Vocab learning!

So, I honestly have to say that I'm already pretty fed up with vocab learning. It's not really the having to learn itself, it's only that besides all the other things we have to do - and there are billions of tons of homework and projects as you all know -  it just seems to be of so little importance at some times. Of course I know that it is very important and so I'm trying my best not to lose track of it and to improve my vocab as much as possible.

I do have several approaches to vocabulary learning, some of them might be better than others and some of them might be worse - I don't claim to have the perfect system or anything like that.
I will explain my strategy by the example of the Porter words.

When I am working my way through one of the exercices I start by reading through all the words we have to use, if I don't know one of them I look it up in an online dictionary, usually pons.eu. I then write its meaning directly above the word itself. The next thing I do is that I proceed with finishing the exercice, usually by using the process of elimination. This actually works pretty well and I do finish most of the units with little or no mistakes at all.

 ^^ This is what my pages look like in the end: The blue words are my translations, then I circle/write down the right answer with a pencil and then correct myself with some colored pen.
Sorry for the poor quality, by the way, but apparently this is all my phone is capable of.

My next step is writing down the words/expression I don't know or which I seem to forget all the time down in a vocabulary notebook. If two words are very similar or easily mixed up I write them down one below the other with a little blizzard next to them as a sign that I have to be careful with those. If a word is high/low register and I didn't know it before or it's not obvious I write that down next to it. Also, if there are some easy or good synonyms/explanation I try to write those down as well.

I then try to go through these words every now and then to commit them to my memory - it is a sieve sometimes, I swear!

When a PC comes up I usually make my own vocab lists once again because I think words are easier to remember if you have to write them down yourself.
These vocab lists are often a little confusing for other people as I usually go through the words and then create my own (weird) links. That works pretty good for myself, however, and so  I don't really care. ;)
I print them out then I go through them over and over again. It's the actual word, a synonym/antonym or whatever comes in handy and the translation.

^^This is what my lists look like

When creating the last list for PC1 I even went through the whole book, okay Unit 1-6, again and read every single sentence to check if I know the word and also in what context it can be used.

I do also use vocabulary.com but actually I don't like it that much. I prefer not looking at a screen 24/7 and so I try to summarise as much as possible and print it out. This is far less distracting for me. Also, I'm very prone to headaches if I use a computer too much and we already have to work so much on it all the time, so I try to avoid it as much as possible.

Generally I'm content with my tactic and so far my results (at least in the PCs) were always good, so I guess my system is okay. I don't know anything about the last PC, so I guess we'll find out soon whether it really works or whether I have to adapt my system.

In addition to these real study techniques I also do some other things and use some other sources, but I am not sure if they really count. Anyway, I will just mention them here:

1. I try to read English books as much as possible. Currently I'm reading the second part of the Game of Thrones series and I just love it. Even though I just don't really have time to read or if I do have time I am too exhausted so that I can't really concentrate, I'm trying to do it as much as possible. What comes in really handy is a cool feature of my kindle: a built-in dictionary. If I don't know a word I can simply click on it and it shows me an explanation/definition
2. In addition to that I'm watching some movies and series in English. Right now it's Perception: an absolutely amazing series about an uni professor who's a paranoid schizophrenic in addition to being a genius and helps the FBI to solve cases. Even though I love it and think it's simply amazing it's nothing I can watch without paying attention because the language is really difficult and unusual (at least if you're not a native speaker). Plus, they often speak really, like REALLY, fast, which makes it even worse. Nevertheless, I just love it and hope it helps me with my English skills.
3. I liked several English pages on Facebook. I know, I know, not the best source. Anyway, these three, for example, are really cool: Word Porn, Truth Beckon and I fucking love science. While Word Porn is all about nice quotations and beautiful words, Truth Beckon posts links to articles and inspirational quotes and I fucking love science informs you about new scientific achievements.
4. When we have to write a piece of homework for one of our English classes I always try to weave in new vocabulary, usually looked up in pons.eu or thesaurus.com. Some words reoccur often and I tend to just remember them after a few times. Of course this system contains a certain risk of misusing a word, but if possible I try to look it up in coca or a similar site before using it. If I don't have time for that, however, or don't really find anything I still just use it, because how else would I find out how to use it?

Okay, I think that's about it.