Pace yourself...

When trying to teach yourself Japanese, there's an important question that arises fast: How much should I be trying to learn every day?

Pacing your self-study seems daunting, especially if you're an organized person who likes to have a syllabus or guideline. But I think what's important is to not look at it as a structured thing. Instead, learn what you need to until you've learned it.

I know that sounds weird, but it works a lot better that way. Just learn what you're working on now, and once you've got it down, move on. This will keep you from messing up in the future. There's nothing more frustrating than getting to a point where you realize you don't really know what you're doing and everything is a big, confused mess in your head, and it seems that all you ever do is look up stuff in books and on websites to try to learn what you're supposed to already know.

So do it like this:

1. Learn one thing at a time.
2. Practice the one thing you've learned until you feel like you can do it "without thinking," or naturally.
3. Start learning something new, but incorporate what you already know into it so you don't forget or lose it.
4. Keep practicing using everything you know until it's all natural...
5. Go back to 3.

This is as far as learning things like new structures and grammars and ways of thinking. As far as how many words you should be learning, or how many kanjis you should be writing, I think it's really up to you. Keep studying and reviewing, and make sure you're not learning so many that you keep forgetting. I think it's better to just learn them as it feels comfortable, so that it just feels like you're satisfying your curiosity, and not that you're forcing them in like what you normally think of "study." It's better when it feels like you're just discovering and picking up words and stuff. If you keep yourself at that comfort level, I think you have a good pace.

What's most important is never to overwhelm yourself or cram stuff in. Make sure you're having fun! If a concept is hard for you to get down, take it more slowly. If something comes natural to you, you can move on more quickly

And as for daily use, spend a lot of time PRACTICING. Even if it means just talking to yourself as you go throughout your day (I've found the best practice you can do on your own is to just think in Japanese). You want to practice more than you sit and learn new stuff. Just like learning an instrument, you can look at a new piece and see how it goes, but you can't play it well or be good at it until you've practiced a lot. And if you just play through it once and then move on and never look at it again, you'll never really be able to play it well. Don't expect to go to a concert like that! And using Japanese naturally is your "concert," so you need to get in all the rehearsal you can :)