The second method I use is good for when you need to locate a note on yuour fretboard.

Since there are 7 natural notes, I assign a note for each day of the week, so, for example monday is A.

On a monday, any time I pick up my guitar, or any time I feel I have nothing to do etc... I practice playing all the A's on the fretboard

---------------5-----------------------
-----------10---10--------------------
---------2----------2-----------------
-------7--------------7---------------
----0-------------------0-------------
-5------------------------5-----------

---------------------17-----------------
-----------------22-----22----------------
-------------14------------14-------------
---------19-------------------19----------
-----12---------------------------12------
-17-----------------------------------17--

During that day, you will find that you know all the A notes to heart easily, of course, doing it with a different note each day (B on tuesday etc..) By next week, you will most likely have to lern them all again ( and again and again) Eventually (sooner than you would expect) you will know instinctivly the right notes to play on each day, and you'll be able to locate any note on the fretboard. As long as you keep practicing what I have just told you, it should eventually become habbit each day.

Anyway, belive me these methods realy work and have helped me immensely.

oh yeah, and, you dont need to learn where the flats and sharps are, once you know the natural notes, flats and sharps will be obvious to you.

one last thing, don't expect to be able to learn all the notes quickly and easily, take your time, and don't worry about it, and it will come to you slowly. The most important thing is to have fun or it'll become tedious very quickly and you'll give up.

Wow, that was a lot of typing Hope it helps anyway

Any other questions/problems, just ask