I need help, I'm addicted and in serious trouble

Ok, I need help. Wanikani is seriously interfering with my university work. Instead of studying for my exams I sit there like a junkie waiting for my next review fix. I have zero self-control. I need a script, an extension, something, which can limit the amount of reviews I can access in a day. I don’t care whether the remaining reviews pile up. Is there anything that would save me from failing medical school because I rather study Japanese??? Please say yes

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How would you feel about using vacation mode? If you go to Menu > Settings > Account and scroll down, there is an option for activating vacation mode, which will pause all of your SRS and give you zero reviews. This is the quickest solution that I know of.

With that in place, I would hope you’d then have the ability to focus on university work and eventually figure out what you can do to get yourself in a healthier state for WK.

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Have you tried one of those add-ons that block time wasting sites for you, like LeechBlock? You could download one of those and set up Wanikani so you can only access it in the morning or evening.

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I thought about that and if I were a human with more willpower it would be a perfect solution. I was rather hoping for something that would let me access a certain amount of reviews a day and then just block wanikani for the rest of that day. I’m really thankful for your response though. I realised right after I posted that I sound really desperate and would probably make people hella uncomfortable lol but by that time it was already too late. So I was really hoping that someone would at least answer and not let me hang there looking like I’m loosing it lol you can’t see me but I’m laughing at my own idiocrasy right now :sweat_smile:

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Hey :slight_smile: yes I have one of those, it’s called 1Focus and I can really recommend it to anybody. The issue with that is that it blocks whatever website I chose for the time being and once the timer runs out all the websites are accessible again. I could of course decide to block wanikani from a certain time in the morning to a chosen time in the evening but I would need to block it on all my devices and unfortunately there is nothing to block a single app from my iphone, I would have to delete the app. it’s tricky…

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Off of the title, I’m just seriously relieved it’s only a kanji addiction :sweat_smile: If you stop doing all lessons for awhile or strictly ration them out, the number of reviews will start to fall off on their own.

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Have you read my guide for WK? Specially the chapter 4, where I mention making a schedule for Wanikani. This might help you understand how Wanikani works and lead you to realize that doing reviews every single hour is actually the biggest waste you could be doing with your time (not to mention mental energy).

Another way would be for you to actually reduce number of lessons/day. However, I suspect the problem would still be there as you can’t resist not doing small piles of reviews. The problem isn’t necessarily about the total daily pile itself.

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haha sorry, I really f** up on that one lol I’m just sitting here not studying for tomorrow’s exam and in a moment of frustration with myself I went and vented on the forum here :sweat_smile:

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exactly! you are of course right. I read your guide a few weeks ago and I understand what you are saying because it is very logical and makes absolute sense…I just can’t control myself, with or without a schedule

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I see your point. Surprisingly what worked for me was self-criticism. Every time I’d see myself trying to tackle a small pile of reviews, I’d just get mad at myself midway and literally stop right away. That kinda lead me to pay less attention to reviews and show up to do them when I actually needed.

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I feel you. Getting ready for my exam in a few hours too. If you have the option, sometimes I find it helps to just work with physical books or write down notes and diagrams onto paper. Anything to get away from those tempting screens for a bit.

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I will really try to implement your advice. Good luck on your upcoming exam :crossed_fingers:t2:

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The cold hard truth is that the problem will solve itself in a month or two. Before you are moving items from master to enlightened you simply never have “enough” reviews to scratch the itch. So you stare at the screen waiting for the hour to turn over so maybe you can have a couple more. Once you are regularly moving items to enlightened, The “itch” will have enough reviews available to scratch it.

So, just be patient. Don’t let yourself down in school, and know for a fact, that there will be reviews. And reviews. And then so many reviews you’ll start wanting to procrastinate on lessons. You’re just not there yet because of the SRS intervals.

Because from what you say, it’s not the NUMBER of reviews that’s killing your productivity. It’s the time spend WAITING for reviews to be available.

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I think it’s best to try and work on your self control issues as well instead of just trying to find your way around it all the time. If you sit around with not much to do until your reviews arrive, then why not use that time to study? Or why not try to make a habit of only doing reviews at certain times like when you eat or right before/after a meal? Of course it’s hard, but I’m sure it can’t be as difficult as medical school!

I just graduated from a school for 3D animation and I had to outright drop wanikani several times so I could get my work done and then inevitably reset when I returned (and doing this a few times because there’s no real vacation at these schools). It’s definitely hard but you do what you need to right? Wanikani will still be here to take you back in the Crabigator’s loving embrace when you return!

Good luck with your studies!

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Electroshock therapy?

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I like that! As a psychologist I’m all for extreme psychological measures to vanquish the demonic possessions seizing hold of our fragile minds (disclaimer: I’m kidding) :grin:

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Welcome to procrastination! :wink: This is basically doing WK because you don’t want to do your school work. I do this all the time at work where I can’t wait for break to knock out some reviews. The best thing to do is realize that it is procrastination and that you need to deal with it.

You can try something like parsing it out, e.g. if I study these 10 terms for school I can do 10 reviews. Rinse and repeat.

Hope that helps.

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I need that for whenever I flirt.

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dangerous business, it might lead to happiness and apparently insects in our intestines, we don’t want that

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For that particular issue, I believe rejection is enough of a negative stimulus that’s probably worse than electroshock in many cases. :wink:

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