Back in September I took a week to see how much time I was spending on Chess. Recently I started on a new study plan, so I thought I would fire up the stopwatch (really the ATracker app) and see how close I was to my plan.
Plan
This was my plan:
| Activity | Weekly Amount |
|---|---|
| Aimchess | 1.8 hours |
| Chessable | 2.3 hours |
| Tactic Books | 1 hour |
| Playing | 2 hours |
| Master Games | 1 hour |
Actual
| Activity | Weekly Amount |
|---|---|
| Aimchess | 2 hours |
| Chessable | 2.4 hours |
| Tactic Books | 0.4 hours |
| Playing | 4 hours |
| Master Games | 0.3 hour |
How Did I Do?
My tactics studying in Aimchess and Chessable was pretty close to what I had planned. After that, things did not go to plan. I spent twice as much time playing games as I wanted to. This is not surprising looking back on my week. I had a case of the “one more games.” I would have liked to spend more time studying tactic books (Chess Steps level 2 mostly), or other chess books.
In general, these numbers line up with what lots of sites/podcasts/experts say you should study. 50% playing, 50% studying. However, my plan was more like 60% tactics, 25% playing, 15% master games.
Change The Plan?
I am really bad at making a plan and then changing it right away. So I’m happy that I stuck to the core of my plan, which was tactics. I think I need to keep up with that, but balance out the rest of the time I spend. I want to get my game playing down from 4 hours to under 2 per week. I know this is not much, but I’ve been thinking I need a break from games for a bit so I can study more.
I am thinking my simple plan should be something like:
- 50% tactics (same as I have been doing)
- 25% playing
- 25% studying other material