Something that’s been very helpful for me is the idea of streaks. If you do something consistently for long enough, you’ll actually get to the point where it’s harder to not do it than it is to motivate yourself to do it. I use an Android app called Loop to keep track of things I want to accomplish every day. As your streak grows, you essentially want to keep it unbroken so you can see that score go up.
So one thing I did was always make sure I brought my WaniKani reviews down to zero at least once per day. This means that if I woke up and only had 10 reviews to do, I could technically count that – but of course, the next day I would have a ton of leftovers, so it actually helped motivate me to review multiple times per day so I didn’t get swamped later. The WaniKani heatmap script gives a nice way to see how you’ve been doing with your daily activity by tracking review and lesson counts in addition to your streak.
The 0/0 streak challenge motivates people to stay on top of both their lessons and reviews by making a goal out of bringing both values down to zero at least once between levels. It’s a super supportive thread so I highly suggest getting involved.
Another daily streak I stay on top of is simply getting exposure to native Japanese. This could be anything from watching anime to reading manga or novels to playing videogames with a lot of text. My streak goal is a minimum of 30 minutes per day. On top of that, a JP-study Discord server I’m part of has a special role you can get by writing weekly reports on what you’ve read during the week, and I actually just turned one in for a 71st week in a row. If I let that streak lapse I know I’d be incredibly disappointed (not to mention lose my cool color) so the pressure is on.
Basically just make sure you’re doing something every day. Your goals don’t have to be the same as mine, just find something that you know you can achieve and stick with it. Aiming too high can lead to burnout so shoot low until you find a pace that works, and don’t forget that you can easily ramp up as you find your goals are getting easier.