Based on the popular "Most commom 3000 Hanzi", it has a different order, based on the paper "Efficient Learning Strategy of Chinese Characters Based on Network Approach" by Yan, X et. al. (2013)*. It takes into account not just frequency, but number of strokes, radicals need for more complex characters, etc., making it a more efficient order for learning the most common characters.
Additional links to an etymology page, wikictionary, and
learnm.org (the site where the researches published some of the fruits of their work) were added.
Basically you will still learn frequently used characters first, but the radicals and simpler characters take a little more precedence, making it easier to learn.
Credits go to mr. Yan's team for their research, the creator of "Most commom 3000 hanzi" and the "Chinese support" anki plugin developers.
*
http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0069745