"... This book is the first volume in a series of manuals designed for players who are building the foundations of their chess knowledge. The reader will receive the necessary basic knowledge in six areas of the game - tactics, positional play, strategy, the calculation of variations, the opening and the endgame.
... To make the book entertaining and varied, I have mixed up these different areas, ..." - GM Artur Yusupov (2008)
Where should I focus my studying/training now that I've just begun a serious interest in chess?
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I've known how to play chess since I was a young child and (as someone who always has been relatively good at puzzles and mind games) found my chess skills to be sufficient to play on rare occasions when offered by other very casual players.
Upon coming to college, I've become friends with a guy who's been semi serious about chess for a short while (1500ish rating) and he has now gotten our entire group of friends hooked on genuine chess (never before had I played with a clock, known about en passant, or even the exact rules and method of castling). His roommate during the previous school year taught him to play well, and is a NM with no strong desire to improve his game, but of course thoroughly enjoys chess.
All the rambling about how my somewhat newfound interest in chess began aside, I have personally found myself dying to become a skilled chess player. My point and question is:
Where should I focus my practice time as someone who is just starting to take chess seriously?
According to my friend and his ex-roommate, it is technically possible to reach about 1800 by solving tactics after tactics for hours on end. Although interesting in concept, I doubt thats the most practical way to reach 1800 strength. If I had to estimate my strength based on the several hundred tactics attempts and finding myself about evenly matched with the level 4 chess bot Id guess Im in the neighborhood of 800. I could be way off I'm not sure how accurately those can represent true strength especially in a low skill player. 1800 strength I'm confident is 100s and 100s of hours of practice away, but I'm interested in improving my chess skills to any degree.
Regardless, I'd like to know where I should focus my time, if theres any practical order to study things in, and even outside the box suggestions like video lesson series or books or god knows what.
Thanks in advance.