food packets or on instagram and then finding I can ACTUALLY READ THEM makes me excited about the endeavour all over again! Keep at it, but at your own pace.
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I get you. It’s overwhelming whenever I see 100ish lessons that I have to get through.
I personally just hit the home button and cut my lessons short. I perfer to do large lessons in 20 lesson chunks.
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absolutely. i were where you are atm and i had at lv 5 a review lists of almost 500 kanji/vocab/radical and 60 new lessons (thats probably not much in comparison to lv 60 members) and couldn’t handle anything at all. did too many mistakes and made my score look miserable. couldn’t concentrate on actually trying to comprehend the kanji and overall i failed at that time.
i think only advice i have is: try to do your reviews so you won’t get buried in them. learn how much you can handle at once and don’t feel pressured by how fast others are.
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Thank you fustian_garb. That is a great way of looking at it! And yes i do get a kick out of recognising kanji too.
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Yes narururu i know what you mean! I find I get good scores if I do a small number of reviews but doing large numbers just brings my score WAY down!! I need to find the sweet spot so i know how many I can handle before my concentration fails!
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I know what you feel, I became kind of scared of this 42+ on the home page 
I split the lesson to 20 words and I make sure I am in a good study environment. Otherwise, I kept getting mistakes and they always come back in the reviews sections.
Wish you the best of luck in your studies
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jprspereira made an awesome guide about making your own schedule. Try going through this!
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The common recommendation is to have 100 apprentice items or less. I suggest doing all the radical lessons right away, then spacing the others out. Go at a pace that is managable for you. The important thing is to keep going. If you start trying to do too much at once and your accuracy drops, that’s what can demotivate you.
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