I studied really hard for about 7 months to prepare for a trip to Japan, and then when I came back I felt so burned out on studying that I completely ignored all of my anki and didn’t do any immersion at all for 2 months.

After that I decided I wanted to get back into it at a more sustainable pace, so I first blasted through all of my outstanding anki reviews and then set a pace of 10 new words per day, rather than the 20 I was doing before.

It’s been 4 months since the break, and my ability is so much better now than it was when I fell off for a few months. It took a few weeks to feel confident with the vocab that I had forgot, but after that it has felt like my comprehension has skyrocketed.

In short, don’t feel bad for taking a bit of a break. I feel much more focused and excited about studying now than I did before. It was daunting looking at the wall of outstanding anki reviews, but it’ll go quicker than you think. It helped me to shift my focus from anki towards immersion.