Keeping your reviews in line - tips?

So I have always tried to stay around 100 apprentice at once, which was working well. But now that the reviews have started to shift into guru/master/enlightened, I am wondering if any of you have a “rule of thumb” cutoff at different levels before you start adding more new reviews? I am trying to stay around 100-120 per day.

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I think I only keep an eye on the Apprentice count.
If I think my review count is too high, I lower my apprentice limit. If I can handle more, I raise my apprentice limit.
With this method, after a while, you’ll get to your own ideal apprentice count.

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Besides the apprentice count, you want to stop doing lessons if your next days reviews is somewhat high. But I’m skeptical that in the long run only 100-120 reviews per day are possible to sustain. I stop doing lessons if apprentice levels go above 140 or if next day reviews go above 300. But I think eventually you will be facing days with 200-250 reviews.

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Rather than trying to keep your reviews in line, it might be better to just pace yourself. If you’re faced with a day over 100 reviews, just do what you can and finish them the next day. As long as you stop taking on more lessons, the review count will slowly go down to something more manageable. I also keep my apprentice between 100-150 and usually have 200-250 reviews a day now. The other option is to try to do 100 twice a day so you don’t get overwhelmed by doing them all at once. Good luck!

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Yeesh, I guess 200+ is probably just the reality if I am going to ever finish. I start to get overwhelmed when I get above 150. I think it migght have to do with my days being very busy and I only have a window at night to do reviews, which means all at once. Thanks for the input, gives me something to think about.

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If possible, try to do reviews when you wake-up besides the night time. Only one time to do reviews will become though also because accuracy declines in long reviews.

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If you’re an android phone user, I suggest flaming durtles app. It’s changed how I review because it let’s me review offline whenever I have a spare moment. It doesn’t time out like the website, and even if the app crashes it remembers what I’ve reviewed. It’s really helping me to do reviews throughout the day as opposed to in one chunk at night. It’s also awesome for long plane rides!

I think interspersing them in your day (if possible) is better for motivation and for recall.

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nope unfortunately just ios.

but I think Tsurukame does that also?

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You could also try to race to the mid-30’s as fast as you can and then slow down, focusing more on reading. That’s my plan anyway. If you take longer to get to 60 but you get a lot of reading done in the meantime you would arguably have learned more Japanese.

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That’s too bad, maybe it does? Do you have a timeline for when you want to finish Wanikani? If not then I would say go at your own pace. Heck, I’ve been at it for 3-ish years and I’m only level 39.

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I have two rules:

  1. Keep Apprentice below 100
  2. Keep Guru below 500

So far, that’s been a manageable pace for me. On a new level, I’ll usually split the lessons into two and start the next about a week after the first. As the first set of lessons moves into Guru and some of the Guru stuff moves into Master, that frees up Apprentice slots for the new lessons.

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I try to keep apprentice at roughly 110 (Although it doesn’t always work; I’m currently at 122)
Whoa I just realized I used a semicolon. An honest-to-god semicolon. Is this some old fantasy novel or something?

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I had this problem before. Trying to balance wanikani, work, hobbies, and other Japanese study time can be rough.

recently, I’ve been keeping my apprentence level reviews between 40-60 items. I was doing 100 for a while, but I was just too busy to keep up.

Someone told me to keep an eye on how many reviews you’ll have later in the week. If you have a day coming up with a lot of reviews, remember your apprentice items will be added on top of that. If it looks like an unmanageable number, then lay off lessons before that day.

Now that I have a lot of free time because schools in Japan sent students home early, I’m waffling on whether or not to raise my apprentice number during spring break, but for now I’m holding steady.

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yes, this is exactly the kind of answer i was looking for. Thanks!

how many reviews sit in your queue? I am up to like 150+

I always had an eye on Apprentice, around 100. Sometimes I would go as high as 130, but then drop back to 70… but I did not keep an eye on my Guru items and now I have made a fullstop at level 25/26, because my Guru items were above 800. That was awful. I was swamped with stuff I didn’t really know or just by luck… so I had to face 400 reviews daily even though my Apprentice items were around 80.

So it’s also good to keep an eye on Guru items, because sooner or later they can haunt you. My Guru items are below 500 now and I am slowly starting to take lessons again, because this is bearable.

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I just woke up and I have 40 right now. I usually have less than 100 a day, but sometimes a hoard of enlightened items turn up in a day.

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I have 3 review sessions every day. One at 8 (or whenever I wake up), where I first do 25 lessons (prioritizing current level radicals and kanji) and then I do outstanding reviews, one at 12, or 4 hours after the first session (where I do the reviews for the lessons I did in the morning), and another at 8 PM, or 8 hours after the previous session (where I do the reviews for the day’s lessons). With just 25 lessons a day my apprentice count mostly doesn’t go over 100 so it’s very manageable, and I usually get to finish all lessons before the next level starts.

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I hit the same wall around Level 22 and basically gave up for a few weeks and had to come back and clear out over 1400 reviews in order to pick up where I left off. Original post on that here

100/500 was what I settled on to keep my daily numbers manageable. Anything from 80-130 daily reviews is manageable given the time I have to spend on WK, so that’s how I managed to keep my sanity intact. :wink:

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Guru items really don’t contribute that much to your review count. I’ve had consistently guru at 800 and apprentice at around 100 and I get around 200 items a day. You must’ve had a batch of reviews that decided to swamp up.