Best order to study these topics that are neither tactics nor endgames

When one is ready to start venturing out of studying only tactics tactics tactics & basic endgames, what is the best order to start studying the following topics, assuming one can only study each topic in sequence one at a time, rather than study a little of each in parallel?

Pawn play
Attack
Opening Principles
Strategy/Positional Play

The better question for you to ask would be to switch the "one" and "is". The order is irrelevant more or less. 

Anyways, at even the beginner level, everyone needs to know *basic* ideas of pawn play, attack, opening principles, and strategic play. Luckily, these things are by no means (and in fact, very un) mutually exclusive. Everything can be easily explained by the ideas that your pieces should be active, your opponent's pieces should be deactivated as much as possible, and that you should try to hold on to your material and win opponent's material. 

To that end, you should use your pawns to control the centre and restrict opponent's pieces, and you should attack your opponent's weak pawns- at least, that's an option to win material. You can use pawn breaks to help your pieces get more power against opponent's pawns.

You should attack in the area you are most active in.

You should develop your pieces to the center, and don't waste time making other moves usually. 

You should keep your pieces active, generally controlling the center, etc.

 

Then, you need to be able to understand tactics. And that's all the positional understanding (more or less) that you need to play decent chess, which most players I see can't do. It just shows that tactics are the most important thing, by far. 

 

You really don't need to know any ideas like "how to play against IQP" or advanced opening theory, or "principle of two weaknesses", etc. until you're a very strong player.

This is all good advice. The challenge is that when one wants to study, s/he should choose a book or software to focus on. But most study materials are divided by topic, so unless one wants to constantly read a few pages of one book, then move on to another, it becomes difficult for a given student to really dig into one topic without feeling like hey are being repeatedly fed vague truisms that are factual but rarely helpful in practical play.

I have been doing tactics and simple forced winning endgames nearly exclusively for over a year. It has helped, but I want to start looking at other material beyond concrete gains that depend on an opponent blunder or theoretically hopeless situation ... so is there a logical subject to turn to next after tactics tactics tactics endgames that can be read in a book or even several books but covering a topic more than just superficially with general principles that any 1100 player kind of knows but can never execute? There are opening principle books, opening surveys, opening encyclopedias, annotated game collections, textbooks in strategy, books on the attack, defense, pawn play, and pawn structure. Is there a next best topic if one only has time to add one more subject to their study?

I would say "thought process", which is a huge ignored part of chess study in general. 

You might want to read some of Dan Heisman's stuff,  which is really good on that. 

Gaining chess knowledge is important, but then you need to apply this knowledge well in your games (which is why some people playnig chess all their lives can't play a game without blundering/hanging something, while we have 13 year old grandmasters), and that's with thinking process. 

To seasoned players here, please do share advice more. Immensely helpful for beginners like me. Thanks

Special attention should be paid to the art of Attacking and Checkmating your opponent!
This above pawn play and strategy.


And quit dropping pieces.

True enough... a lot of "the attack" is based on strategy and pawn play, but I guess being able to deliver the knockout blow is a simpler more concrete goal to work for. As far as dropping pieces, that has less to do with learning tactics and more with being observant and systematic regarding these more obvious blunders. I do less of that now than a few years ago, but still can't plan strategically.

Mating tactics should be the topmost priority. Solve mate in 2, mate in 3, mate in 4 puzzles, preferrably from actual games. The object of chess is checkmate.

Ruud-Sailo wrote:

To seasoned players here, please do share advice more. Immensely helpful for beginners like me. Thanks

At some point, though, you will get diminishing returns (or will you?)... for example, if you master every mate in 6 there is, and are struggling with the mates in 7, maybe learning a "capture a piece in 2" would be higher yield.  Perhaps starting with mating patterns, then working way to material gain (captures and pawn promotions), then simple basic endgames (concrete forced wins where the opponent has hardly any counterplay.  But then what?  Mates, tactics, and endgames are a lot about piece play with endgames really beginning to bring pawns more to the forefront, but what about middle game strategy or pawn play or attacking?  What about openings, which I assume should be last because that is what a lot of people say (but then again, if you don't survive the opening...)?  What is next after the concrete world of mates/tactics/endgames?  Pawn play and attack seem to be subsets of strategy, so does one go general at first with strategy or really learn the nitty gritty of attack or pawn play first?