My goals for chess

So because my last attempt at becoming a GM before finishing the post I was writing didn't work, I wanted to make a post about my actual goals and see if it would help.

I am 18 years old. A year ago, my goal was to one day become a national master. However, while I think I have the ability to do this, I decided that I didn't like chess enough for it to be  reality, and it wouldn't be very rewarding for me. I decided that I don't want to spend more than an hour or two a day studying chess, and I know that NMs typically spend much more than that. Note that when I had the goal before I did plan to spend three+ hours a day, but when I decided against this as a schedule, I decided against the goal of NM too. I'm not really losing sleep over not being a titled chess player, it's not a very important part of my life.

However, over the last few months I've decided that I would really like to be an expert, meaning I want to get to 2000 FIDE some time in my lifetime. I am currently 1550 standard on chess.com and my goal right now is to get to 1600, although I haven't had time to play a game the past few weeks and won't get back until chess until mid may. As I said, chess really isn't the most important part of my life, not even in the top 5 things I do. Currently, my largest chess weakness is a large amount of blunders from lack of practice. I started playing chess two years ago and since then I've played 250 games. At my level, I am almost always competing with people who have played thousands of games and are very good at not blundering. Those 250 standard games are the only standard time control games I've ever played. I've never been in a club and I've never played games on other websites. Because of this, I tend to steamroll opponents in my blunder free games in the opening, middle game, endgame, tactics, and strategy. I don't consider myself particularly tactical or strategical, just blunderful. I finally stopped consistently putting pieces on attacked squares in standard time control games as 6 or so months ago. I do tend to do well in complicated positions though. This isn't because I am good at calculating or visualizing or especially creative, but simply because I don't get scared of any chess position. No matter how many candidate moves there are and no matter how open both kings are, I never panic, I just work through the position and find which candidate moves are the best and try to objectively calculate what to do, looking at all the moves and all the logical replies. I find many of my opponents don't do this, especially in complicated positions where they are winning, and they tend to revert back on their instincts in complicated positions which really demand concrete calculation.

I have never studied opening theory except for a few times I felt really interested and decided to research some, but I don't remember any of it. The opening theory I do know is from openings I've played. Up until around 1400, I consistently got better positions than my opponents in the opening. Engine analysis put me ahead almost every game by move 10. Even in my first game against 1: c4 when I was rated 1250 or so, I got a reasonable advantage before move 10 literally just playing over the board (something like -0.75). That is when I developed the habit of not studying openings (After that particular game I officially said, "What's the point?"). Since 1400 that every-game lead has disappeared and I tend to emerge in the middle game equal, but I feel that opening study could improve my middle game play. So far, the way I've played chess is to play the opening with principles and an idea of some possible plans, then when I get to the middlegame, pick a plan and go with it. This has worked for me so far but is presenting two problems: 1: It is getting exhausting to look for a new plan every game, especially looking for the same plan over and over. I am starting to see some patterns and I would really like to get a repertoire of middle game plans now instead of having to come up with one every time I'm out of the opening. I'm sure that at least 80% of middlegame positions can be handled with the same few ideas, and I want to learn what those 20% of ideas are so I can get some comfort in normal looking middlegames. I am getting tired of "now what" moments. 2: It is difficult for me to come up with creative plans starting on move 1. Sometimes, my opponent makes a mistake that deserves strategic punishment on move 5, before either player is castled, but it's difficult for me to see that. In fact, I am not good at interacting with my opponent at all in the early stages of the game. I feel that when people see me play it is obvious before the opening is even over that I am an amateur because I don't pose my opponents any problems. Would opening study help either of these problems? And how do I study openings? Remember, opening principals can't help with this. "Pose your opponent problems with his develop or activity" is not one of the philosophies of opening principles. This can cause me to miss key bishop checks or double moves that really give my opponent problems even though they don't immediately help my development, activity, or center control.

With that tangent aside about my style and weaknesses though, back to the main topic.

Next year I'm going to college and will join a club, but first I wanted to focus on chess.com 30|0 and 30|5 games. I want to hear from some 2000 rated chess.com players (as I consider this a stepping stone to 2000 FIDE), how much time did you spend on chess and what was your curriculum like? I have never had a chess teacher and don't planned to. However, I've also never read a chess book and I do plan to do that. I would also hear from anyone around or above my rating,  since my immediate goal is to simply get to 1600 on chess.com. I don't see a problem with me getting there, I'm not in a rut or anything, but I do sense a slowdown ahead if I don't change the way I think about chess. I also want to know the best way that people here applied their study plans. Studying chess for an hour a day is hard, its easy to just play some blitz or going on the forums. What's the best way to motivate yourself or keep yourself focused?

Assuming that the OP is not a troll post (which I don't assume)... if something isn't that important to you... don't waste one second of your life on it.