I never thought it would happen to me. Saw the posts here about folks who went on vacation and came back to thousands of reviews. Told myself that I would just turn on vacation mode and it would never happen to me.
And then I kind of hit a wall at around 40 - too many reviews coming at me, feeling like I don’t really remember them, and also getting involved in another game and reading a lot. Not like I took a vacation, just was not doing enough reviews to keep up, and before I knew it, it was up in the 800+.
Here’s what worked for me to dig myself out - first off, I completely stopped doing lessons. Figured I’d wait until I’m at 0 reviews and under 100 apprentice items before I’m allowed to learn more.
Then I decided to set a goal for myself every day - the same way that I used to always try to get my reviews down to 0 any time they were some, I would now try to get them down to 700. Then, once I can feel like I can have them at 700, my new 0 would be 600, or maybe 650. The important part was to never let my new 0 slide back up - and constantly try to drive it down.
After some time with this, my new 0 was now 150, and from there, the actual 0 was achievable, and there I am.
It was hard, but did work for me - figured I’d post in case someone else is in the same situation and it ends up being a useful trick for them.