Looking for Advice: What to prioritize and how to effectively practice

I've been "playing chess" for 3 years now.  I went to a local chess club as a 9th/10th grader but never took it very far.  I realized chess was still fun over quarantine, and as I've spent more time with the game I've realized it's something I want to improve at for the long term - it's a game that I'll be able to play and connect with people over for the rest of my life!  

I understand improving will take time and intentional work, not just grinding blitz games. (One thing I'm going to start trying is playing more 10 and 15|10 games)  You can see from my rankings I'm not an amazing player, but I'm also not a complete newbie. As I understand it now, there are four general areas of gameplay for me to try to improve, or I like to think 6 actual practice types to do.

Area 1: Openings.  This mostly means looking through the lines I want to play and learning their ins and outs, as well as the ideas behind it.  This applies to both White (depth, less breadth) and Black (Breadth-first, depth later).

Area 2: Tactics.  I own one book on this subject (Beginning Chess Tactics by Yassier Seirawan), which I have begun reading and found very interesting, and I upgraded to a gold membership to have more puzzles per day.  As I can tell, this is primarily practiced by doing puzzles and such.

Area 3: Strategy.  This is more about the general ideas of attacking and defense.  I put tactics before this because they are the vehicle to get here - strategy is worthless if you can't execute it.

Area 4: Endgames.  I own one book on this as well (Silman's Complete Endgame Course), and as with Tactics, it has been helpful when I review it.

There are also two other types of practice I can think of.  The first is reviewing and analyzing master games (actively playing through them, thinking through their moves, trying to guess what is played next, and taking principles to improve).  The second is actually playing games to implement the other 5.

I'm not really concerned with the tools I use - I have access to openings courses, tactics trainers, and good books. (My chess library is small, but I own 6 or 7 books and am always open to more)  I am a busy student, working a job, and preparing for University.  I can consistently put in 45 minutes, maybe 60, per day, 5 days per week, on chess.  I don't want to become the world's best, but I'm very competitive and find huge joy in seeing improvement overtime.  Somewhere around 1800-2000 rating, USCF seems like a reasonable long term (as in, 10-20 years down the road long term) goal for anyone wondering how far I want to go.

What I'm wondering is this: what should I focus on, and for how long?  All of these elements matter to gameplay, but as I've learned with other hobbies and skills, if I try to do all 6 of these at once, I'm not going to make meaningful progress at any of them.  How long should I focus on specific ones of these, and which are the most important?  What kind of ratios of them should I have? (EG: 5 minutes of puzzles before playing 2 games each day, or try to analyze 1 master game per week)  What type of practice routine or improvement habits should I create that won't just be short-term sustainable?  Should I learn lots of opening lines, or focus on tactics, or just keep playing games?  When do I shift my focus from openings to the endgame, how do I balance them?

Thanks to anyone willing to give me advice!  I'm willing to put in the hard work, but I'd like to work smart, not just hard ;P

How much time per day do you have to spend on it?

Well, as for openings you still shouldn't base too much of your time to learn opening lines. Pick some variation and play it, follow the principles and go from there. The thing with learning variations at that level, on my level as well, but I can do a little bit now if I want to, is that you will not be able to use it in games.

I go for the Najdorf when I get the chance. Say I look at the poisoned pawn variation. It is a very sharp line and it is very heavily analyzed and played (probably on my level it is tough to play as black but this is just an example). So in order to get it, first of all, my opponent needs to play open Sicilian, then he needs to allow Najdorf by playing Nc3 instead of f3 on move 5. Then he needs to play Bg4 on move 6, then f4 and to play Qd2 on my Qb6. After that a ton of theory occurs. 

First problem - I play chess here for 1 year and I never had that variation in a game, we've never got to theory on move 9 or 10. In order to memorize lines, first of all some of the moves can be unclear to me on my level, which is not good. It is not good to just blindly memorize. For instance if he plays a3 instead of Qd2, and I think it is still fine to take the b pawn I will get my queen trapped.

Practical example from the other day. The opponent plays 1.e4 I play 1.c5 and the opponent plays 2.d3 completely bypassing all theory.  The opponent's rating is around 1 500, on even lower levels you will get a lot of non standard moves. In essence trying to memorize lines for you will be a painful task, more painful because you might not understand some moves and in practice in many cases you will not be able to practice what you've memorized. 

This doesn't mean you shouldn't learn the first few moves of a variation. And it is fine to analyze the game and see where you came out of the theory and build your openings slowly like that. Just don't become fixated on openings because it will be time consuming and unpractical. Opening principles are the most important for that level, for my level as well. 


I'll post how I got somewhat better, at least some of that will be useful to you:

https://www.chess.com/blog/nklristic/the-beginners-tale-first-steps-to-chess-improvement

Improving Your Chess - Resources for Beginners and Beyond...

https://www.chess.com/blog/RussBell/improving-your-chess-resources-for-beginners-and-beyond

Focus your time on tactics and endgames for the best bang for buck, and then look at middle game plans, positional play, weak squares, outposts, good pieces and bad pieces, etc.

Openings should be the lowest priority on the list. Follow opening principles and you should be fine for the most part.

I reached 1750 blitz from 500 after about 18 months (although dipped back into the 1600s at present). I’ve only ever studied one opening (the najdorf, which most players don’t even play properly after 8-10 moves at my level).

Yeah, theory isn't all that relevant. Most of my opening preparation is just an opening and a couple of ideas in that opening. Tactics are very, very important for U1400 players, maybe spend a bit of time on puzzles, a bit on games, and a bit of time on analyzing them. That's how I practice, though I haven't been going hardcore, mostly just trying to play more games to get experience with different positions. 

Thank you everyone!  I'm definitely still open to more suggestions   For now, based on what has been said, and reading through the articles posted, I think I'll be trying to do the following daily:

15 minutes of focused puzzle time

10 minutes of endgame study using Silman's complete Endgame Course

1 game at 10 minute time control

Analyze the game I just played

Note something I did well, something to try and improve on. 

Time permitting, play and analyze another game.

Rinse/repeat daily.

Any thoughts?

Grandmaster webinar tomorrow on how to create a self-study program: 

https://www.chess.com/blog/Gertsog/webinar-73-how-to-self-study-chess

Just a thought.  I may not be a good player, but I'm an older player who has played for over 15 years.  I know my weaknesses, and know what I need to do to improve, however, this one thing, will help you.

Remember, that, the person who "goes for it" meaning saving material for an initiative, or just basically going for a continuation or just a trade, because the person "feels" it's right, if he is wrong, loses the game.  Plain and simple.  Bliz rewards the not-so-good players, just because of that fact.  

Sure learn new tactics, ideas, approaches to the game, but remember, the person who "goes for it," has to be right, or else, they lose.  If you "go for it" a lot, you will lose tons of games, but if you analyze afterwards, you will slowly build up to be the stronger player.  Sure you will be underrated for a long time, like me, but eventually, if you are diligent, and take heed to what many people say, tactics, games, analysis, daily, you will improve, especially if you are person that "goes for it."  Sadly some openings are better for people who don't go for it.  A lesson to be learned, in playing the person who doesn't "go for it, " you will often see more chances to win, because it's your nature, not theirs.  

I will end by saying, modern approaches, aren't necessarily openings that don't "go for it." 

Have a nice day.

You just motivated me to play riskier gambits  Thanks for that.

Since this is the beginners' thread:

Most games are either decided by the player who outsmarts their opponent on tactics and strategy (think forks or pins or piece activity), or blunders. So those two would be the main focus points to work on.