Since chess is strategy, how do I make a plan?

Plans can be very simple.  Just think of it some reasons for a plan.  Example if your opponent had a well placed knight in an outpost.  Ask yourself what should I do?  Do I let it stay there and be an excellent piece for my opponents use?  An idea would be to  plan to trade off that knight with one of your pieces of lesser value such as a bad bishop, worse knight ect.

Again, plans can be simple.  Just use your understanding of the position and logical ideas.  No need to complicate things.

If you feel your understanding is too poor to come up with these simple plans, then educate yourself by watching videos, reading books ect.

This is a very basic idea, but it may help.

Middle game:

When you have completed the Opening Principles, you are now at the middle game.  Now you need to formulate a middle game plan.  The middle game is a very complicated part of a chess game.  A simple way to develop a middle game plan is to perform the following steps.

1.      Scan your opponents 5^th, and 6^th ranks (3^rd, and 4^th if your black)

2.      Look for weak pawns, and or weak squares.

Ø  Weak pawns and squares are Pawns, and squares that cannot be defended by another Pawn.

Ø  Knights are excellent pieces on weak squares.

Ø  When deciding on weak squares, and weak Pawns to attack, the closer to the center the better

 If I answered "how to get to Disney Land" with driving directions I would not be wrong... but if you don't have access to a car it's not useful to you.

In "how to make a plan" you need some general knowledge to make it possible.

I like Pachman's Modern Chess Strategy
I also like Euwe and Kramer's two books, one on static and one on dynamic features.

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In general you seek play in an area (queenside, center, kingside) where you have more space and/or more force. This is often initiated with a pawn break to open lines for your pieces.
The moves themselves will infiltrate and come into contact with weak points and pieces. After that, because of your superior space and/or force, this means tactics will appear to win material or checkmate.

In equal positions where pawn breaks are far away or impossible, plans are usually very short sequences that make small improvements.

Planning has a lot to do with anticipating what is going to happen in the game, not only with tactics but also in more of a general sense. You want to always be calculating possiblities and to be able to judge the resulting position. It is hard to tell somebody how exactly to plan because it's almost like trying to tell someone how to play good chess! Since you have 'My System' you should go over the positional concepts that Nimzowitsch introduces, they definitely helped guide my thinking.

Congrats on your success with tactics trainer by the way!

What you will  discover by reading  advanced opening  books  and videos on  specific openings, is that the game is pretty well planned  out  from opening  thru midddle game and endgame.  It is well spelled out in those books and videos.

Thank you but I reset my tactics trainer today!

DavidJSmith wrote:

No offense, but at the OP's level  (judging by his chess.com rating - more than mine) - just wait for you opponent to do something fatal :)

What David said is pretty accurate.

Chess author Charles Hertan turned me onto a very useful and simply stated idea: examine all forcing moves (checks and captures) on every turn.  This suggestion is more about deciding which candidate moves to examine (as opposed to formulating long-term strategy), but since tactics and strategy are interdependent, finding a strong forcing move often leads to a re-evaluation of your entire strategy.

Here is an amazon link to his excellent book, which won the 2008 Chess Cafe Book of the Year Award:

Forcing Chess Moves: The Key to Better Calculation