I’m about to begin my third attempt at learning the 2042 standard-use kanji using James Heisig’s method.
My first attempt started on 17th January 2007, just after I’d returned from a 3 month internship in Japan, and the day after I started my PhD. On this account I did 10,153 reviews which got me to kanji 1026.
My second attempt started on 21st June 2009. 1046 reviews later I was on kanji #249.
From memory, the second attempt went better because I re-read the introduction to the book and realised that the reason I had burned out under the sheer weight of pending reviews was because I was relying on word games instead of visual imagination, something Heisig warns against.
While I felt like I was making more progress, something clearly got in the way. PhD work has a way of absorbing all your free time, but this wasn’t the reason why I quit that time. Rather, it seems that while I noticed the advice against using word games, I failed to heed the advice that the images for each character needed to be vivid. Like this guy [1] I had just come up with an image quickly so that I could move on to the next.
Heisig states in his book that at 2 hours a day, 20-25 new kanji each day should be possible. That equates to at most 6 minutes per character. I would wager I spent no longer than 2 minutes on each, with most of the time spent reading the frame in the book and writing the character several times.
The plan this time therefore is to spend much longer on each character, until the image is strong, settled and rich. I will also try to incorporate other senses such as smell and touch; if this were an exercise in meditation then that is what we would do, so I will try applying it here to see if the extra sensory information can help make each image stronger and so help with remembering the kanji.
I need to reignite my heisig as well! Do you suggest starting from the beginning or from where you left of?
I'd strongly suggest starting from the beginning. Heisig has structured his system so that the early stages form a foundation for parts II and III where you're more on your own. I think that going too quickly on the early kanji meant that when I got to 1000+ I didn't have a firm foundation and was just relying on the SRS and quick word mnemonics to memorise the new kanji.This time I'm taking it slow and paying attention to each character, its primitive meanings and my image for it to try and progress slowly but steadily so that this time I make it to 2042 with the confidence that I really know each character. Post back with your progress when you get going too!