How do I overcome my laziness? - practical tips needed

I have a problem that I'm sure is pretty common here. I've been playing chess for a year, and studying it for a few months. I review my games, do tactics training, play slow games, do some endgame study and basic openings study. This is all good and fun, and I am improcing in these aspects but I fail miserably in improving my worst area - my lazy and sloppy attitude to my playing.

In my games I have noticed two kinds of mistakes that account for 100% of my losses. The first is failure to perform a saftey check in seemingly calm positions and losing material when there is a simple tactic. The other situation is in complex, highly tactical situations, especially when I'm defending from an attack. In these situations I recognize that a move (sometimes each move) is critical, and I do some calculation, but not nearly enough. I know that I haven't calculated all variations, but I get lazy and make a move prematurely.

I have read Heisman's columns and understand his ideas cimpletely, but I fail to force myself into playing "real chess" for an entire game. I also don't think this is primarily a problem with tactics as I do some tactics each day and can solve far more complicated tactics than I fall for during a game, at least the mistakes concerning safety checks as described above. Sure, pattern recognition is important here, and I have improved by doing tactics, but I think the main issue here is a lazy attitude to my playing.

What I need is practical advice on how to overcome this weakness. Does any stonger players recognize themselves in my description and have gotten rid of these bad habits? Please share your ideas and experiences, because I really like playing and studying chess, but there is little point in trying to improve if I can't correct this behavior.

Mayve when you sense that it is a critical position you should force yourself not to move for 5-10 minutes after you have decided on your move. Just sit there looking at the board and you will begin to analyze it beacause there is nothing else to do

I wonder if the reward of winning is insufficent or the punishment of losing inadequate?

The answer might help better define the problem. "Laziness" isn't much of an explanation.

Yes, "laziness" seems to have many causes, so many different contexts. "Laziness" itself, is a pretty lazy explanation

With regards play, what I do is seperate "fun chess" and "serious chess". If I play fun chess all the time, I'll never improve. If I only play serious chess, I'm sure to lose my mind...

Serious chess is a healthy dose of OTB complemented with a couple of long time control games on the ICC each week where I force myself to be disciplined and calculate carefully.

Fun chess is online games where I experiment with different openings and play almost entirely on intuition.

Paradoxically, fun chess often bores the hell out of me because it's hard to find an interesting game

Usually what I have help me out is that I go to a chess club every week.  I think playing OTB games really helps out.  While of course it's hard to play OTB if it's not available I think there is just something that makes the game more....progressive.  That way you can discuss (assuming your playing a decent player) what you did wrong, how you could have done better, etc...

I suppose I could try that. This idea tries to adress the second situation that I described. To do this, I need to classify positions as either critical or non-critical. I will think about this suggestion for a while.

I should add that the second problem (concerning calculation in percieved critical positions) is the lesser problem of the two. I lose to failure to perform adequate safety checks more often than failure to calculate accurately.

I don't know, but I don't think that is the major issue. I feel good about myself when I win (if it's a good game and not an easy win) and I feel miserable when losing. If I have to pick one, I would say that I feel more miserable when losing than I feel good when winning. Is that an adequate answer to your question?

Laziness of course is not the whole story. Other areas of life require most of my time and energy, so I'm always tired when playing. I'm sure it would be easier for me to focus on my games and goals if I was single, without kids, and unemployed, but fortunately, I'm not. So I have to work with what I've got and try to make the most of the avaliable time, and I think I can do better than I've done so far in respect to the issues described in my first post.

But it's also a question of mindset and attitude. Though I started playing chess somewhat regularly about a year ago, I had played occasionally since high school and even though we never used a clock, I always played to fast and sloppy. My friends were always better than me in taking their time, trying to make sure that pieces weren't hanging etc. And during these years, I didn't have any other comittments than school, which I didn't take very seriously anyway.

So I feel that I do have a mindset problem that we can call laziness, sloppiness or whatever, and I hope that I can change this. Doing tactics training and playing slow games help to some extent, but I think this problem is separate from actual "technical" skills or pattern recognition etc.

Writing on the iphone is pretty cumbersome and time-consuming. Please see post #9 for a less lazy explanation.

Interesting idea, but it doesn't appeal to me. I treat every chess game seriously and I want to try my best. Of course, trying different openings with the intention of getting a feel for the positions is a good idea, but I wouldn't treat these games less seriously.

I have been playing some blitz lately to get to play more openings (not other openings than I use normally, just getting to play them more often). While blitz is fun, I  don't like the idea that the blitz attitude spills over to my regular playing and makes me play less focused. I'm not sure this happens, but I'm afraid of it so I'm considering abandoning blitz completely until I achive a specific goal.

I've planned to join a club and play one or two evenings per month or so. Unfortunately, I can't do that right now so it'll have to wait. I can really appreciate the benefit I would get from this, so I'm looking forward to be able to do this.

Wow! So this is like a psychological problem you have? Okay, I'll do a profound, psychological analyses of why you don't take chess as seriously as you do, say...life in general.

                               You're crazy

Please don't post here if you have nothing of value to say.

I think gold is going to go up. Past $2000.00 per ounce, methinks...

I have the same problem: I can calculate very well, if I calculate. When playing blitz, I'm finding myself winging attacks, making sacrifices that just feel like they should work, without calculating that far ahead. I like blitz because it is a time pressure test of just how much I know. When I'm near an endgame, I have a few seconds to decide what trades will make the endgame winnable, which is a great test of how well I studied that book. I also like the fact that blitz forces me to think hard and non-stop. I know I'll lose a game when I find myself just staring at the board, waiting for my opponent to move, unable to muster enough self discipline to keep planning even when my clock is not ticking. The speed drills and intensity are good exercise, but I must be careful not to assume anything about my true abilities based on my blitz rating. Real chess involves thinking 3-5 moves ahead and logically picking the best option, which is nearly absent in blitz. Blitz is a subset of the chess thinking process.

Whether I win or lose, I find myself quit bored with the chess if I'm not thinking hard the whole time. It is not fulfilling.

The cure for chess is the same as for life. How do you deal with procrastination, anxiety, and laziness in your other daily tasks? Someone on here made a good point: the rewards and penalties don't seem high enough. Only last minute pressure gives these, when feelings of futility can suppress them even then. The key is to find a reward/punishment system you can set up earlier, as well as a way to lower any other bariers to avoiding the task.

Silman and many others made a good point: "It is not enough to know what to do. You have to actually do it." That is one of the differences between successful and non-successful people.

My engineering mentor once told me: "The reason your classmates get their homework done and you don't is not because it has always been easy for them to focus. It is because they have gradually over the years nipped away and developed that part of their brain. You need to start doing the same." Brain scans show that adults have a more developed cerebral cortex than do children, and thus have more executive control of their brain, and more free will. Binge drinking reverses this gradually. If you want yours to get better over the years, you need to start taking steps and not get discouraged if it does not happen over night.

I play a lot of games and I blunder. I am trying to look at each of my opponents pieces and every move they can make and how it might hurt me, before I move.

Oh dear, reading your post is like looking in a mirror: you describe my predicament, though I had not articulated it as well as you have. 

While I love chess, when faced with a tactically complicated positon, I will invariably select a move quickly, largely based on intuition/hope and then just 'give it a go'; ie: no proper analysis, no deep thinking of consequences, no careful assessment of candidate moves, etc. 

Why? Is it 'laziness'? I don't think there is such a thing. As others have implied, it is only about motivation. The deeper question is: what motivates me (and you) to play sloppy intuitive chess, rather than deeply considered thoughtful chess? 

The answer is, surely, that proffered by Epicurus: our only motiviation is the happiness; I am writing this only becuase, in this very instance of time, it is my best 'happiness strategy'; if there was any other activity that would lend itself to greater personal happiness now, then I would be doing that, perforce. You are reading this for the same reason.

If that thinking holds, it suggests that we need to find happiness in the process of evaluating and analysing a chess position; find enjoyment in identifing candidate moves and culculating as best we can the consequences of each. Instead, I think I am hooked on the 'story': I want to find out now what is going to happen next; a focus on outcome, rather than process.

Some famous GM said, in words to this effect: I only plan ahead one move at a time: I always plan on making the next move the best in the position.

To join the dots, we need to find satisfaction (the best form of happiness) not in  adventure (oh, let me venture this move, and see what happens) but rather in the process of looking for the best move. Only if we experience the process of evaluation and analysis more enjoyable than 'trying our luck' will we be able to improve the quality of our chess thinking, and therefore the quality of our chess. 

Hmm: some thoughts, something to think about more! Thanks for your post!

An alternative is to accept your inner lazy person. Here's some quotes that might help:

"But you know, my dad called me the laziest white kid he ever met. When I screamed back at him that he was putting down a race of people to call me lazy, his answer was that's not what he was doing, and that I was also the dumbest white kid he ever met." -Norman Lear

"Human nature is above all things lazy." - Harrient Beecher Stowe

"You can't teach people to be lazy—either they have it, or they don't."
—Dagwood Bumstead

"Ambition is a poor excuse for not having sense enough to be lazy."
—Edgar Bergen

"I prefer the word 'indolence.' It makes my laziness seem classier."
—Bern Williams

"Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow."
—Mark Twain

"Laziness is nothing more than the habit of resting before you get tired."
—Jules Renard

"It is better to have loafed and lost than never to have loafed at all."
—James Thurber

"It's true that hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?"
—Ronald Reagan

"Progress is made by lazy men looking for easier ways to do things."
—Robert A. Heinlein

"Hard work often pays off after time, but laziness always pays off now."
—Larry Kersten

Am learning the chess game , 2 similar problems i have- (defence) don"t re check for loose ends , also see a good move and play it (find a good move- don"t rush in' find a better one , until discipline is corrected in those problems what is the point of me doing tactics training . get the basics in order .