When and how to go about dropping the SRS?
We don't recommend stopping using the SRS completely, even after you make it.
If you stop using the SRS, you'll notice that you have forgotten many things here and there that you used to know. Maybe you would still like to remember them because you could use them yourself in your output.
If a word is rare enough, you'd be unable to maintain it in your memory only through immersion. This is assuming you don't hone your immersion to the language domain where the word appears more frequently.
A few minutes of SRSing each day is a hundred times better than no SRSing at all.
If you feel overwhelmed,
try to reduce the time spent SRSing by
deleting or suspending cards
with very large intervals
and deleting or suspending easy cards
containing basic vocabulary
that you may have made when you just started learning your target language.
In Japanese that would be words like 私
, 走る
, 月曜日
, etc.
As you progress, you slowly approach a point where your vocabulary is large enough that it becomes challenging to find unknown words. Reaching this point helps you naturally reduce the number of new cards you add per day. You can also reduce the number of new cards you learn each day to a certain number in Anki's settings.