I'm sorry this is something that has likely been asked previously and I might be able to find this out with some searching but I thought asking it here would be appropriate since the forums are full of learners.

How should I learn Kanji, this is confusing me. I'm around 250 or lesson 12 now... but do I need to learn the readings of my characters or do I complete RTK first, then move onto readings. Or do I just pick the readings up through reading in context and furigana? It seems the readings should be studied after RTK but I'm unsure of whether I should learn at least 1 or 2 readings per new character.

Thanks in advance for any answers, they will help me out greatly.

I don't think its a problem if you start learning readings.... just don't try too much at once and burn out.

if you're one of those OCD people who are trying to finish it as fast as possible then learning readings may slow you down.

However if you do go this route then imo its better to learn them as part of words and sentences than trying to "master" each kanji and learn 10 different readings out of context.

Quite a few of the jouyou kanji are obscure or part of names so you may not get any use out of them for awhile anyways. Therefore trying to get through 2000 without any payoff may be disheartening. (especially if you're completing RTK over a year rather than a few months)

Thanks for the reply, I'll be careful of burning out, I originally learned kanji by JLPT level, learned the N5 kanji in a day then lost motivation for around 5 days so I spend good time reviewing afterwards.

I think I found an ideal website for learning kanji readings through sentences so when I'm done I'll definitely use this method.

Definitely study the readings through words. I think it'd be too difficult to remember if you're just looking at a list of all the different readings without putting them into the context of words.
KO2001 is really good, and a lot of people here have used Core2k and Core6k. A lot of extended reading with easy materials that have furigana is also really helpful.

Thanks, I'll do this, studying through context. It'll stay in my memory this way, I've heard good things about kanji odyssey so I'll try that and core decks on anki

If anyone knows anything, does a list of all 2,000 odd Joyo kanji exist? I want to paste it all onto a page or two in word using it as a make-shift poster for following my progress by crossing off known kanji.

EDIT: found 1945 here: http://www.ispeakjapanese.net/alphabets/joyo-kanji/

I'll add the rest from another resource.

EDIT #2: this website is an absolute gem: http://kanjicards.org/generate-list.html
just set every option as important and a list of all 2136 are generated into a pasteable list