Alright, so Japanese progress is still going really well, and since it’s summer break I’ve been able to speed up my endeavors quite a bit. But I wanna make sure I won’t get burned out even though I have so much time on my hands, so I wanna know (generally) what’s a good amount of items to have in Apprentice? I just wanna make sure that the reviews don’t get so heavy that it causes demotivation and burnout. For context, I have around 120 items in there currently.
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That’s probably fine? I just checked mine and I’m at 132 which is kind of where I’m usually at, and it’s a manageable pace especially if you do all your reviews in two sittings or more a day. In the past I think I’ve hit points where I’ve had more than 200 things in there, and then it starts to feel overwhelming (step away from the computer for an hour and suddenly dozens of reviews greet you). Your mileage may vary, of course.
I don’t think there’s a magic number. It all comes down to what’s manageable for you. If you feel you can handle more lessons & reviews: do more lessons. If you don’t want to get overloaded: stick to a set amount of lessons per day.
edit for some more context: For what it’s worth: I’ve been doing pretty much all the lessons as soon as possible. And that seems to result in ~120 apprentice items on average. So I don’t think that’s going to hold you back if you are worried about that.
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I’ve seen a lot of people recommend having it under 100.
I usually have mine anywhere up to 150. But I also am not a person that gets bothered by seeing a review list size of 200+, nor do I take an hour to do my reviews as I’m a fairly fast and accurate typer even on mobile.
It probably varies based on how many words are really new to a person. People with a lot of additional knowledge from other sources (ex: textbooks, books, games) will have a lot of easy words among the ones they don’t know, so even if they go at a high speed and start a lot of unlocks words, the ones they already know will be fast.
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What did you use to generate this graph?
Excel
Every two days I screenshot the WK dashboard and WKstats numbers. I simply log that in Excel and slap a simple graph on it.
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There were websites that used to be able to generate this for you. But then, the review API was removed. Never forget what they took from you.
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One person’s 120 may be someone else’s 75 and a third person’s 250. There’s no really hard and fast rule to come up with because we all have our own individual learning quirks. I would just lean more on maybe reducing lessons if you’re having particular struggles with recent items to the point where you are concerned you might be reaching the point where you’d hit that demotivation/burnout phase, so you can put more focused effort on getting those ones under control first.
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Around 100 is ok to reach Lvl60 in approximately 2 years 
I agree with everyone who says that it varies person to person! At the beginning, when I was flying through levels (the first 7 levels were mostly review for me), it didn’t matter how many were there. Then I started realizing I was doing too much (it stopped being enjoyable), so I dropped down to 15 levels a day which keeps me around 75- 100 apprentice (depending on my accuracy). That is what I personally find comfortable. Although a few times when it’s gotten higher, I will do less lessons if I feel overwhelmed. And if know I have a busy few days coming up, I will do fewer lessons (or even zero), so I don’t get too behind on reviews.
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This is perfectly ok for LESSONS 
But beware: If you do zero REVIEWS today, tomorrow, you review count will be the double (for one day at least).
The best strategy IMHO is to find a comfortable number of lessons and reviews to do every single day whatever happens… You’ll thank me in upper levels 
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I only did WK for 7 levels (as you can see), but while I don’t doubt that finding a consistent number of lessons per day you can keep up with long term is the most efficient way to go about it, I’m skeptical that just doing lessons when you have less than a certain number of apprentice items and were able to zero your reviews at least once in the last 24h, but skipping lessons when you have more than that number and/or you were unable to zero your reviews yesterday (or that day, if you do new lessons in the evenings) is that bad
I’ve restarted like 3 times now, as a glutton for punishment.
I’ve found the rate at which you add items to be a far better approach than worrying (too much) about words in any one level.
I try to add 15-25 lessons a day depending on how I’m feeling that day mentally (some days you’re sharp, some days you get a bunch of ones that feel really easy, and some days are the opposite of those things…some days maybe I don’t add anything).
I have tried both ways and find this way greatly improves my progress rate and comfort level. There are days where I get 10 words that are filled with tricky pure memorization or that blend in with other words I know I’ll see mixed in with my reviews and will catch me up…and I just call it there, because I knew I already added enough zingers to contend with for a bit.
But, since that isn’t what you asked at all and I hate when people just can’t answer the question asked…
I think 100-140 is the indeed the “sweet spot”. When I did it like that I did a combo of apprentice/guru counts and average review percent score. If I was 95%+, I’d feel good letting the tach climb. If I was 85-95? I’m probably slowing down. Below 85 would be a full halt for a minute.