I do WK reviews all throughout the day almost as soon as they are available. I’m on level 3 now and I notice that it will give me small reviews throughout the day (5, 2, 8, 3, 11, etc at a time) but then suddenly after 7pm it bombards me with reviews in the 20+ range – often up to 50!
Why does it do this? Is there some benefit to piling on reviews right before I go to sleep?
It’s all due to the schedule, I assume.
| Review | SRS Level | Waiting Time For Next Level |
|---|---|---|
| Lesson | Apprentice 1 | 4h |
| 1 | Apprentice 2 | 8h |
| 2 | Apprentice 3 | ~1d |
| 3 | Apprentice 4 | ~2d |
| 4 | Guru 1 | ~1w |
| 5 | Guru 2 | ~2w |
| 6 | Master | ~1M |
| 7 | Enlightened | ~4M |
| 8 | Burned | - |
I’m imagining that you do your lessons during the morning, then Apprentice 1 around noon, then Apprentice 2 at the end of the day. After that, the review will cycle through periods of 24h, maintaning that same time of the day. If you do this everyday, every item will end up doing this.
To know more about this, I recommend you Chapter 4 of my guide to Wanikani:
And while you’re at it, maybe read it all? 
Apprentice items review at 4 hours, then 8 hours, then 1 day (I think). That means that any new material will come up at randomly weird hours.
Most people here do their reviews twice each day, I believe.
But, you are in luck, @jprspereira has provided a list!
Just to clarify, the time of day at which reviews appear has nothing to do with SRS. Rather, it depends on your schedule - meaning that you can actually tweak it, so that it suits your plans for the day.
You can predict what time your reviews will appear by looking at the chart posted above. Say, if you want the last review of the day to appear by 8 pm, you should do your lessons by 8.59 am - you’ll then get your first review of the new material at 12 pm and the second at 8 pm. The third review will appear at 8 pm the following day, and so on. If you prefer to do your lessons in the evening, try to do them at least 4h before you go to sleep, so that you can catch the first review of the material before going to bed.
Also keep in mind that if you make a mistake, the review for that item will be pushed back one SRS interval. This is why in the lower levels you sometimes get review sessions with just 1-2 items.
If you like, you can use this script to track upcoming reviews. This way, you can prepare for any “review dumps” that might be lurking around the corner
I can’t cite anything other than personal experience (though I think there might be some science to back this), so I might be imagining this, but I have found that learning things or reviewing things right before I sleep locks them in particularly well. But as others have said, SRS is king. Even without night study, SRS will lock things in if you obey its whims. Good luck!
It doesn’t - you’re doing it. 
The SRS tends to adapt to when you typically do reviews, because most of the intervals are right around multiples of 24h. (The lowest ones are the exceptions) If you don’t like doing reviews after 7pm… stop doing reviews after 7pm.
Thanks for the help!
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