where should I focus my somewhat limited time?

Okay so I've been on here for a while and there is no doubt that I suck. The problem is I don't know how to improve. I mean I know about going over my played games to improve, building a repertoire etc. but the problem is I don't know how much time to spend on any of these. I mean there's no structure in the way I teach myself. One day I'll be trying to build a repertoire in Chessbase 13 and the next day I'll be doing "play like a grandmaster" in Lucas Chess or anything I feel like really. At the current moment I have been trying to build a repertoire but as a community college student I don't have tons of time to input tons of moves and variations into Chessbase or Lucas Chess. So my question is what should I do here? How should I really go about improving?

     Play the Ruy Lopez for white if you get the opportunity; play the Sicilian or 1...e5 against 1. e4.

     Play the Grunfeld against 1.d4 Nf6 2. c4 g6 3. Nc3 d5! as Black.  You'll lose a lot at first, but you'll learn the opening.

     Do tactics training; go to HOME, then ACCOUNT and set tactics training at a low-level and no timer.  Move the level up, bit by bit.

     In the opening, your main job is to put some pawns in the center, develop your pieces and get castled!

     Learn some basic King and pawn versus King positions!

     Now you're good to go.

     Just thinking.....

Learn opening principles, do tactics, learn King and pawn endgames, go over your games for finding mistakes.

basket weaving

just play and have fun

Not in chess.

Joining a club is a good way to improve (but i admit, it takes some time...). Playing against stronger opponents is good and analysing (!) the game thoroughly afterwards (first with the opponent, maybe later with the computer).

Yes, ok, endgames (pawn endgames, rook endgames ...) are indeed important, but studying them (from time to time i have a look at an endgame study) takes even more time than f.ex. some tactical training.

Playing online is OK and fun, but not the best way to improve imo.

Btw: how do i get rid of this weird italic font?!

I'm sure your school has a club

Unfortunately my school does not have a club. I go to a community college and they used to have a club apparently but not anymore. 

Stop playing chess altogether and read every forum post twice. 

OK, that is not much help. I saw 2 of your games. My best simple advice:

* Don't focus on opening, it doesn't matter. Pick one, keep playing that, you will learn more of that opening while playing games. In the mean time: do not give away pieces!

* Do not give away pieces.

* If you don't have any books, no worries: play through GM games. Even if you don't understand all of it (I don't) you will start to get a feel for good moves. In the mean time: don't give away material!

To get from 1000 to 1400 this is about all you need. No need for all the sofisticated stratigic stuff that will be advised to you soon, no doubt.

The most important thing is to ENJOY the game. If you love chess , you will find ways to improve... Even if you don't become a Master , don't take it too hard. Chess can make you happy , that's all that counts!!

Doesn't what constitutes a blunder change as you improve though? I.e at a certain level you might be able to get away with hanging a pawn but as you improve and play stronger opponents then such a mistake would be a lot more significant.

Guess my point is, no matter how much you improve, you'll never stop making mistakes/blunders.

Post some of your games.I can try to help you.

I don't think I'm in a position to give advice, but I did look at some of your games and here's what I'm see.

1) you get fried with white in the opening on occassion.  I know when that happens to me I get really frustrated, it's worse than losing a "home game".  So, really look at what goes wrong there.  It will always have something to do with overlooking weaknesses in your position, not just missing chances for yourself.  In Queen's Gambit Accepted, there are may ways we can go wrong if Black wants to hold the pawn or if black just plays it "correctly".  If you're going to play 1 d4 2 c4 every chance you get, the first thing you should do is just really understand the tactics that are there.  I've had guys queen passed pawns on me in the opening and had to give up pieces just to get rid of the pawn-- not the right way to deal with it.  This isn't about memorizing anything, it's about just knowing the position.  What the pawns are telling you, what the pieces are doing, and where weaknesses are.  Like this, why is f7/f2 so weak in the opening?  They only have 1 defender.  I take it to mean that when defenders of a square -1 = attackers on a square, it might be a weak square (and anyone on the square is weak).  Some weaknesses are easy to address, some aren't.  Just take your time and look for them.

2) you resigned a game because after you move your queen out of a fork, you were going to lose the exhange (Unless I'm missing something else that was going on).  Don't.  Don't ever do that.  You made a mistake, so what?  It's rarely the first mistake that wins a game. It's the last mistake that loses it.  Just take a breath, clear your mind and play on.  You'll get your chances probably.  You'll learn a lot about finding out what resources you have.  Chess is almost always "well, he's got this going for him, but I've got that going for me."  Until you know you're playing people who won't blunder the same kind of blunder you just blundered, keep playing at least to see who blunders it all away.

3) I think you get too clever for yourself.  You have opponent's pieces there you can take with no real consequences that I can see, but you jump in with more "attacking looking" moves that only give things back.  This kinda comes back to weaknessess, hanging pieces for no reason.  In one game you get just about out of the opening, you hadn't "connected the rooks" by putting your queen somewhere other than d1 (not a big deal), but you launch into an attack on a pretty well guarded pawn, putting your knight in the center (good, but ...) without preparing it, he was just going to get pushed back.  Your opponent didn't react to your knight move, becuase he had no reason to, he just finished his development.

This relates to something else I see in that game, I don't see harmony in your pieces in that game.  You should look over your games where you do get out of the opening and get into a middle game and think not first about "yeah, I had no plan, what should my plan be" but think "did I put my pieces in a way that I could have a plan where they could work together.  I have no solution for that, just keep looking at your games and see what goes right and what goes wrong, and adjust.  Look over master level games, as EVERYONE says.  One idea I heard recently is look over GM simul games where you know people are getting their clocks cleaned.

I want to mention 5 old books that benefitted me a lot. 

Max Euwe's The Logical Approach to Chess.  I read it like 25 years ago and It really helped me a lot.  I think I would have a hard time understand any chess book without reading it first.

How to Open A Chess Game from RHM press which is not a repertoire book but a book that drives home opening principles and how to look freshly at each opening move.  I used to play the Nimzo/Bogo/QID and sometimes the dutch.  When ever white played 1 d4, I didn't just make my move. I'd say in my head "OK he has d5, and is exerting some control over e5 and c5, I'm taking control of e4".  Don't just play opening moves, see them in a plan.

Znonsko-Borovsky's The Middle Game in Chess.  There are many such books, I love this one.

Nimzowitch's "Blockade!".  It is like a precursor to My System, but it gives you great tools for a very specific set of things that come up in a chess game.  After reading it, I won a lot of games even down material if I had a passed pawn.  I even sac'd material to get advanced passed pawns.  Maybe I did that too much, but as so many GMs say, a bad plan beats no plan.

Max Euwe's Strategy and Tactics in Chess.  I'm reading this now as I'm coming back to the game, but it is really re-set my game back to a solid foundation.  It's given me new things to think about, not covered in the other books, and new ways to see things that were covered in books.  I've worked through tactics books, they're all good I guess, but this one is the first that talked about when to look for them, and put them in the context of the overall game.  It's the difference between running around the forest foraging for food, vs practing horticulture and knowing when and where you'll find your havest.

Max Euwe's A guide to the Chess Endings.  many end game books exist, the're all probably great.  I like that one, I like Euwe.  Just learn some pawn endings, and rook endings and grow from there.  There are many many books on both.

I'm sure others have offered this, but if you want, I'd love to play some games with you and then discuss them in "the post mortem".  Again, I'm no exerpt on any of this, but I think it would benefit both of us.