I went to Japan for three weeks.
I thought, no need for holiday mode, I’ll find time for my reviews.
I didn’t even once find time for my reviews.
Came back to a lot of reviews.
Thought, I’ll deal with it tomorrow, that’s a lot of reviews.
This went on for 2 and a half months.
Now I’m a lifetimer, with 1800 outstanding reviews.
Any tips for getting back on top of this other than ‘do your reviews fool’?
Before this happened I was finishing each day with 0 outstanding reviews and would like to get back to that point if possible.
My tip after coming back from a similar backlog: don’t do them all at once. Instead do about a hundred every day. It will take weeks to get back to zero reviews and a rather low apprentice pile (~100) but it will be worth it. Don’t do any new lessons before you have reached the point where you can reach zeros reviews every day like you used to.
Also, I tried not to think too long about items I didn’t remember instantly. There are just words which are harder to remember than others and that’s totally fine. You might be struggling at first and get more items wrong than usual, but SRS will kick in again and help you remember them in the long run.
While writing this I am also recovering from a ~800 review pile while I was in Japan for two weeks. Now I reduced it to about 500 but I am doing new kanji as soon as I can learn them. That’s a different approach if you cannot wait to learn new kanji and if you are fine holding off on your vocab study. My review piles have been way too high in the past so I try this new approach for me as the amount of new kanji you learn per level is rather low compared to vocabulary. And it gives me a feeling of learning something new and not just reviewing items for weeks I already should know.
I think one of the best ways to do it is looking for the next day section in the frontpage of wanikani. As long as you’re doing more itens than the next day pile, eventually, you’ll zero out your reviews.
There’s not much to it except grinding it out. I personally can’t forget that there’s a pile to be finished whenever I skip reviews for two or three days. It works for me. Give yourself some prizes for reaching milestones, like “If I get to finish 1 thousand reviews in 4 days, I’ll go out and have a drink with my friends.”
I don’t man, make the grind worth it. Think that, it’s your Japanese Education. It’s not like a teacher or a boss will punish you if you don’t make progress at this task. You’re the only one that is concerned in this matter and how you deal with it is a matter of personal responsability.
I wish you best of luck in your zeroing efforts!
P.S.: There’s a thread called like “the 0-review challenge” or something. Go there. you can find more tips or motivation from the comunity and, eventually, get that sweet sweet donut shaped number on your review count. <3
Thanks for the reminder. I plan to go to Japan for three weeks in April. So I shouldn’t forget to stop doing lessons two weeks before and then start vacation mode.
You see. I already did all kanji. But for vocabs I’m at 21 currently.
Concerning your outstanding 1800 reviews I can’t say anything new I guess. Stop doing lessons and do e.g. 100 reviews a day and perhaps after a month they are gone. Just a little bit of patience needed.
Similar position, got back after a few months away, had 3100+ reviews. Set a goal to be at 0 reviews by January 1st, did the math, been getting it down another 170 every day.
It’s really not that bad, already down to ~1500. Just have to keep chipping away at it. Apprentice count will be brutally high by the end of it, but so be it.
I had the same issue after my trip this September. Two things that helped was putting vacation mode on every couple of days and studying outside WK on the days off. I imported all my apprentice and critical items into Quizlet. It took about a month to go from 600+ reviews, 54 lessons, very low accuracy and general Japanese burnout to 0/0, and enthusiastically studying again.
Beware doing reviews in large chunks… they are coming back to me now in large chunks along with burn items. Be kind to your future self.
Good luck and happy holidays.
I would seriously consider reseting a few levels. I was also just in Japan for 3 weeks, but even though I did stop doing new lessons a week before leaving, and remembered to turn on Vacation Mode, it was just so painful coming back and getting everything wrong. I’m mostly back to normal now, but wish I had just reset a level or two.
