Thanks for the reply guys, especially craigrut. I found your comments very insightful and thorough, hopefully others will benefit from it. I have to say I echo most of what you say. In the end, writing helps me with retention, and spaced repetition supplements it very well. I also agree about the sentences. I always write sentences with the new characters/words that I learn to help remember them and also know how to use them. I also find myself trying to read all the characters I can when I'm walking or in a taxi, it helps keep them at the forefront of your mind, especially if they're ones you don't use very often, like 轮胎， which I always see on shops that sell car parts.

I'm a perfectionist by nature, and in the beginning I tried to review as many characters that I knew as possible in case I'd forget the ones I don't read or write very often, but found it very time consuming, to the point of being counter productive. I realized I was spending do much time reviewing old material that I wasn't learning as many new words as I would've liked. I've eased up a little since I realized even Chinese people forget how to write basic characters every now and then. I guess my message would be this: don't spend so much time trying to review characters that it stops you from spending as much time learning new ones. Being a perfectionist can often work against you.

What about the rest of you? It would be good to get as many opinions as possible. I'm particularly interested in why you think some methods are more effective than others!