Dear JohLennon,
I am a certified, full-time chess coach, so I hope I can help you. 
Everybody is different, so that's why there isn't only one general way to learn. First of all, you have to discover your biggest weaknesses in the game and start working on them. The most effective way for that is analysing your own games. Of course, if you are a beginner, you can't do it efficiently because you don't know too much about the game yet. There is a built-in engine on chess.com which can show you if a move is good or bad but the only problem that it can't explain you the plans, ideas behind the moves, so you won't know why is it so good or bad.
You can learn from books or Youtube channels as well, and maybe you can find a lot of useful information there but these sources are mostly general things and not personalized at all. That's why you need a good coach sooner or later if you really want to be better at chess. A good coach can help you with identifying your biggest weaknesses and explain everything, so you can leave your mistakes behind you. Of course, you won't apply everything immediately, this is a learning process (like learning languages), but if you are persistent and enthusiastic, you will achieve your goals.
In my opinion, chess has 4 main territories (openings, strategies, tactics/combinations and endgames). If you want to improve efficiently, you should improve all of these skills almost at the same time. That's what my training program is based on. My students really like it because the lessons are not boring (because we talk about more than one areas within one lesson) and they feel the improvement on the longer run. Of course, there are always ups and downs but this is completely normal in everyone's career.
I recommend you to solve around 4-5 puzzles before playing games. It's not the best if you solve too many puzzles (e.g. 20-30 pcs) because you'll be too tired for the game.
On the other hand, solving too many puzzles in a row can be dangerous because you can lose your patience quickly and you won't think on the right way. The quality is more important than the quantity! It's much more useful for you to solve only 10 puzzles per day with at least 80% accuracy than solving 50 puzzles per day with 60% accuracy.
You have to think ahead without moving the pieces and make your move when you see the solution from the start till the end. This is very important! That's how you can improve your visualisation and calculation skills on the most effective way!
And that's why I would never recommend you to play too many Puzzle Rush or Puzzle Battle games because they are time-limited, so you have to make fast and superficial decisions. And this is very harmful if you really want to improve at chess.
Of course, you can try this '4-5 puzzles before the game' method and if you feel that you are able to solve more without being too exhausted for the game, you can increase the number of the puzzles. But again...quality over quantity!!
I hope this is helpful for you. Good luck for your chess games!
Hello, I am 15 and I started playing chess seriously 6 months ago. I had backgrounds of playing chess, but I've never played seriously. My peak rating is 1229, and I'm currently at 1194. Am I improving fast enough to maybe become a titled player? Is it too late of an age to start playing chess? And maybe tips to improve faster and how much should I play in a day? I would love to hear from you guys! cheers!