Building a good study plan

[othesius]

I recently asked for advice on building an exercise plan and I was called out for over-thinking and over-complicating the whole thing. Well, I know that’s true and I know I’m doing it with my Japanese studies as well, and it makes it difficult for me to execute (follow through on a consistent, preferably daily basis) and severely hinders my progress.

I recently graduated college and passed the N3 shortly after that. However, since then (December 2025) I have had an awful time prioritizing. I think I got used to having a teacher tell me exactly what to do and when to do it, and although I don’t necessarily think that was always leading to optimal learning (I know I know, I’m not necessarily looking for optimization, just progress) it definitely wasn’t worse than what I’m doing now, which is floundering.

I saw another post on here today about neurodivergent people and learning, and I definitely have at least ADHD and anxiety (wasn’t diagnosed until I turned 30, six years ago) so all of that plays into all of this, so please be kind if you are going to comment.

To get to it, I’m wondering what other people’s study plans might look like because currently this is the process I go through. I am using wanikani and bunpro. I use bunpro exclusively for grammar because I prefer wanikani’s for vocabulary. I am sitting at around ~150 vocabulary/kanji reviews per day if I stay consistent, which is harder and harder to do, and that alone can take me upwards of an hour, especially when there are new words/kanji in there. Occasionally my reviews exceed 200, and if I miss a day, it spirals and I might come back to see 300+ reviews. All of that gets overwhelming. If I finish them, I don’t feel like jumping over to bunpro, but if I don’t finish them, I feel guilty and obsess over the fact that there will be an excessive amount of reviews the next day. And so I get stuck in this rut of studying solely vocabulary, rarely grammar, and never immersing myself in the language. I mean, I used to play games in Japanese at least, but for some reason, I haven’t been doing that lately… Anyway, I’m really just wondering what kind of study schedule has worked for other people, even if their progress has been slow. I have books/manga I would like to read but I get hung up when I don’t know things or when I feel like I don’t understand so I spiral and look up everything in a sentence trying to make sense of it until I’ve spent my entire study time trying to figure out one little nuance, only to realize I’ve forgotten something basic…

TLDR; Especially for those who have struggled with learning Japanese (or anything in general) what does your daily/weekly study routine look like? I often get hung up on doing only vocabulary reviews because they seem to pile up, and I seem to be very slow at them (?) with roughly ~150 reviews per day taking anywhere between 40-60 mins. I don’t want to obsess over perfection and completion, but I get frustrated when my review percentage is poor (anything below 80%, which it has been frequently lately) and it makes it difficult to put time into studying grammar and immersing. What’s a reasonable amount of time to spend on each thing, does it all have to be done daily, and if not, how do you structure it and stick with it?

[Hairymini]

I think 1 hour a day focussed study is enough to keep progressing at a steady pace. I do roughly 1-2 hours a day. I do around 150-200 reviews a day. I don’t think I can do focussed studying for 2 hours a day over a long period.

I mostly use the Reading mode on Bunpro and feel my reading speed and comprehension has measurably increased in speed compared to a year ago. If I can I’ll listen to the Asahi Shumbun podcast for an hour, but that’s probably more for N2-N1 in terms of difficulty. And try to do some reading or anime, but that’s more for fun.

Reading until you’re at N2+ is quite a slog unless it’s curated content. So don’t worry if that’s slow or frustrating.

So I think you’re doing fine. Vocab + Kanji + Grammar will build strong foundations for comprehension. Just keep at the daily grind, take a break from adding stuff if it’s overwhelming, and you’ll get there.

[homa]

For me anything more than 20 minutes of repeated srs every day is not bearable, it gets harder and harder every day, while I think learning should always be fresh, interesting, and engaging.

N3 should be enough to start reading manga and some novels with lookups.

I would drop wk and Bunpro to at most 15 minutes each, and would add weekly activities that do not include srs into them.

For example you can choose a manga and make it your objective to read it. You can read a book and add words to anki, after you’ve finished the book you could review words and write some useful out of them on paper and try to learn them well (that anki deck is just for a week). You could try then also writing down new kanji from words you’ve seen in the book.

So my recommendation is finding a lot of activities you like in a language and doing each week or two before it becomes a chore, and then moving to the next one. After month or two you can again return the first one and it will again feel fresh.

[rylai]

I’m not nearly as far in as you, but I hit wanikani, anki, bunpro and at least one duolingo lesson a day. This usually comprises 200-300 reviews and as much as 20-30 new concepts. (although if I’m not feeling it for the day or I’m quite busy I will just keep it to reviews or limit new items drastically.) If I have more time and/or I’m feeling hungry for extra Japanese study, I will add an hour or two of active immersion. I try and stay consistent with that and I feel like it’s kept my progress very steady. I also suffer from ADHD and I’m currently choosing not to medicate it. So I feel your pain.