How do I get better at chess as a new player?

Hi, I recently got interested in chess as I watched my friend play it during class (he’s been playing for about a year) I spent an hour or two everyday during school to learn the rules, how to develop pieces, etc... and am quickly realizing how incredibly difficult it is. I lose every time to my friend except once when he blundered his queen. My first question is what specifically should I study first? I’m not interested in being serious in it (at least for the moment 😁) but to play it for fun when I have free time during school. Also, how much time do I need to invest in it to actually play good games and be able to play a good game without relying on the opponent making a big mistake.

Opening Principles:

1. Control the center squares – d4-e4-d5-e5

2. Develop your minor pieces toward the center – piece activity is the key

3. Castle

4. Connect your rooks

Tactics...tactics...tactics...

 

Pre Move Checklist:

1. Make sure all your pieces are safe. 

2. Look for forcing move: Checks, captures, threats. You want to look at ALL forcing moves (even the bad ones) this will force you look at, and see the entire board. 

3. If there are no forcing moves, you then want to remove any of your opponent’s pieces from your side of the board. 

4. If your opponent doesn’t have any of his pieces on your side of the board, then you want to improve the position of your least active piece. 

5. After each move by your opponent, ask yourself: "What is my opponent trying to do?"

Possibly of interest:
Simple Attacking Plans by Fred Wilson (2012)https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090402/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review874.pdf
http://dev.jeremysilman.com/shop/pc/Simple-Attacking-Plans-77p3731.htm
Logical Chess: Move by Move by Irving Chernev (1957)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708104437/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/logichess.pdf
The Most Instructive Games of Chess Ever Played by Irving Chernev (1965)
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/most-instructive-games-of-chess-ever-played/
Winning Chess by Irving Chernev and Fred Reinfeld (1948)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708093415/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review919.pdf
Back to Basics: Tactics by Dan Heisman (2007)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708233537/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review585.pdf
https://www.chess.com/article/view/book-review-back-to-basics-tactics
Discovering Chess Openings by GM John Emms (2006)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627114655/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen91.pdf
Openings for Amateurs by Pete Tamburro (2014)
http://kenilworthian.blogspot.com/2014/05/review-of-pete-tamburros-openings-for.html
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/openings-for-amateurs/
https://www.mongoosepress.com/catalog/excerpts/openings_amateurs.pdf
Chess Endgames for Kids by Karsten Müller (2015)
https://chessbookreviews.wordpress.com/tag/chess-endgames-for-kids/
http://www.gambitbooks.com/pdfs/Chess_Endgames_for_Kids.pdf
A Guide to Chess Improvement by Dan Heisman (2010)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708105628/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review781.pdf
Studying Chess Made Easy by Andrew Soltis (2009)
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708090448/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review750.pdf
Seirawan stuff:
http://seagaard.dk/review/eng/bo_beginner/ev_winning_chess.asp?KATID=BO&ID=BO-Beginner
http://www.nystar.com/tamarkin/review1.htm
https://web.archive.org/web/20140627132508/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/hansen173.pdf
https://www.chess.com/article/view/book-review-winning-chess-endings
https://web.archive.org/web/20140708092617/http://www.chesscafe.com/text/review560.pdf

The best think would be if you train a lot of tactics and begin to learn some basic opening and endgames. Good news is that you would improve quickly in the beginning, as you will begin soon to make less blunders in your games.

But the key for improvement is to play games and analyse them or with a better player or alone. After this you should check the game with the engine. Play, analyse, learn, play, analyse, learn: if you do this regularly is almost impossible not to improve. After a while you will win easily against most people in your school, you will see.

Good books on tactics, openings and endgames you will get in Chessable.com. There you learn using spaced repetition (google it). One of the books on tactics there is called 1001 Chess Exercises for Beginners. The book is ideal for you, and after some months of daily training you will begin to play beautiful combinations in your games.

Tactics are important to win a game by checkmate, or to win material, or to force a draw in a losing position.

A lot of people will tell you to forget about openings if you are a beginner. I don’t agree with this. It would be certainly useful if you begin already now to learn a basic opening system for white and black. Not much, just enough to get playable positions after 4 or 5 moves.

Good luck and congratulations, you found a really cool hobby!

You're saying you're not interested in being serious - at least, for the moment. Well, I don't think you are not serious about chess. I don't know what level of seriousness you are talking about but all I can advice to you to get better at chess is be serious about it.