I think everyone has a different style of learning ,there is no single, uniform method that works for all people. I struggled for a long time with boxes of flashcards, just trying to remember the 'picture' that I saw by little more than sheer repetitive exposure. As I know, you can memorize Chinese characters by separating them into several parts because some characters have the same radicals. If you use Xin Hua Zi Dian (Xinhua dictionary), you will find that all Chinese words are arranged in two ways: pronunciation and radical.

divide them to parts 解 = 角 + 刀 + 牛 特 = 牛 + 土 + 寸 etc

Try to understand every part in the structure of a character. Practice makes perfect. But, don't worry. Even we Chinese often make mistakes. So try to write characters a lot and see how many of them you recognize. You don't have to know every characters. Studying the frequently used ones can save your time and make your learning more effective and productive.

James Heisig: Remembering the Hanzi. You can buy it. If you're clever you can get it free from a torrent site.

When we learn English, teachers tell us to "listen, speak, read and write"-- I think it's the same to learn Chinese, what do u think? It's better to have a Chinese friend, to help u a little ;0