The Quintessential Question

How does one improve their game?  I was average when younger (grade school through junior high) then other sports took time away and I'm just now getting back into it 7 or 8 years later.  It would seem to me that regardless of the amount of time playing, improvement won't come without study, but when I pour over books that I find it seems fruitless.

Thoughts?

Can I just load up chessproblems.com and do that 4 hours a day? 

study end games and analyse your own games you cant improve if you dont know where your going wrong.

try playing a game against someone 200 points higher then you. at the end of the game have your opponent tell you what he thinks of the game, what you need improvements on. i think this will have you quickly figure out what you need to improve on.

      this works well for me when i try to help opponents 200 points lower then me. i tell them on what move i was confident of a win, usually when they make a bad move. i view the game and within minutes i can figure out how they need to improve. 

 also try reviewing some of your favorite chess players games. i usually try and figure out what the next move is going to be and then after i am wrong i try and figure out why they made that move.

i hope these things are more exciting then reading a book or doing puzzles.