Study schedules

I work full-time. I have no set plan. I usually have 15 minutes slots in between things, when I read what people have said, check out new (or old) lessons, download one that interestest me. When I need another 15 minutes break from whatever I am doing, I make myself a cup of coffee and listen to the podcast. Next break comes around I look at the vocab, review some old vocab, learn the new one. And when I have a bit more time at hand, I work through the expansion sentences. No set plan as such. But it works well for me to do something Cpodish in between things. I usually get to study 3 lessons a week.

My habits are roughly the same as wildyaks. I also work full-time. I typically glance through the conversations during breaks in the day, but I reserve most of my heavy studying for the evening at home. I'll spend 45 minutes or more going through a lesson from listening, to vocab, to expansion, to exercises. Listening and speaking is coming relatively easy, but learning the characters is the most difficult for me. Ironically, the writing system is one of my favorite parts of the language. I've tried to get in the habit of studying every evening, but it doesn't always work out. Right now, I probably average 3 lessons per week also.

I work full time as well so it affects my studies obviously... that is why Chinesepod is sooo cool because I sit in front of a computer all day, so when things are quiet I just open up a chinesepod lesson and have it set up so the window is small and inconspicuous...and I try to go through 1-2 new lessons a day depending on the difficulty and how much time I have etc...then in the morning and evening as Im walking to and from work (15-20 min) I listen to that days lesson. Then to review the lesson I listen soley to the dialogue part once every couple of days. On the weekends I listen to several lessons while cleaning etc...also in the morning before coming to work while cooking breakfast and lunch for the day I listen to a lesson or two...and before I go to sleep I try to get in a lesson if it isnt too late....so I get in a minimum of two lessons per day....but often 3-4... on top of that Im always memorizing passages...so I try to learn one new sentence a day...so over the course of a month Im normally learning a new dialogue, and I try to get the pronunciation to a decent level...so in this manner I am slowly improving my Chinese...now unfortunately this isnt helping my ability with things like reading newspapers etc...obviously reading the dialogues on cpod.com helps but I wish I had more time to devote to reading longer passages and newspaper articles...but with work it is kind of tough...but for busy people such as myself, Cpod really is an amazing resource

I also work full-time. So I get up 2 hours earlier than normal every morning and prepare for my Practice Plan lesson (after a 15-30 minutes quicky before going to bed)

I've done many of the lessons through intermediate. One thing that I like to do a lot is to occasionally do random lessons. www.chinesepod.com/random-lesson. That way, I can review without planning time and can take advantage of the dialog only mp3, saving at least 10 minutes.

I'm with goulniky. Get up early--make time to study. Also, whenever I am working (usually on the computer) I'll have CPod open. A couple times an hour I'll flip over and review a set of flashcards (usually takes about 2 - 3 minutes), then go back to work.