Wanting to improve

I'm not really a beginner, though I feel I am still, dispite many years of playing, I am at the beginner-intermediate stage of my chess growth and stayed there all these years because I never studied the game.  I merely just played, went over (some) master games, and did puzzles.  I hardly ever analyzed my games afterward also, and I play mostly blitz.  When I try and play games with longer time controls I end up not spending time on my moves and often lose because of it.

In the past, I always played e4 as white.  I experimented with a weird opening during that time, though, I only played that way with one person, and that person, for the most part, is my friend/teacher.  As black, I would always respond to e4 with e5.  I never played anyone OTB who played the queen's gambit, (except maybe 4 or 5 times against two different opponents, (one died) so now only 1) and the only person left, is a NM now, so I don't count him really.)  I mostly played OTB back them (blitz OTB), but occasionally played on yahoo chess, until it became full of cheaters.  Two people I used to play against back then played queen pawn opening but one of them just played the London System and the other played a weird delayed queen pawn opening or the trompowski.  He wouldn't play c4 to make it a Catalan, perhaps he didn't like sacing the pawn.  

So I got little to no experience back then playing against the queen's gambit.  Also, I don't really remember how I did with e4 e5 as black.  One person told me I win more with the white pieces.  So maybe I wasn't very good as black with e4 e5  back then.  I talk more about my past in my blog if you care to read it.  I gather I was very bad against d4 d5 with black.

Flashforward, I learned the queen's gambit, and now play both e4 and d4.  I try for a Leningrad setup with white, but sometimes it looks like a London.  A long time ago when I was playing chess at Starbucks regularly I knew nothing about the Sicilian.  When I first started playing it, I played it only in correspondence and sucked with it.  Now, I've played a few different Sicilians and found that the Sveshnikov, the opening I used to play that I changed out of sheer boredom, is hard to fight for a win as black, at least for me,  because I lost most of my games when playing it as black.  

Also, I am learning the Nimzo, so I have something good to play as black when facing d4.

Currently after starting to analyze my games I've realized that I lose a lot to opening traps because I move too fast in the opening and don't think when I get out of the book, probably because I play too much blitz.    I recently stopped playing blitz and now just play 10-minute rapid games.  

Sometimes I lose because I choose the wrong idea, or fail to find the right idea, and instead of thinking of a way to win I just make a dumb move.  I can't tell you how many times I lost because I didn't find the best move at the critical moment and just played whatever came to mind, not even thinking of a new plan.

Sometimes I just lose with time.  Oh well.

Sometimes I lose on endings where I was winning, I just couldn't convert.

I lose a lot of games due to opening problems.

I know everyone keeps saying don't study openings until you are at least 2000, and just study opening principles.  I just don't see any truth to that anymore.  Just know, that as part of my improvement plan, I will be studying openings, it's just that that is not the only thing I will be working on.

I've come to the point where I know what my main responses are, I just haven't gathered the experience to transpose my knew knowledge into actual wins.  Studying an opening is a lot different than seeing the position in a game.  Until I learn more about the Sveshnikov and the Nimzo I will just have to settle for what I have, so I will take this time to learn more about the French Defense, and keep trying to play the Nimzo.  I suck at the Nimzo,  but a long time ago I sucked at the Sicilian.

I've noticed that I don't take online games as seriously as I do OTB  blitz games, so I gather I am a lot better playing blitz OTB.

Also, I suck at tournament chess.

I've decided to eventually start playing 15|10, the kinda bridge the gap a little from my blitz play and my classical gameplay.  I tried playing games with longer than that time controls and I can never get myself to wait, and just blitz out moves.  Just know that the 15|10 time control will be my new norm by next week.

My goal is to get 1600 rapid.  I know I can get there easily I just gotta stop playing dumb openings.  

Endgame study will be a part of my training.

I usually do tactics on chesstempo every day until I get 55 right.  I also do tactics on aimchess, among other things.

I have a book list to go through.  The one I am reading now is, How to improve chess on your own.

Any thoughts on this plan,  besides the openings part...?

I already know I will eventually have to get a coach again.  I hope to one day reach 2000 rapid.

There are plenty of titled players/coaches that suggest opening study well before 2000. I empathise with your problem rushing your moves. Me too. I've lost a little patience through playing quick time controls lately. Dumbness ensues. 15/10 is still pretty quick according to many coaches, if you're aiming to get better at candidate move evaluation. Otherwise your plan seems good.