-Are there any study methods, or schedules, that I should try to avoid?
I suggest staying away from flash cards, or any kind of rote memorization of English translations of Russian words. While Russian words do often have appropriate translations, they don't always convey the appropriate meaning, and the contexts in which you would find the word you're trying to learn. Words are just the building blocks of a language, and if you try to learn the blocks individually rather than as part of the whole, you will inevitably end up making a lot of mistakes in usage of the language.