I thought it would be reasonable to tackle maybe about 10 lessons a day. First few vocab points were easy and I thought I had seen them before. Then I encounter one that I’ve never seen (like がる) and it prompts me to look at a bunch of external resources until I can fully understand it and its implications. This happens quite a bit. 3 hours later, I’m finally done with my lessons.
It would be insane for me to keep this kind of pace going forward. Any advice on how to progress?
Since you already have figured out that this is too much, have you considered just e.g. halfing it and then seeing if you feel better about it? Or… set a time that you feel is good for you, and then stop learning new grammar points once you reach that? I think the only one who can figure out how much time you “should” be spending on lessons is you.
I´ve had the exact same problem as you. Did lessons left and right until i encountered the “garu” grammar. Unfortunately i can only give you a boring “it depends”. Some concepts are just harder to grasp than others, you will still come across lots of easy grammar to add to you arsenal without looking up much. Then there´s the opposite as well of course!
So if you haven´t done it already, i´d advise you to hand-pick your lessons and don´t follow any set path in order to add loads of grammar points (if that is your goal).
There’s no set time you “should” be spending, everyone learns at a different pace and we all have different rates of retention. Do what you find manageable and enjoyable.
My amount of lessons have always changed. Depends on time and attention. I’ve found that attention/focus/concentration is in much higher need for learning new grammar points than I would need for kanji or vocab. For the last couple of days I add max 4 points a day and only one of them can be a completely new to me grammar, and I follow the BP laid out path for grammar points and don’t jump ahead (that meant I only did 3 the other day). But I know that when the reviews get higher I will stop doing lessons, and if I have less time I will drop to fewer and further between lessons. (I also find grammar reviews more draining that kanji/vocab ones.)
At other times I’ve done 1-3 points a day, other times around 4-5 a week. I don’t do grammar that steadily partly because learning grammar doesn’t come as linearly some other parts of learning a language. (I don’t tend to have to grasp new concepts when I learn kanji or vocab, but grammar can ask me to think of things in a very different way from what I am used to.)
N5 went by pretty quickly since I knew the material well enough. After I crossed into N4, I think if I tried to do 10 lessons everyday my head would explode.
To me, it is more important to very carefully watch the number of review items in the next day and never do even one lesson until the review queue is sitting at zero with a light load the next hour. There have been days where I do zero lessons.
I’m studying N2, and there’s still some points that are easier to grasp than others, and that’s normal.
Like others have said, find a pace that works for you, and with the time you have available. These days, I’m trying to get 10 new points a week.
Good luck! がんばって！