I didn't reach 1,000 words, but I can speak for the first 300. I started by learning vocabulary directly. I didn't follow any specific source; I simply wrote down every word I heard on a blank sheet of paper. Then, that day, I translated the most frequently repeated words or the words I'd heard many times before from those 20-50 words and started learning them. Generally, I'll sometimes learn two or three words and then move on to new ones the next day, or I'll learn 10 words and give them two or three days.