# Strategy for catching up on reviews
**URL:** https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894
**Category:** Requesting Help
**Created:** [December 20, 2019, 7:52am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894 "2019-12-20T07:52:29Z")
**Posts on this page:** 18
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@gamerpuppy](https://community.wanikani.com/u/gamerpuppy)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2019, 7:52am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/1 "2019-12-20T07:52:29Z")
Need advice on how to best tackle this review pile. I quit cold turkey for 3 months after going full speed for 5 months and now my accuracy on reviews is very poor. Do I level reset?
edit: I have been going through reviews slowly for almost 2 weeks now, sorted from level 1, with radicals then kanji then vocab. But I feel like I am burning things I should not be.
---
### Author:  [@d-hermit](https://community.wanikani.com/u/d-hermit)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2019, 8:25am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/2 "2019-12-20T08:25:46Z")
I had a 3-month break as well but to be fair I was doing reviews once in a while, so the pile I got back to was just over 500 items.
I just decided to plunge right in and was doing several 30-40 minute review sessions per day. No reordering, no tricks.
As you say sometemise I burned items that felt shaky but if I could remember them - it counts.
From what I read in the forms before resetting a few levels doesn’t reduce the reviews by much. So, you’d have to reset to maybe lvl 10 to feel it.
But I’d try to do 300 - 500 reviews a day (split them of course) for a week and see where you will be.
After this initial push you will figure out how many items you really don’t remember and you will clear all the items you do know.
---
### Author:  [@Grawlix](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Grawlix)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2019, 8:29am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/3 "2019-12-20T08:29:51Z")
Seconding the idea that you set some daily goal for a while and try to power through it. As long as you’re doing more reviews in one day than are piled up for the next, you’ll make progress.
If you still feel stuck after a while, _then_ I might consider dropping levels, one at a time, until you feel comfortable again.
Also, if you feel like you’re burning things you shouldn’t be, you can “resurrect” those cards individually at the bottom of the radical/kanji/vocab page. 🙂
---
### Author:  [@zaf](https://community.wanikani.com/u/zaf)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2019, 8:56am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/4 "2019-12-20T08:56:36Z")
Went to Japan and didn’t do any WK…When I returned home my accuracy was so low, I just couldn’t remember anything! Well, I want to remember, that’s my goal right? So I seset 6 levels back, slowed down to no more than 90 appr.levels at any time. Never regretted it, allthough it will take me a long time! Just took the lifelong offer so I can enjoy my learning process and relax, whilst still making progress and having time to do grammar, writing, reading and best of all: actually speaking Japanese. Dont’t feel stuck, relax!
---
### Author:  [@konekush](https://community.wanikani.com/u/konekush)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2019, 8:56am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/5 "2019-12-20T08:56:49Z")
I recommend not using the reorder script but rather this one:
(Because, with the reorder script you WILL be burning things you shouldn’t)
> [@\[UNSUPPORTED\] \[Userscript\] WaniKani Prioritize Overdue Reviews (reorder script)](https://community.wanikani.com/t/userscript-wanikani-prioritize-overdue-reviews-reorder-script/36149):
>
> What is it? This is a new reorder script, which will prioritize giving you “overdue” reviews. This approach was modeled after iKnow’s review algorithm, but with some (user-customizable) randomness thrown in to minimize the chance of hurting your long-term retention. In general the review items considered overdue will show up for review before the items not considered overdue. See the settings section below for more details. How to Install? As always, make sure you have a script manager ins…
(Remember to disable it once you’ve caught up!)
Other than that, I’ll second @Grawlix - do more reviews than you have due the next day, and you’ll slowly be seeing progress. If you don’t do any new lessons (seriously, don’t), even 10 reviews a day will eventually get you to the bottom of your pile. Use the wrap up button liberally.
---
### Author:  [@Rowena](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Rowena)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2019, 10:38am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/6 "2019-12-20T10:38:40Z")
I would advise against both resetting (been there, done that, regretted it) and doing as many as 300-500 reviews a day to get caught up. Do now as you mean to go on - if you do massive chunks, they will come back to you in massive chunks. How many reviews were you doing daily before your break? You could add 5-10%, but I wouldn’t do any more than that.
As others have written, no new lessons until reviews at or near 0.
I agree wholeheartedly with konekush regarding the prioritisation script, except for this bit:
> [@konekush](#):
>
> (Remember to disable it once you’ve caught up!)
No real need to do this; once you are caught up and are afterwards keeping your reviews at 0, it won’t make much of a difference.
(Sorry @konekush - didn’t mean to reply to you, just to the thread in general).
P.S. If you do end up with a lot of leaches, you could use the self-study script on leech mode to get some extra review on just those items.
---
### Author:  [@konekush](https://community.wanikani.com/u/konekush)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2019, 2:09pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/7 "2019-12-20T14:09:53Z")
> [@Rowena](#):
>
> No real need to do this; once you are caught up and are afterwards keeping your reviews at 0, it won’t make much of a difference.
I do think there is. If you read the script thread, you’ll see me and a couple of others discussing it:
> [@\[UNSUPPORTED\] \[Userscript\] WaniKani Prioritize Overdue Reviews (reorder script)](https://community.wanikani.com/t/userscript-wanikani-prioritize-overdue-reviews-reorder-script/36149/26):
>
> So, if you zero all your reviews every day, you don’t need this script? Or it might even make things worse for you?
If you increase the randomness and what counts as overdue, you can minimise the possible issues that might arise from long-term usage.
---
### Author:  [@Crouton](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Crouton)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2019, 2:34pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/8 "2019-12-20T14:34:52Z")
Sorry, I’ve never been in this situation and have no advice for you. (And I hope I never need the advice you get! Good luck!)
---
### Author:  [@Kumirei](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Kumirei)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2019, 9:52pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/9 "2019-12-20T21:52:19Z")
I’ve been in your situation a few times. I just sort my reviews by level and try to clear it bottom up. Every day I do a few hundred reviews, until I’m done.
---
### Author:  [@Rowena](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Rowena)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2019, 11:20pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/10 "2019-12-20T23:20:58Z")
I have read the thread - unless you are hyperaware of exactly which items you did when (which I am not), it is still just a bunch of vocab, kanji and rads that need reviewing, so do your best.
That said, it is easily toggled on and off, each to their own.
---
### Author:  [@kelsyp](https://community.wanikani.com/u/kelsyp)
#### Post date: [December 20, 2019, 11:50pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/11 "2019-12-20T23:50:17Z")
I have had a few long absences from WaniKani, and I recently did a reset from 20 down to 15 and am back up to nearly 20 again. I don’t regret it, but I also don’t think it was really necessary now that I’ve done it and gotten back up to nearly where I was again. Kumirei’s approach of sorting reviews by level has helped a lot in the past. I would just focus on one level at a time, and only do reviews for that level until they get to Guru or something along those lines. It’s sort of mimicking a reset without fully committing to one. 😆 Plus you can always un-burn things that you feel like you burned unintentionally.
The main thing with the reset is that it’s kind of a bummer to lose the forward progress, so it probably depends on your personality if this will bother you or not.
One thing that’s also helped A LOT this time around now that I’m back to consistently doing reviews is using the [Self Study](https://community.wanikani.com/t/userscript-self-study-quiz/13191) script to review old items that are getting stuck in Guru or Apprentice. In the past, I had a lot of leeches or items that would go back and forth between those categories, so now I have a few self study lists for Apprentice Items under {my current level minus 1 or 2}, for example. That helps prevent them from piling up. Anyways good luck with whatever you decide to do!!
---
### Author:  [@Jonapan](https://community.wanikani.com/u/Jonapan)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2019, 12:22am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/12 "2019-12-21T00:22:41Z")
---
### Author:  [@ctmf](https://community.wanikani.com/u/ctmf)
#### Post date: [December 21, 2019, 11:34pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/13 "2019-12-21T23:34:51Z")
I was in a similar situation a while back. Here’s what I did (it’s debatable what the _best_ way is)
> [@How to kill a giant review backlog](https://community.wanikani.com/t/how-to-kill-a-giant-review-backlog/39552):
>
> Or should I say, one way to do it, but it worked for me. Maybe it will help someone else. Background: So I took a trip to Japan, in which I took the JLPT N5 exam. I had studied quite a bit for it, and after it was over, I felt a little burnt out. I decided to take a couple of weeks off studying as a reward. Then, life happened, and a couple of weeks turned into longer than that. I lost the habit. At some point, I just avoided it because I knew my review count was not going to be pretty. In a…
It turns out you’re still going to have to go easy on lessons for a long while even once the review count gets to zero, because you’ll have a big Guru pile full of leeches piling on you every day, and you don’t want to add too much to that. It was about 6 weeks total for me to be back to full speed ahead. With that considered, it may not be _that_ much faster than a reset of a few levels, to be honest, but at least the speed is in your control.
---
### Author:  [@gamerpuppy](https://community.wanikani.com/u/gamerpuppy)
#### Post date: [January 9, 2020, 7:47am UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/14 "2020-01-09T07:47:21Z")
Well, I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. The remaining reviews are basically lessons but I plan to do finish them tomorrow. Thank you all for the encouragement!
 
---
### Author:  [@gamerpuppy](https://community.wanikani.com/u/gamerpuppy)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2020, 11:15pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/15 "2020-01-11T23:15:28Z")
Zero! Time to start leveling again soon.
---
### Author:  [@ctmf](https://community.wanikani.com/u/ctmf)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2020, 11:20pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/16 "2020-01-11T23:20:38Z")
> [@gamerpuppy](#):
>
> Time to start leveling again soon.
Congrats! Feels good, I bet.
But I still recommend holding off on lessons for two more weeks. That should get you through that 1000-item Apprentice+Guru wave. Unless you’re getting used to several hundred reviews per day, and starting to like it. 😉
---
### Author:  [@gamerpuppy](https://community.wanikani.com/u/gamerpuppy)
#### Post date: [January 11, 2020, 11:23pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/17 "2020-01-11T23:23:14Z")
It’s winter break right now for me, so I have a lot of time. But I’ll probably wait to do lessons until apprentice is under 200 and guru under 500 at least.
---
### Author:  [@system](https://community.wanikani.com/u/system)
#### Post date: [January 10, 2021, 11:36pm UTC](https://community.wanikani.com/t/strategy-for-catching-up-on-reviews/40894/18 "2021-01-10T23:36:42Z")
This topic was automatically closed 365 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.