I haven’t used WaniKani in a good while since I lost motivation, as well as had to coordinate moving several months ago. I put it in vacation mode when I stopped, but it seems like the reviews have piled up. Looking with an api tool, I would have 1300 reviews to do if I returned. How do I tackle that, and is it even worth trying new lessons before I’m mostly caught up with the old reviews?
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I’d probably stick to just reviews until you get through the majority of them. Find a good, manageable number of reviews you can handle each day, and stick to it. Eventually, you’ll catch back up to where you left off.
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The same way you always do - one at a time.
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I had a comparably small pile a few days ago of 400 and I powered through in one day, took me 4 hours. The worst part is that it won’t be over after just reviewing them once… statistically speaking, many of them will be apprentice so you’ll have a few days ahead of many many reviews. My suggestion is setting a number of reviews or amount of time per day and get to it immediately. With your number of reviews I’d try maybe 300 per day?
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power through, I took vacation mode for only 3 weeks and it completely destroyed my flow, forgot so many things and took ages to get through reviews…just power through and dont spend too much time if you dont know it, the SRS will do its work and kick in soon enough.
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I had to work through over 2500 reviews at one point - it really isn’t as bad as it may seem. Just did 200-300 review sessions once or twice a day and was done within a week. I would strongly advise not to do new lessons until your review queue is clear, and then probably still wait a few days to reduce number of apprentice items and allow your brain to get back into the groove.
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I was in this position last month. I had 600 lessons and 600 reviews. What I did was first control my reviews getting them to where my apprentice items were under 100. This took a little less than a couple weeks. I found that doing small batches a review and then taking breaks then going back were best. Ie batches of 20-50, 100 max in one session. Then wait around a half hour or something. This staggers the reviews so they don’t all come up at once. I don’t see the need to reset and it took me a couple more weeks to get the lesson pile under control, biting off bits at a time and stopping if I did too much. You can tell because your apprentice count will be too much, mine was once around 274 during lesson catch up, and one day I shot up to 300+ reviews because not only did I introduce a huge batch but I had gurus/masters coming back (just bad timing but I seized my motivation at the time). Just two days ago I finally caught up and now I am moving ahead normally, now on 14 with most of my backlog behind me. (Picture tinted red due to my blue light filter)
Note that none of this wouldn’t have been possible without me already having the habit of doing WK daily. That is truly the cornerstone of how I was able to have the motivation.
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Thanks for all the encouraging replies! Chunking it out with breaks in between will most likely be what I end up doing.
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Whoa that’s crazy, well done! 
Really motivating to read this.
I have a pile of “only” 156 lessons and it’s freaking me out already. Luckily I have the week of next week so there will be plenty of time to get goingl
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You can do it! Little becomes a lot over time!
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Just took a couple months off as well because I was feeling a little burnt out. Started with 1900 and did about 200 a day for two weeks until i returned to zero. My advice is just go as fast as you can at the start and dont be afraid to miss and then just go back and relearn any that you miss too much and return to apprentice.
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Only thing i have to say that I think you need to know before you hit the harder levels is don’t abuse the reordering script, it can be your best friend or worst enemy. I only use it to make sure I can do radicals as fast as possible and learn some of the levels kanji, after that I make sure to do my vocab for the previous level because that’s how the program is designed so you will reinforce the kanji you just learned and not forget it. If you never do vocab, remembering the kanji readings you learned becomes much harder. Just my two cents though.
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Before I stopped that’s what I mostly tried to do, finish out a level before moving on 
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Something to note, is that you can reset down a couple levels to help take out some of the newer things you probably forgot completely since it’s been a few months. While it will take you a few weeks to get back to where you were, it may turn out to be the easier option rather than trying to relearn 100+ items at once.
If you do decide to go that route, most would recommend that you take a look at the items in each level that you’ve already completed, and reset at the point where you feel your memory starts to become really shaky.
Of course, if you can force yourself to power through all the items then that’s ideal, but just something to keep in mind.
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My suggestion is:
- Use the reordering script to reorder by level.
- Try to do 100-200 reviews per day.
- You will make a lot of mistakes, but it’s okay because by the time you review again, your mistakes will come up first because of the reordering script. You will be more likely to remember them. Think of it as learning the words again from beginning.
- Repeat and clear the reviews by level
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I literally just finished off this pile this very minute!!
It’s do-able! Just got to persist. This pile took about 4 days in the end. I was putting off starting it but once I had started I got right back into it! You got this!
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I’d recommend to first go through all the kanji and some of the vocab to refresh your memory and to determine how much do you still remember. If you think you remember enough - then just start doing as much as you can per day. If you think you don’t remember most of them - then it might be wise to do a reset - not necessarily to level 1, but to the level you’d be comfortable with.
A few weeks ago I was in a similar situation - I’ve been neglecting my reviews for nearly half a year and had a pile of nearly 2700 reviews… But I did what I’ve just described and managed to tackle it within less than a week without having to do another reset (I’ve already done resets two times before, both times to level 1).
Anyway, whichever you choose - best of luck to you!
Thank you for your advice 
The reordering script really is a dangerous friend, just like you said! It’s tempting to progress faster and do vocab once you have time… somewhen. But my plan is now to do approx. 20 new lessons every day so I will be on track again eventually this week and since vocab is what I need most in my studies, I’m actually motivated to do all these lessons 
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