beginner learning: How much do the details matter?

I guess it is, though it would depend in some way on your ability to learn from your mistakes. But I guess just playing often and developing some heuristics by yourself would already give you a decent advantage against someone who plays only a couple games a year.

Fun fact, btw: At the office, you can write conditional moves on post-it notes.

"If Qxd5, then 3. Nc3"

How about:

"If Bxf7, then I resign" 

Well, who doesn't resign in the face of Bxf7?

I played a game like this once. We had a piece of paper with "white" written on one side and "black" on the other. After you made a move, you'd flip it over to indicate whose turn it was.

Do you do something like this?

We just record our moves on a fairly normal record sheet, and when someone walks by the board, they check it. After the game finishes, I use the move record to review the game.

I like that even better. Insurance against someone walking by and changing the position or something. Plus you have a record of it after it's over.

Sure, you can improve from just playing

But you can improve monstrously fast with the right training program

Yes, we're getting better at playing specifically against each other.

Not liking how I get my knights, then bishops, out and grab most of the center, he started pushing pawns forward to push back my knights, then managed to grab the center, ultimately winning the last game.

In the subsequent (our current) game, he's trying the same thing, and I'm trying to balance normal development and dealing with the pawn threat (taking a free pawn early on).

I don't know if any of this will make him a stronger player, but if nothing else, it's giving me a chance to play against a bunch of moves that aren't "book moves" in Opening Explorer. My opponent may be playing unsound opening moves, but I don't necessarily know how to punish them. So I get a little better, and I share what little I can with the opponent afterward.

Now only one office opponent hasn't switched to chess.com, so we just keep alternating colors and may know each other's play styles thoroughly before long.

Don't bother with details.

I can believe that, although I only have general ideas about what the right training program might be for people like my coworkers and me.

Since I personally overlook glaring threats until it's sometimes too late to do anything about it, I assume I should do something to start paying more attention to that sort of thing. But although I have a few ideas of how to go about that, I don't know which approaches might be The Best.

Since I play correspondence time controls (just a preference based on my lifestyle), I can try to take the time to look at every space controlled or protected by any piece(/pawn) on the board, look for unprotected or under protected pieces, etc.

But is this an efficient way to cultivate the ability? No idea.

This uncertainty led to my original question about hapazard study and at least improving by office standards.

I would like to become good enough that I'm actually making plans and seeing opponent plans, but that feels a little ambitious at the moment. (But again, maybe I'm being pessimistic about that.)

Tactics flow from a superior position lol that is exactly right WrinklyPawn.

However, as a chess player you have to be able to set up the superior position.

The tactics will happen by your opponent making mistakes that is true.

However, you have to remember if you have a dominating position than your opponent made huge mistakes prior to the tactic being unleashed.

I created some nice articles which could help your situation.

They could give you some nice beginner idea's.

The first article is designed to help you create a plan or routine for yourself. One which fits to your own schedule.

http://www.chess.com/blog/X_PLAYER_J_X/chess-plan-for-beginners

The second article is designed to help push your understanding of how much a piece is valued at and how piece values can sometimes change.

http://www.chess.com/blog/X_PLAYER_J_X/chess-piece-relative-value

The third article I made was for my own amusement. However, It does talk about the different first moves in chess.

http://www.chess.com/blog/X_PLAYER_J_X/the-most-active-move-at-move-1

The last article is designed to help you come up with a chess repertoire.

The below article is a repertoire I used as a beginner. I also give the story of how I came up with it etc.

http://www.chess.com/blog/X_PLAYER_J_X/chess-repertoire

I've only looked at the first of your links so far, but the anecdote about the coach and "winging it" was actually compelling.

Why not just get a book?

Chess Strategy for Kids by Coackley will improve your chess understanding tremendously. That book will answer many questions in your mind about chess strategy,tactics,opening and endgames.

Thanks again to everyone who chimed in on my question. Some of the answers helped me realize that I wanted a little more. As a result, I reached out to a coach here on the site as something of a birthday present to myself, so I can train in a less haphazard way.