Recommended Training Schedule

I'm an aspiring National Master, unrated in Fide/USCF. I'm probably around 1600, but I don't want to enter tournaments until my site stats are 2000 blitz and standard. Does anyone have a recommended training schedule? (I have normally 2 hours of free time a day, sometimes 3). I use chesstempo for tactics, but don't have any chess books (but I could get some). Thanks for any feedback!

what is your reasoning of not entering tournaments until 2000 blitz

Yes, why not? IMO anyone should jump into the battlefield as soon as possible to improve.

People will have different ideas for training, and not everything works for everyone. I have no idea what's best for you in particular, but here are the sort of ideas that hopefully help you find what's best for you. Some ideas are what I find effective, some are what I've learned from other players, trainers, or books.

I like to break books into 5 general categories: opening, tactics, strategy, endgame, annotated game collection.

Not all books fit strictly into these, but the point is if aspiring to a competent level you'll need to collect all the basics, and this is a simple way to check if you're forgetting something.

Another division is drills, learning, and playing. Drills are a short exercise you do each day like a few puzzles or reviewing openings you want to stay in your memory. Learning is a coach, book, video, etc. Playing is playing. I suppose my suggestion would be not more than 30 minutes of drills, and not more than an hour of playing (unless the time control is long, and you spend all your free time for that day playing, which is fine).

Another general idea is that focus and repetition are important. I like to pick a topic (or book) as the focus for one month. And if I read it in 3 weeks, I can spend the last 10 days reviewing parts I found interesting. Of course a few months later its fine to read the same book again. A special mention for tactics, I think it's important to have them as a focus now and then... but not indefinitely. Some months you may do a few puzzles to keep the rust away, but you don't need an hour a day of tactics or anything like this. In fact learning other areas will improve your tactics.

Ok, two more ideas to play with. First is keeping a list of mistakes from your long serious games (idea from players much better than me). Then, as the list gets long, you can see which mistakes are most common and you'll have a good idea of what your area of focus should be.

Last idea is saving interesting positions of any kind in a computer file or physical notebook to review later. They may be particularly instructive and you don't want to forget them, or maybe you just find them interesting. They can come from anywhere (books, games, analysis, etc).

@dfgh123 and Pulpofeira, its because there aren't any tournaments that close to me and I don't want my parents to drive hours just for me to get last place in some tournament. I'd prefer going when I can drive myself/when I wouldn't get last place.

@ 01 (binary dude), I don't do as many tactics as I used to, but I am planning on getting some sort of chess book. I don't know which to get quite yet, but I'm weighing in my options. I'll probably start a chess notebook with interesting positions though.

@BetterOffSingle :( , I don't hang stuff anymore unless I feel it gives me a good attack. I have no idea what MCO and BCE are, so could you tell me what those acronyms stand for? I'll consider the 1953 Bronstein book.

Thanks everyone so far!

MCO=Modern Chess Openings

BCE might be BCO, Batsford Chess Openings

I owned BCO as a teen, it's a reasonable overview of everything, but probably out of date now.  For general opening ideas Seirawan's Winning Chess Openings is decent--not a lot of variations though.  But for variations without analysis Game Explorer may be sufficient.

An opening book *with complete games* is a good way to choose an opening repetoire--you can play through the games and look for ones that produce positions you like.  100 Master Games of Modern Chess (the sequel to the 500 Games book mentioned above) was useful to me in that way.

For annotated master games I love Neil McDonald.  His books  Logical Chess Move By Move and Chess:  the Art of Logical Thinking were very helpful to me (as 1800 trying to get back to Expert).

For endgames Silman's Complete Endgame Course is exceptionally helpful.  This book got me a draw with a 2300 USCF player....

As a young player my absolute favorite book was Vukovic's The Art of Attack.  Very detailed analysis of attacking positions and how to handle them.  I also really liked Chess for Tigers, which is more general advice--especially about how to handle the practical aspects of tournament play, like being paired with much stronger or weaker players.  Unfortunately it's probably out of print.

Endgames, not openings are most important-- know some openings and tactics-- but endgames are where it is at for a 2000+ player. Good luck 

Chess for Tigers is out of print, but is available on Kindle. Amazon also lists a number of sellers of used copies.