Analyzing Games

This might be the wrong category, but as I'm getting back into chess and looking to improve, I have realized that reviewing one's own games is an integral part of this process. With that, however, comes my dilemma.  I have no idea the mindset or process of reviewing one's own games.  Should I do it immediately after playing the game?  Should I use an engine immediately?  What should I be looking for?  How can I learn as I'm reviewing, and not just "going through the motions"?

Basically, what is the best way to review games and how is it done?

I usually review my games as soon as they're over - at least on chess.com.  It's amazing how clear-sighted my chess-vision is once the game is over!

I like to go home after a tournament and go through all of that day's lost games with board and pieces, picking apart each move and pointing out every single mistake. I write the moves down on scratch paper and annotate, then plug the PGN into Stockfish to have it analyze.

After this, I sleep on it for a night or two, come back, and analyze the games again on scratch paper. I then have a look at my first analysis, second analysis, and Stockfish, and write it all down in my chess notebook (Just a medium-sized spiral notebook, nothing special), go through it again, and figure out why I lost. This is where the real learning happens:

Was it due to a bad opening move? If so, I go memorize the line that I screwed up. Was it due to bad endgame play? If so, I go study some endgame techniques for whatever particular endgame I was in. Was it due to a complex missed tactic? If so, I study the general type of combination, i.e. a kingside attack against h7 and how to avoid it, et cetera.

Now, I only do this for games in which I felt I was truly outplayed. If I lose a game because I had an advantage but dropped a piece or missed a simple fork or something along those lines, then I don't bother going through the entire analysis process for that. I especially like to do this analysis process for games which I played against much higher-rated players - For a 1350 like myself, that would mean 1600s and better. And don't only look at your moves, look at your opponents' moves: What did they see/do that you didn't? Did you miss a very good strategic plan that they saw? Again, I take note of this in my notebook.

Now, as I'm fairly new to tournament chess, I've only done this four or five times, and it's a very tedious and difficult process which I'm not sure I'm going to continue with for the rest of my chess career, if I can call it that. However, I figure that it's probably the best habit to get into to get the most out of learning from your own mistakes.

@Twichicky

Excellent post!!