So I’m relatively new around here, and trying to build a routine of doing a review session 2-3 times a day. What I’ve noticed recently is that I’ll usually open Wanikani, do my reviews, then lurk browse the forums for a bit because the most recent community topics are right there on the dashboard.
The funny thing is, reading through the forum posts tends to get my motivation up to keep working at Wanikani, so after a while I go back and do as many lessons I can before I run out of steam. This consistent pattern has got me wondering, what is everyone else’s normal routine for a session? Reviews before lessons? Do you normally visit the forums only when you’re already using Wanikani?
I have 3 sessions per day, at (sort of) fixed times. One at 8:00, one at 12:00, and one at 20:00. I only do lessons in the morning (usually about 20). This way, I can hit the Apprentice reviews for the newly learned items as soon as they come up. I always keep a tab with the forums open at all times, and I just browse it throughout the day if I’m feeling bored.
I usually do my reviews once per day, and after that I go through 15 lessons. If I’m very active I might review multiple times each day, but I try not to study new words, since I don’t want to overload my head too much. I’ve slowly added to the lesson count (I started at ten), I am considering doing twenty at some point, but I’ll have to see if it is too much to digest.
For now I do 3 or 4 sessions a day (around 7am, 12pm, 8pm, and occasionally around midnight). Not sure if I’ll keep up that rhythm, but for now it works OK.
I try to do radical and kanji lessons in the 7am or 8pm session, so that I can see them again not too long afterwards (I forget them otherwise). I do vocab lessons in any session, but I do try to avoid doing them outside my usual times.
I can’t stand to have a non-zero number of reviews, so I always clear them out before starting new lessons – unless they’ve popped up while I’m in the middle of a lesson session. I’ve recently started limiting my lessons to around 25 per day, to try and calm the review storm that’s come back to bite me (I really shouldn’t have gobbled up all those early lessons in such huge batches…)
I like these forums too, so after my lessons/reviews I’ll usually come and browse around a bit. I’ve recently joined book clubs too, so I leave it open if I’m reading a book club book.
I take whatever I have time for… which (if <100) do 6-7am & all else after coming home from walk & breakfast 9-10am… then work gets in the way as I’m at the office and have to prioritize. 6pm to bedtime is free & clear for all else left, which in total make ~100-150 reviews a day… but it fluctuates a lot (dread those ‘14hrs until next review’ lulls).
Learnt early on to always prioritize reviews over lessons – makes sense, as you have to reinforce what you learn before stuffing in more new material, esp with 4 Apprentice levels + 1 Guru before you level-up.
I always clear reviews before doing any new lessons. I do reviews at least 3 times a day if I’m busy, but I usually compulsively check the phone for pending reviews
I always do lessons between 7 and 10am. At first I would do all available lessons as soon as they showed up, but around level 8 master to enlightened items started showing up, and the guru pile got bigger… so reviews started to get out of hand; so be very careful with that, waking up to 100 reviews to do every morning or so can get a little frustrating and decrease accuracy. And that’s coming from just a level 10…
It gets worse, it gets better. I have about 100-150 reviews each morning, and feel quite happy and content with that. Though I had about 500 reviews/day at worst, cannot recommend that xD (Be careful with those lessons!)
My routine is at least morning, afternoon and before bed, but I try to do reviews as they show up. Doing a few each hour costs me less than a big pile at once
You’re braver than me! I tend to do my morning reviews on my phone as soon as I wake up (I never want to leave the warmth of my bed so this way at least I’m waking my brain up and doing something useful) but 60 reviews is about as much as I can do in one of those sessions.
I do reviews whenever I can as long as they are not the kind of reviews that are keeping me from leveling up. I usually know when those are going to be coming by because I schedule everything out beforehand (at least the general idea). I’ll always know things like “I have those radicals at 9pm tomorrow”. After that, any and all reviews are done whenever life allows but I usually am active more than once during the day and I usually find the forums to be a source of motivation as well!
As for lessons, I like to do them in big batches. I get strangely confused when I do a few at a time, I start mixing everything up. I usually go ahead and get all 69 lessons out of the way knowing full well that probably 1-10 are gonna be answered wrong after the first interval. Usually everything that’s easily jukugoable I’ll get right and weird stuff will bunch together in “weird stuff” batches haha, so it’s easier to remember for me.
I try my best to create intervals to optimize my study routine. I’ll do reviews when I wake up around 11, and I always do the first wave of reviews on a computer. I get between 80-120 each morning, so using a phone would take me 3-4 times as much time to get done. Based on time, I try to do reviews between classes (I’ll do a max of 20 new WK lessons if I’m in school). I try to time it so the reviews show up in time for my break at my part-time job, with the intent of getting new lessons done in time to still catch the 8hr interval just before going to bed. I may also do lessons after I get home from work so I can do the 4hr interval before bed and then wake up to the 8hr interval of the same items. I’ll always clear reviews before doing any lessons
It was not a conscious choice for me The review sessions just grew bigger than I wanted, and I didn’t want to abandon my leveling up goals. After a while I found morning reviews to be easier for me than late evening, so I tried to keep about half of them to the morning session.
In my first levels, 60 reviews were a lot (for a whole day). And after a year, 200 reviews a day were almost too much to handle. But you get used to a certain number after a while, you get faster at reviewing, and can remember more at the same time. That’s the only reason why I can do my 100+ morning reviews now
I’ve been obsessively checking wanikani and watching the timer go down for each new review and get it done as soon as it’s available lol… I have way too much time on my hands at the moment.
Gonna keep in mind some of the replies on this thread for the future when I do have to establish a routine.
I always clear my reviews before lessons. My usual routine is to review in the morning while eating breakfast and in the evening, sometime before bed but usually I check WK when I have time during the day and do any pending reviews. I tend to do all my lessons at once and so far it has been working out ok, but thinking of only doing the radicals and kanji lessons right when I level up and wait with the vocabulary.
I do at least 1 full review session a day, usually in bed right before going to sleep. That’s also when I do my lessons (10 daily; an extra 10 on the days I level up).
I usually do my reviews when waking up, though the other day I decided not to do all of them, because I’d like to slowly shift the non-critical items to the latter afternoon or evening.
You should always prioritise reviews over new lessons (there’s some leeway, but it isn’t big), and I’d also recommend picking a regular lesson number to do daily, so the workload would be similar every day.
