Learning kanji....

Hi, I've been avoiding kanji for a long time, I know it's important, and I know I should start studying it, but I'm not sure how to begin.

Any advice would be appreciated, thanks!

I am putting my comment here in the correction because it is visually more pleasing to read with all its formatting features retained.

I would advise you to learn how to write and the meaning of the radicals first.  Once you know these "root words", you will have no trouble in understanding most of the kanji written in such a way.  For example, in "Mai nichi", the "mai" is composed of the radical for man and the pictorial representation of a pregnant woman with swelling breasts (represented by the two dots).  It is a fact that in order for man to exist, he must have a mother!  In adding the three dots of water to its left side, it means ocean.  Why? Because every ocean must have water.  As for desert, the kanji contains the water radical on the left and on the right side, the character means "no".