I’m trying to keep up with WaniKani and KaniWani. I’m only trying to do about 8 to 10 new items per day. I wind up with more review items than I can productively keep up with - I think perhaps 250 to 300 items daily. I guess I can cut back on new items but then my daily “progress” will slow to near immobility. Other than getting smarter so I get every item correct each time I see it, does anyone have a suggestion? I’m getting close to burned out by the time demands I’m disheartemed at my lack of durable progress as I cycle back through items for the tenth time.
Are you reading? It’s really hard to remember things without context. I had to pause new lessons at around level 10 and just start reading graded readers. I recommend Satori Reader with the WK integration but really anything will work. I went through Human Japanese before that to learn some grammar (but, again, anything will work.)
I also think KaniWani is probably not an efficient use of time (see e.g. Doing anki cards with English on the front and Japanese on the back - Morg Systems). But I haven’t tried it.
Are you using the kanji you‘re learning for anything else but srsing them to death?
If you haven‘t started learning grammar perhaps drop kaniwani and put your energy into grammar?
If you have some basic grammar pick up a graded reader and read. Play a simple game. Do something fun and immersive with your new knowledge.
Srs becomes boring really fast, and at level 15 you should be able to use your kanji for something beyond srs.
Someone on a similar thread said “enjoy the process” so don’t worry about how long you’re going to take learning kanji, but do some everyday in an amount you can comfortably manage and still enjoy because - if it feels like a chore - you’re going to give up. If you don’t give up, you will get there eventually and how long it took won’t matter - just remember it also takes Japanese schoolchildren a very long time.
Like others, I’m also using Satori Reader integrated with wanikani to have a context in which to use the kanji I’m learning here. Satori Reader is great because it covers grammar points too and there is accompanying audio for listening and shadowing practice.
This is my recommendation for getting overwhelm under control, and preventing burn-out:
Slow right down on the new Lessons. In fact, stop doing any new lessons for a while, until the feelings of overwhelm lessen and begin to fade away.
Continue doing reviews every day. If you can do all your reviews every day, that’s good. But if even doing all of them every day is too much, allow yourself to slow down on reviews, BUT … always do at least one review session every day, so as to keep your daily reviews routine going. That’s probably the most important thing, to keep that routine going.
As you continue to do reviews every day, while pausing new lessons, you will steadily make progress on your overall review schedule, and it will eventually get back down to a manageable level, so that you no longer feel overwhelmed.
Only when the number of reviews gets back under control, then you can finally start doing new Lessons again. By adjusting how many Lessons you do, over the long run, that’s the best way to manage overwhelm and avoiding burnout, IMHO.
Since you already have life-time subscription, you might be okay with focusing less on ‘speed’ and ‘efficiency’ and more on ‘slow and steady’ and ‘enjoyment’ of learning Japanese (in particular with SRS). If so, then you might want to check out the 
Let’s Durtle the Scenic Route 
thread-group (informal), which is all about doing just that!
Some decent advice in this thread already, good luck! Satori reader is fun, the first 2 eps of each story are free too. Check it out if you have time 
May I ask how many apprentice items you have at the moment? Maybe you know this already, but I think people tend to aim to keep it below 100. I’m not sure on the details but yeah once it gets up there a lot of reviews come thick n fast. So just pause lessons and try get that apprentice count down!
頑張ってね！
Editing to add: Slowing down is so so so so much better than burning out and just stopping and feeling miserable about it all, so just try to avoid that for sure.
By the way, this number of reviews is completely normal when you want to level up fast.
Perhaps it’s a matter of reframing the expectations. You can invest 1.5-2 hours daily on wk now and in a year you’ll know most jouyou kanji.
Was definitely worth it for me at least.
Thank you. I think I will look into Satori Reader
Thank you for the perspective.