I’ve noticed that I do my reviews with much higher success after my Japanese lessons, even if same vocab hasn’t been used.
So I figured it probably helps listening and reading Japanese for some time before doing reviews.
For some reason I have some kanjis that I forget one of readings not in hours but in minutes after review, but I seem to recall them afterwards after this pre-activation.
I noticed the same but I guess your brain just takes a little to fully switch to “japanese mode”. 
Especially if you’re using your native language for the whole day. The more immersed into japanese you are, the easier it becomes to recall and learn new words.
Also, I’m English as second language, so remembering given mnemonics are sometimes hard, regardless how many times i re-read them, and then facepalm with oh it was this one. I think I need to start writing my own native language mnemonics.
English is also my second language, eventhough I’ve been using it for 11 years (and think I’m fairly good at it), I still pick up new words here and there through wanikani like “canopy” and “toil”.
It can definitely be helpful to add mnemonics in your native language, since often the vocab doesn’t sound like the given english mnemonic.
For example when you’ll get to 頭 (head) the reading is あたま, however you’re supposed to remember it by “atomic” which in my head would be あとみ not あたま.
You are right. For example 休 really threw me off for days as I kept remembering く or くう or きゅ。
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