If you get a decent understanding of German grammar you will be able to automatically notice the gender when you encounter it. This will help a lot and you won't have to do anything time consuming like adding genders to 25,000 saved unknown nouns.

I'm also learning German and I definitely agree with 1ndeed. As a native Italian speaker (we have genders, too) I think that at the beginning it's not crucial to get the gender right. If you say a basic sentence with a gender mistake, I would still be able to perfectly understand you, and this is the same experience I've had with German. It becomes more important as you become proficient, because it kind of feels weird to say a complex sentence with perfect grammar and pronunciation but with the wrong genders. For now, though, I would also suggest focusing on getting as much input as possible without bothering about genders. In the future, there are rules that you can follow (the link posted by 1indeed is great) and you can just memorise the most relevant ones (e.g. there are many words ending in -ung, so knowing that basically all of them are feminine is really useful). Of course there are many exceptions -- memorising the word together with its article may be useful in these cases, but I personally try and do this as little as possible.

Coming to podcast recommendations, I really like EasyGerman. The language is not oversimplified, they just speak more slowly compared to average German. The topics they discuss about are relevant and of interest at the present time, making it useful also to get some vocabulary that you can use immediately in you everyday conversations. In addition, they also make videos where they interview random people in the streets, so that you can get a feel for the real language (abbreviations, idioms, etc.) and the most common accents.

Here you can find a list of podcasts that may be of interest to you (most of these are podcasts that Germans listen to as well, with some more topic-specific vocabulary, more advanced language structure, etc. -- unlike EasyGerman, they're not made on purpose for learners) https://www.dw.com/de/podcasts/s-100976.

Hope this helps a bit, viel Spaß beim Deutsch lernen!

I wholeheartedly recommend the Dino lernt Deutsch series. If you order them directly from this site they are DRM free and you can import. The chapters/lessons are short enough, you might also just want to create a lesson for each chapter. There are audiobooks for these as well. The stories are interesting and well done and "adult"...i.e. not children's books.

https://books.learnoutlive.com/category/dino-lernt-deutsch/

Easy German news with slow spoken audio. You can import the article and upload the audio. This was my bread and butter in the late beginner and intermediate levels.

https://www.nachrichtenleicht.de/

Nico's Weg -

There is a full blown "course" on the dw website, but I think also you can find that someone's uploaded the course to LingQ somewhere. You can also find the transcript for each lesson and import for yourself.

A1:

https://learngerman.dw.com/en/nicos-weg/c-36519789

A2:

https://learngerman.dw.com/en/nicos-weg/c-36519797

B1:

https://learngerman.dw.com/de/nicos-weg/c-36519718

You can also find additional material on dw's site:

https://learngerman.dw.com/en/learn-german/s-9528

https://www.dw.com/de/deutsch-lernen/s-2055

As someone mentioned, the Easy German YouTube channel is awesome. It's above beginner level, but the videos are interesting and you can hear real street interviews. The ones labeled "Super Easy German" are easier and usually detail specific grammar topics. If you become a Patreon member you can get the transcripts and import them into LingQ. They also have a podcast which is excellent, but I'd wait on that until you're late intermediate/advanced on LingQ.

Evgueny and Vera have good courses for Beginners on LingQ (look under guided courses I think and filter down to beginner 1-2). They also have some intermediate courses which are good too.

Slow German Podcast. She has different levels here so you might find something of interest in the beginner levels. I'm not sure if she has the transcripts somewhere? I seem to remember them being on the individual podcast notes, but don't know if that's changed:

https://slowgerman.com/

atomabg, I'd also recommend the Easy German podcast. I started listening to them regularly when I barely understood anything and I still do now. The hosts are pleasant and easy going and have their endearing quirks, and the topics are varied and amusing. I would say the podcast should be enjoyable for upper beginners (who will be happy they understand quite a bit) as well as for the advanced (easy and relaxing listening). The show also has an impressive backlog. You will never run out of comprehensive German content.

As for reading, if I were start from scratch, I would look for graded readers or children's stories first (I do this for Greek now). Find something that would interest you, in a digital format, and upload it to LingQ. The most important here would be that the stories are engaging for you--I'm sure you have a better idea what this could be than we do. Simple texts will take you in no time to more advanced ones, some teenage fiction in translation, short stories, and eventually German literature for the Germans by the Germans.

"There's a more comprehensive set of rules in Hammer's German Grammar and Usage (cue Colin)."

https://youtu.be/dCdfjWO8aLE