I’m pretty beginner at WaniKani; I’m on level 2. But I can’t remember vocab, so I’ve been letting my lessons pile up while I try to focus on mastering all the terms I’ve already learned. Is this what I should be doing? I’m afraid the lessons pile will get too full 
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The lesson pile will not keep growing indefinitely. It will only add new items when you guru a radical or a kanji.
In any case, I would advise you to do a few lessons every day. Getting a vocab wrong sometimes will not be a big deal in the long run. What do you mean by ‘mastering all the terms’? Do you mean get them into the master category, or out of apprentice (into guru)?
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If the vocab is relatively new (apprentice level), you should shoot for around 85% on your reviews. If you’re getting that, go ahead and take on new items. Otherwise figure out how to improve your accuracy. Are you doing your reviews on time? Are you remembering the mnemonics and re-studying them if you forget?
A technique I liked to use to boost early accuracy was reviewing every item immediately after lessons – on the “Lessons Summary” screen, look at each item and recall the reading, meaning, and mnemonic story.
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Thank you for your reply! When I mean mastering the terms, I mean completely memorizing them. I’m still not completely familiar with them, so I’m afraid if I move on to new lessons, I’ll forget the terms I still have yet to memorize.
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A goal of “completely memorize them” sounds reasonable on first glance, but it would be better to define what it means. That’s why @Saida is asking about what SRS stage you want to get them to. Otherwise you might find yourself unsure of when to continue. It’s not a bad thing when you get a review wrong. The reviews aren’t tests. They are how you learn. When you get one wrong it returns sooner so you can work on that item more.
But you should do something additional at that time, as mentioned. Checking the item page, finding an example sentence, chanting the reading while dressed like a wizard, etc.
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Another little bit of info is that the early vocab stages are a little rough, so don’t beat yourself up over it! Early on, you don’t have a lot of kanji to work with so a lot of the vocab are single kanji words. This means they will typically use the kun’yomi reading for the vocab so you have to learn the word AND the new reading… and then keep that separate from the other vocab or kanji you just learned. Once you get some more kanji under your belt you should start getting jukugo (words with multiple kanji side by side) which will often use readings you learned with the kanji itself. While you’ll still have to learn new readings for a lot of words, it’s super motivating to have a batch that you just know. 
I’m at level 6 at the moment and it’s already improved in that regard. A good chunk of the vocab I can guess the meaning AND reading before even seeing the info on the page. Take the advice of the others above me and don’t give up! The Crabigator has a lot planned for you, young one. As the great Koichi said: Learning kanji is simple. It may not be easy, but as long as you follow the process you will reach that shiny golden level 60.
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Wanikani considers you have mastered an item when it reaches the “burn” stage. Getting there takes six months. You can’ t wait that long to take more lessons.
You will know more about how wanikani should be used if you read about srs stages. On the main wanikani page scroll down to the very bottom and click on the “help” button. Then search for srs. You will find there what you need to know.
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Ohhh, I see. Thanks for letting me know 
Thank you so much!! I’m more confident to move on to new lessons now. 
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