At a Crossroad

If y'all have been following my fellow Knights' blogs lately you would have probably noticed that a lot of us are coming to a crossroad in our training. I think I'm the only one that hasn't entered the 7-circles yet but I'm already having doubts about the program as suggested by De La Maza. I posted the following on Don's site but thought I should repost here for record's sake. It is my current plans for a modified training regimen:

1. Tactics is still numero uno. Needs to be studied first before all else. What I mean is when I sit down to start a study session I need to get the tactics out of the way first before attacking other areas.

2. Tactics needs to have a time limit (1 to 2 hours) because it is easy to get lost in tactics and forget all other parts of my game. Currently I have tactics on the computer, a pocket book of tactics, and I am planning on ordering the tactics "Bible" Lazlo's gigantic hardcover book as a permanent fixture for the living room floor, as well as Seirawan's intro book). That is already half of my chess library!

3. I need balance in my studies. Each study session needs to include one of the remaining parts of my game (openings, endings, master games, positional strategy).

4. I now have an informal chess coach that I meet whenever I have the chance and the time which is usually on the weekends. His lessons need to be reviewed as well.

5. Try to reserve at least a half hour for one game each day to practice using tactics in a real situation. That is minimal for me because I usually play 30 minute games, which comes out to 1 hour if each player uses up the whole clock.

So if we do the math that is already approximately 2 hours of chess study per day. And that doesn't include breaks or coaching sessions! Dude, that is about the same amount I studied in college for all of my classes combined for the semester.