Help with improvement

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to make a short thread. Basically, been 1400-1500 (on this site) with time controls 15|10 ever since I was in 7-8th grade in 2014 and I have not been able to improve my game despite my efforts. To justify playing 15|10, I don't think more time would help me; I think that my time management is relatively good. While not directly related, I happen to use more of my time than my opponent the majority of the time. I think I have been having problems because in addition to not understanding what I'm doing wrong, I don't know what I'm doing right either. Things that I have tried are not limited to but include:

• checking if I'm making classic beginner mistakes
• identifying things I did right and wrong plus the reasons of why my moves or ideas were good or bad
  • afterwards, running it through an engine
• looking at endgame positions and trying to learn the ideas from each position
  • embarrassingly enough, my games often don't reach the point such that knowing endgames would help very much
• sticking to Caro Kann and Queen's Indian for black and Queen's gambit for white
  • I've learned general ideas for these openings, but I doubt I'm even at the point where it even makes sense to look at books with example games even though I've done a bit
• tactics, but this is probably not the largest problem

Once again, I don't know where my problems come from, so if anyone would kindly offer to help by voicing ideas or perhaps playing a practice game with me I'd be so grateful!

Happy chessing!

try Silman's books they're good

all you need is https://chessmood.com/