I am only level 10 and I am going at a pace of a level every 8 days. I calculated and I spend on average 40 mins a day doing reviews and lessons. I was wondering if there is any way I can make WaniKani take less time. I spend time also doing anki and learning through other methods, and don’t want to spend as much time on WaniKani but I feel like I should still be going at the same speed. Is there any add-ons or methods that I can use to make WaniKani take less time but still progress at the same speed? Thanks
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I’ll be entirely realistic with you and tell you that the amount of time it takes daily is likely to increase, not decrease, as you start to get Master and Enlightened items coming back regularly. The amount of items at Apprentice and Guru level dictate how many short term reviews you have, but in the long term you’ll start to see more reviews from later SRS stages.
You can do small tweaks like scripts that improve loading and decrease the time between answering and the next item, but that’s about it really. WaniKani is a daily commitment and it is something that you’ll need to put time into.
That said, it’s probably the most efficient way to learn kanji. An SRS system works by showing you the item as infrequently as is possible while still just about keeping it in your memory.
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You’re pretty close to the max leveling speed and unfortunately, the workload increases quite a bit once you get close to level 20 as all your enlightened and burn reviews start coming up.
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Well there’s essentially a trade-off between the amount of time you spend each day and the time it takes to level up. If you do fewer lessons per day or keep your apprentice count low, you will have fewer apprentice items, which are the ones that come back nearly every day during reviews.
8 days per level is close to the maximum speed, so if the load is too much you might want to consider going a bit slower.
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Honestly? If you’re already feeling that you’re spending too much time, than I would start employing methods to set a better pace now and not worry as much about the time it takes to complete a level. Just like running or any other exercise, if you start hot out of the gate, you’ll find you won’t last long, and you’ll end up hurting your overall time more than if you just paced yourself from the start.
There are things like the re-order script and whatnot that may help reduce time spent on reviews (or at least have time spent on highest priority reviews), but that doesn’t make lessons or reviews go away - it just puts them off for later, so you’re not actually reducing overall time per level.
My favorite method to reduce review time is to cap the amount of Apprentice items you have. So, if your cap is 100, once you have 100 Apprentice items, don’t do any more lessons until you go back under that. This works because the number of daily reviews is based largely on the number of Apprentice items. Another method is to set a daily lesson limit.
Burnout is a very real concern for a daily commitment like this, so learning how to pace yourself now will help to avoid frustration and heartache in the future. Lord knows many of us are still learning that lesson the hard way. Whatever you do, keep at it and good luck on your journey!
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For me its really hard to see my wanikani reviews and not do them, I don’t really feel burned out I was just looking for a quicker way. Thanks for the help
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Please continue to do your reviews every day. However, you may want to slow down on lessons if you want to spend less time on WaniKani. There really isn’t a magic solution. If you want to spend less time per day you will need to come to terms with the fact that you won’t level up quite as fast.
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Just to clarify, the methods I mentioned require not doing your lessons all at once - you’d still do all your reviews. They’re meant to make it so you have less reviews in your queue in the first place.
Although, to be fair, it can be hard to resist the temptation to finish all the lessons in your queue, too. 
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Don’t do Wanikani. Saves a lot of time 
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If you don’t do reviews in a timely manner, the problem will get worse as you’ll be more likely to get items wrong when you do review them. If you’re concerned about workload, really the only way to reduce it is on the front end: not as many lessons.
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There’s a reason it takes the amount of time it takes, so no? I’m at the last 10 levels now and there are less kanji so I’ve been able to cut my review time by half, but otherwise it’s always been about a week or so.
One script aimed specifically at reducing review time, is [UserScript] WaniKani Lightning Mode, which automatically moves you on to the next review on a corrct answer. Saves having to click enter twice, but also doesn’t allow you to look at the item info during review, if you’re curious about something. Some scripts already have Lightning Mode incorporated, too, like [Userscript]: Double-Check (Version 2.x). This one is handy if you tend to make a lot of typos, because you try to go too fast. You can redo your wrong answer right away. But of course this brings with it a potential for abuse.
There are also a bunch of good apps you can use so you can review on the go comfortably, which can help you fit reviews into those little pockets of time when you have nothing to do, but not enough time to sit down and study properly. I use Flaming Durtles. (Which I believe also has Anki Mode reviews, but that is not necessarily recommended, because we never grade ourselves as harshly as WK would…)
I do want to add, that on the whole WK is a great tool to sink a bit more time into. You’ll see gains from doing WK pretty much every step of the way across all the platforms you use to study.
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Euclid said to King Ptolemy, there is no royal road to geometry.
I don’t really mean that to be sarcastic or anything, it is simply too appropriate not to quote.
The trade offs when deciding the priorities of how to use your study time for a language are tough choices. I do hope that you find some ways to use your time as effectively as possible.
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The real question is how can you prevent wanikani from making less time of you?
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