What is the best way to quickly improve my tactics?

The chesstempo list is a little too detailed IMO. I think beginners might find it overwhelming.

I agree with solving by theme is ideal. Some good ones to start with IMO are fork, pin/skewer, discovered attacked/discovered check, and removing the defender.

I've seen this book recommended a few times. It divides them by theme and it looks very good
https://www.amazon.com/Back-Basics-Tactics-ChessCafe-Chess/dp/1888690348

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As for what to look for during a game (or when solving a puzzle), you look for forcing moves. Moves the opponent can't ignore. Checks, captures, and threats. Sometimes it's hard to find the right move because it seems to lose material (like starting with a sacrifice). When one move order seemed promising, but doesn't work, try calculating the same idea, but with a different move order.

Yeah, definitely spend multiple minutes. Calculate until you're sure your answer is correct, don't guess at something that might work. After 5 or 10 minutes you can give up and just guess.

But for example I've spent 30-40 minutes on one position before. At that point it becomes more of a calculation exercise than tactics, but e.g. spending only 30 seconds hardly seems like actual training. If the puzzles are that easy you need to find harder ones.

Great advice Chin, thanks..i picked up a few ideas too.

 I remember thinking this a long time ago.  After every game I lost I would think if I just didn't make that mistake, or if I just didn't hang that knight, I could have won...  So what did I do?  I tried to stop doing those things.  Did it work?  Nah not really, I still do those things to this day.  In my opinion, it's okay to say, "Just stop hanging pieces," but at the same time, it's harder to do than to just try and "will yourself" to stop making those mistakes.  

Now I am not a strong chess player in the sense that I am above 2000 USCF or FIDE, however, I play decently at the amateur level, well past the beginner stage.  Coming from me, as a person who has tried, you can't just, will yourself to stop hanging pieces, or stop walking into mate.  It's easy for a 2000 player to just say that because it comes easy for them, but the reality is beginners do it because they do not have the chess fundamental knowledge that the 2000 player has, not because they didn't develop the "skill" of not hanging pieces.  Sure, you can say to yourself in a particular game, I am going to attempt to not hang any pieces, and work towards that goal, but chances are you are going to forget everything about that after the first few moves.  I am a slow thinker.  What that means I take a long time to think about my moves and make them.  I do not do pointless checks or pointless attacks on the queen that can be easily parried.  I usually make well thought out moves (not all the time.)  This means I use more time on the clock, and often lose with time (bad side of it).  Over the years I have gains a lot of patterns in my head and threw away old bad thinking algothrims that allowed me to get a lot faster than I once was, however, I am, and always will be, a slow chess thinker.  I have accepted this.  Now, to get to what I was saying.  I remember the days when I used to say to myself before the start of a game.  "I'm going to keep telling myself to not think when I am starting to take too long to make a move and just make a move," but I forgot all of that by move 2.  Moral of the story is it's impossible to "remember" to not hang pieces or to try and make it a goal to try and not to hang pieces in a particular game.  I've tried it.  It doesn't work.  Maybe it's just me, but I believe it's true across the board.  Your mind is just more focused on making moves than to remember to "not hang pieces" every move.  Perhaps I didn't try for a long enough period of time, in which case I would gather the solution would be to tie a sign on the clock so you remember every time you push it, and have to take the sign away from the time window each time reading it so you remember.  That to me would be the only way to remember.  Of course, you will lose time while adjusting the paper that is telling you to not hang pieces, but I guess sacrifices must be made for the greater good.  Do not know how good this will be in helping your game, as I said, I was never able to will myself to stop hanging pieces.  Don't really understand why anyone would think this is good advice or achievable advice.  Perhaps they did it?  I don't know, but all I know is, for the most part, it doesn't work, and this advice only sounds good on the surface, but is impossible to execute if you think about it.

So what do you do then?  How do you stop hangine pieces?  Answer is you will never stop hanging pieces 100% of the time.  You will just gradually make less and less mistakes.  Actually a person that might be good at answering this question is a friend of mine, that rarely makes any blunders in speed chess, which is why he is considered to be a very good chess player.  I've found that the key to improving your rating is to make very little mistakes.  I believe the only way to do that is practice by playing a lot of games, where you take the time to think about your moves and the possible opponent replies.  All you do is this:

Before you make a move consider your opponents last move, why did he make it?  You must answer that question.

Next, gather a list of possible candidate moves.  In order to save time, try and come up with the very next move from your opponent and discard the ones that you do not like.

The key to "not hanging pieces" is not to magically learn to just will yourself to stop making those silly mistakes, but to get into the practice, of making a list of candidate moves, and to not just merely make the first move that comes to your head.  You often do not have enough time to do this in blitz, which is why it is best to do this in games with longer time controls.  Just make a list of candidate moves, and narrow it down to just one move by considering your opponent's replies.  In doing this you will learn how to stop any threats from your opponents, and will not find yourself in a position where your opponent has an unstoppable mate, unless you just simply did not see the continuation while you were picking your candidate move, in which case the only thing that can remedy this is to simply study tactics tactics tactics.  The more patterns you are aware of the more stronger a chess player you will be.  Another key to improvement is learning as many patterns as possible.  Start with addition, subtraction, then multiplication, division, and work your way into algebra, trig, then calculus.  I speak metaphorically of course.

Oh yes, your right sorry I just get irritated when someone says, "Just stop hanging pieces."  If you train yourself to ask, "Are there any checks captures and threats," then you will gradually stop hanging pieces and make it into a habit.  Yes.  I, unfortunately, learned bad habits early on and have to attempt to unlearn them, which will take time, but I think if I do this I can gain some points.  Don't know how much, but some...  Hopefully, I will achieve my last posted goal in... hmm I should put a time frame on it...

Excellent thread!

Agreed, some good information here...and it's about chess

i agree that knowing the tactics names and definitions are a key element in keeping them in you head.  Here are two interactive pages of tactics definitions and you should review them from time-to-time so you know them:

http://chesstempo.com/tactical-motifs.html

https://www.chess.com/article/view/chess-tactics--definitions-and-examples

Additionally, working the tactics problems here and at chesstempo.com every day it's practical for you is a great way to improve your pattern recognition of the various tactics. But do NOT just do the problems. After you solve it, ask yourself what tactics you used to solve it, then check the tags listed with each one and see if you agree. If there's a tactic you don't know or remember - look it up and learn it again.

I've always been unsure about the Timer aspect of Tactics training.

Is it important to find the solution quickly, or is it better to just make sure you get the solution?

In actual games, it depends on the clock situation, obviously, but in training?

 The chess.com timer is a (IMO) bad feature that just encourages guessing a solution as soon as you find something that looks a little promising.

Yes, you should make sure you have the correct solution before playing the first move. To improve a skill, you need to practice that skill... and in a game you don't guess, you try to be as sure as you can before you start a tactical sequence.

The only time you should guess on a puzzle is if it's taking you a long time. I think 5 to 10 minutes is a reasonable limit because it means you're not familiar with the pattern at work, and at that point you're trying to brute force the solution. You could keep trying to find the solution, but it becomes a calculation exercise, and for the sake of tactics it's useful to give up and move on.

Although if you're interested in improving your visualization it can be useful to get some puzzles that are a little too hard for you, and calculate as much as you can trying to find the solution.

Notice that this will also be your process during a real game. At first you're looking for known patterns, but at some point it devolves into brute force calculation. If the position is not very sharp or important, then be careful not to spend too much time each game in pure calculation mode as it's not very productive and drains your energy.

So in that way too practicing a set time limit can help you get a feel for when, during a real OTB tournament game, it's time to make up your mind and just play a move. (and in a real game, if you haven't found a tactic in 5 or 10  minutes, it may simply not exist)

Sound stuff, Chin, can't disagree with any of your reasoning...as far as OTB is concerned, your phrase "...it's time to make up your mind and just play a move" brings back some painful memories!

I must admit I do like this other site you mention to practise tactics. 1. It's free to register, 2. There is no element of time affecting your score should you get it right, you can spend an hour on one problem and not be punished - as far as I am aware anyway and 3. you can tackle far more than just 5 problems a day.

It would be nice to have an analysis tool so that you can look at other variations that perhaps don't work which this site offers.

I've noticed my rating on here has plummeted lately whilst my rating over there has improved.

Another thing I've noticed that may be useful to the OP is that while it is useful to look at forcing moves and checks, also consider checks that will cost you that piece (a sacrifice), especially those that move the opposition king to another square. Missed a few of those lately.

I noticed you have a diamond membership. Danny Rensch has a video series here that I found instructive. I can't remember what they were called but something about tactical patterns everyone must know. He starts out with the basics in video one, then beyond the basics, and goes on about 5 pins, 5 discoveries, 5 forks etc everyone must know in later videos. Also his mating patterns everyone must know are great videos as well. 

Edit: I found the link

https://www.chess.com/article/view/video-series-on-tactical-patterns-you-must-know

No offense but I disagree with pretty much all of this, it's not about "willing" yourself to stop hanging pieces it's about consciously focusing on stop hanging pieces.  I mean hanging pieces is like any other bad habit we have and if you want to break a bad habit, it's going to take some effort on your part.  Yes you're right you do have to focus on the game and making good moves but if you have that problem of hanging pieces, you should focus on that and simply try and make sure on every turn that all of your pieces are safe or at least "tactically safe", meaning that a piece may look "en prise" but if it's taken, the person will fall into a tactic of some sort.   

The latter of the two requires a bit of pattern recognition as admittedly a bit more advanced, one should focus on simply not hanging pieces, especially if one is a beginner.