Days 1-3 of my Journey to Improve

I'm off to a rough start.  These past few days I have not really been taking chess too seriously.  I'm still wondering if this will be worth it, but I am not doing this for sport, but for the love of the game, which bring me to the conclusion then perhaps I could not go wrong in this endeavor of mine.  However, time spent playing chess, is less time I spend on my career, bonding with the people around me, etc.  I mean I could just play chess and be happy at my current rating for the rest of my life, and with time, have diminishing returns.  However, something inside me just wouldn't seem right.  

As I said my goal is to reach around 1800 on rapid on chess.com, and at least 1600 on blitz 5|5 time controls.  I will be playing 15|10 on rapid, as I am primarily a speed chess player, and taking long chess one step at a time!  I know I'm suppose to play 90 minute games or some shit like that, but you know what, I really don't have the time to spend that long on just one freaking game!  Maybe I'll have the patience and time for it later, after playing another 800 15|10 games.  Until then, it's 15|10 for me, call a bridge between speed chess and long game.  

The plan for me is to play a bunch of 5|5 games, then take a break.  Then play a bunch of 15|10 games, then take a break.  (Later on I will have exact numbers)  Later I will do a bit of mental calisthenics to warm up before chess.  This will include some chess vision exorcises, tactics trainer puzzles, some luminosity games that I like to do, mental math, mnemonics, and meditation.    All about 15 minutes time spent in each, save for chess vision, which will be only about 10 minutes, as I am told 15 minutes with chess vision is a bit of an over kill.

After I do that I will study some master games from various books that I have, up to and including Logical chess Move by Move, and Pawn Structure chess.  Then, I will get into my text book that I have been hiding from, The Amateurs Mind.  Then I will take a break, maybe 15 minutes or so.

At this point I will watch a bunch of videos on chess.

Then I will play more!

Take a break

Then commence my tactics regimen.

That will conclude my day.

These past few days I haven't been doing the mental calisthenics, and have not been doing any reading, just playing, and doing some tactics training.

So far my rating is not climbing, but I hope to change that in the coming month.  I will strive to gain 100 rating points per month in rapid, and 75 points per month in Blitz 5|5 time controls.  The following journal blogs will be about how I am doing in my pursuit to this endeavor.  Your comments will be appreciated.  Thank you for reading have a nice chess day!