Sorry, I didn’t mean to sound disparaging. Nor did I mean that the characters get more difficult as you progress. Obviously you’ve progressed more than far enough to fully understand the process (quite quickly, to boot).
I only meant that I hope you’re able to burn items fast enough to continue doing your lessons at full speed (I’m definitely not able to). The workload is cumulative and enlightened items that you haven’t seen in four months can really come back to bite you. Trust me.
I only meant that I’ll be curious if, after a few months, you’re still able and wanting to do all your lessons as soon as they’re available.
“I made it!” posts by more than a few level-60’s prove that many people are able to maintain the pace and finish all 60 levels in a year or so, but I know for certain that I’d have burned out if I tried (and I started this process with a larger spoken Japanese vocabulary than most).
For what it’s worth, it was right around level 17 when I started finding the process a little more difficult and started to value slowing down:
I know I’ve learned a few things since I started seeing those >2 week levels. I’ve only recently learned the value of extra reviews for ANYTHING in stages 1 and 2, for example.
I’m confident that I’ve finally worked out a pace and process that works well for me. I know I’d like to have understood these things a year or so ago when I was around your level.
Here’s what I see every morning with my morning coffee before I start my daily reviews:
I can see at a glance that my assignment queue is healthy (basically Apprentice + Guru/10 is around 150), and that my expected number of daily reviews (the gold dashed line) is within my desired range of 120 to 180.
The review timeline shows that my scheduled reviews are fairly evenly spread out, without any particularly painful days coming up. (Note Feb 12 and 13, though: I can tell I slacked off one day a couple months ago — it would be better if the reviews were balanced between those two days instead of mostly on the 13th.)
Finally, I can see that I’ve burned 4000 of the roughly 9000 items on Wanikani. To my way of thinking, that’s a far better indicator of my “real” progress than my level. I can also see that I’m currently working on a little less than half of the remaining items (roughly 2500 items are “in progress” with scheduled reviews).
Everyone has different strengths and weaknesses. Everyone’s experience here will differ. But I still think caution is warranted regarding doing all your lessons as soon as they are available.