This is important. Do not stop.
If setting a review goal feels too difficult for you, set a time goal. You don’t have to do 100 reviews everyday, but you can do 15 minutes of reviews. Or 10 minutes or 30 minutes, whatever suits you. That adds up fast. Doing 15 minutes of reviews for a week means doing almost 2 hours in a week! Your review queue will melt fast.
Good luck! 
First, stop the urge to try to finish all lessons and all reviews at once.
Second, install WaniKani Real Number. My trick is, instead of trying to make it zero, make it multiples of 25; make it a beautiful number.
Lastly, you might plan 2 weeks per level, instead of 1.
Caution, though. Keep Apprentice and Leeches low. Also, this time, vocabulary lessons are a priority, not Kanji.
To add to what’s already been said, if some of the items that keep coming back are stubborn items from 10 levels or so earlier, try to take the time to make up your own mnemonic so that they stick, and to make sure that item remains where it belongs, the crematorium.
I still have apprentice items from level 20-30, I’m 40 ._.
Edit: Just to add some context: the only time doing reviews feels like a chore is when many of the queue items are ones I’ve seen over 100 times and still get wrong.
Thank you guys for all the kind help and experience. I share my current situation after stop my vacation mode and do some reviews.
I should be ashamed of myself. I know 
edit: somewhere I read a wise saying “discipline is more important than motivation”. So, the story goes to: "How can I maintain/build my discipline?
You are being way too hard on yourself. I’m guessing many (most?) people on WK have worked through a review backlog of 300+ more than once. I didn’t put myself on vacation mode over the holidays and came back to almost 1000 reviews. Just do batches of 10 throughout the day. You don’t have to clear your review log in one day. You could aim to get your review log to the high 200s today, maybe the high 100s tomorrow and work it down over the next week or two. Start doing 3 lesson a day and those will catch up, too. You’re fine.
It’s just a learning app - it serves you, not the other way around.
https://community.wanikani.com/t/reorder-scriptaholics-anonymous/19350…
First off, clear all vocabulary Lessons first. The fix script for this is Wanikani Reorder Ultimate [old version, not working]. However, you might skip Kanji lessons for now. This will also prevent leveling up. Well, planning something like 2 weeks to level up, OK.
Second, Reviews: 350 – clear all Apprentice, ignoring all Guru count / Total Review Count. The fix script for this is WaniKani SRS Reorder Button (or [Userscript] WaniKani Review Asc/Desc SRS Order if you prefer, but I like the former more.) Yeah, you don’t have to care if your Review Count is eventually sky high, as long as Apprentice is low.
Third, sky-high Review Count, to decrease to 300 per day as usual, I use “Reorder Ultimate” to do lower levels first.
I wouldn’t suggest to do the lessons first. He has a bunch of leeches to take care of + reviews that will probably originate new leeches. The priority should be the reviews. Doing new lessons every day might seem inoffensive, but it’s actually a good reset once in a while. The more reviews one has, the harder it is to fix the problem. Reviews definitely first. While he’s at it, he should take advantage of the training leeches script to fix whatever words he’s not memorizing. Only then the new lessons should start. It’s important to remember that this whole situation started because it was hard to keep up with all the high intensity of 7 day levels.
Also, he’s asking for discipline. Discipline on WK means coming here everyday to do reviews mainly. That’s the focus. Only then will he be able to ascend and use its full abilities to handle the constant new flow of knowledge (lessons).
Maintaining discipline - I’m a newbie but also deal with a lot of behavioral psychology in other areas :3
You are very correct in that motivation is fleeting (it’s also tied to your blood sugar - willpower is actively draining to your brain, like exertion, which is why it’s so easy to fall off the wagon, especially when stressed or when you’ve been focusing on something for a long time)
Thank you. The srs reoder script is great! I wonder what do the colors indicate? I see the red, violet and blue ones. Which one indicates apprentice items?
Thank you, this is great advice. I’ve been doing exactly you said in 1. every time I sit in the computer in the morning I would do Wanikani first. I think I’m hard on myself so I would try to sit back, relax and devide those reviews in to a bunch of 10. As for the reward, yeah I kind of feel hard to have “net positive”, how can I achieve that?
No place for shame, here - you’re learning another language by self-study, so give yourself the credit you deserve for having the gumption to improve your knowledge.
As @animuse wrote, I found I was much better able to focus by scheduling time at particular intervals of the day to do WK.
I can’t find it at the mo, but I’m sure I read a Tofugu article about making study a ritual (a ‘get-to-do’ rather than a ‘have-to-do’) - so set aside some time for you, a soothing beverage, and WK, then bask in the presence of the great Crabigator.
We’re all pulling for you!
Found this one instead, hope it helps.
Which Leech related script is that? I could use that… I probably have a lot… Most of the 52 Apprentice items I have right now are probably leeches.
267 lessons? You should be getting that number down to 0 before every levelup in my opinion. Anything else is an indicator that you are going too fast (except for a few special cases). Seeing that, I’m not surprised you are having this issue.
And I disagree with polv. The first step is 100% getting reviews down to 0, and then making sure they are coming at a rate that you can deal with from day to day. After that, THEN do your lessons. Make sure to do vocab first so you dont level up. Lastly do radicals and kanji.
Source: I’ve come back from 200 lessons and 700 reviews. Been there done that.
I feel your pain. Not just with WaniKani but sometimes everything. I have gotten some helpful tips from lurking this forum: https://www.reddit.com/r/getdisciplined/
Good luck. We can do this.
Thank you guys. Another day of leeching/ I mean lazy. I guess at least talking to you guys at least maintain my willing to complete it. Arg I must do some wani in 2 hour.
ps: I just played games through the afternoon. The game is fun but after that I feel bad lol. Any psychology behind this :?
I suggest you read this article (it’s a quick read), I found it enlightening : https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/opinion/sunday/the-only-way-to-keep-your-resolutions.html
tl;dr : It’s impossible to keep up your self-discipline with sheer willpower. We’re just not made that way.
Thank you, I really appreciate it. Currently after taking a bath and doing reviews after a while I start to feel sleepy (maybe my mind is bored with doing reviews), also the reviews sessions is not really good cause I forget more than 30 percent of the words. I will comeback for an update (and also try to reignite the discipline and motivation to learn Japanese)
oh another thank for your article, I just finish reading it. So, I should be grateful to be self-control instead of using will-power to achieve it. I dont’ know, how it works? I mean what practical thing I can do in my situation to apply what the article talks about?