Tips to Focus Your Chess Thinking

You may have experienced it. Way into the middlegame, complex position, innumerable possibilities. What to do? Well, there is nothing more damaging to concentration than allowing your thoughts to stray from one idea to another. Order and Method are the keys to streamlined thinking. Here are tips to jump-start your thought process.

TACTICS
Tactics should always take precedence over strategic thinking. One can be so mesmerized in gaining a few positional points and miss a sockdolager of a mate in one. To avoid this, consider first the forcing moves:
a. Checks (King Safety): Does the opponent have a check? Is it serious, can my King find safety? Do I have a check? Can the opponent parry adequately?
b. Captures: Can I/the opponent capture any piece? Every piece in contact with an enemy piece is a tactical red flag.
c. Threats: A threat is an attack on a weak point or exposed piece. Where are my/the opponent's weaknesses (consider pawns, squares, files and ranks, especially the back rank)? Which of my pieces are exposed (subject to attack)? Which are undefended? Which are inadequately defended (pieces whose defender might be lured away)?Do/es I/the opponent have an immediate threat (a threat that can be carried out next move)? Is it serious --can it be ignored or answered by a bigger threat (indirect defense)? Do/es I/the opponent have an intermediate threat (a threat that can be carried out after a few preparatory moves)?
STRATEGY
Once you have satisfied yourself that there are no forcing moves on the horizon, you can settle back and focus on long-term planning -- strategy. Consider:
a. Piece activity: Are all your pieces posted actively?
Moves to consider:
1.Take your least active piece and put it on a better square.
2. Exchange off your bad, inactive pieces for your opponent's more valuable ones.
3. Drive away enemy pieces from their good posts, preferably with pawns.
b. Pawn structure: What kind of pawn structure do you have? Is the position open, semi-open, or closed? Where do/es you/the opponent have a majority of pawns (center, queenside, kingside)? The pawn structure will dictate the strategy you will follow.
Moves to consider:
1.Advance your pawn majority.
2. Initiate a minority attack.
3. Make a freeing pawn move to open up a closed position (pawn exchanges).
4. Make a pawn advance to control a key square.
c. Imbalances, Advantages and Disadvantages: How do your pieces compare with the opponent's? On which area of the board (center, kingside, queenside) do you have an advantage/disadvantage? You have an advantage on the area where you control more space (i.e., your pawns are more advanced than the enemy's, and your pieces have more maneuvering room and can control key squares, ranks or files). Attack on the side where you have the advantage.
I hope you keep these questions in mind and return to this post again and again as we study games where we shall see how to apply them in practice.