Have you considered that different things are difficult for different people? Learning hiragana and katakana has taken me about a month, and I found it very difficult. There is no need to make it prerequisite for starting to learn grammar, forming sentences, or pronunciation.
Notice how I didn't say that I "learned" both in a day, I "remembered" them. Of course actual learning will take some time, especially with less used characters.
But remembering shapes and differentiating between them using mnemonics should not be too hard for most people.
