1. Understand context/ board vision(most important). There must be some potienal targets potienal weaknesses, direct targets and direct weakness in all positions. An isolated pawn? A piece that is only defended once? A square that is attractive for a piece to take control of? Always pay attention to them and understand are they actually the targets U are going to use 2.Board activity. Once U identified targets or goals on the first step, think about your pieces. Make sure every pieces are doing their best. If some are already doing a specific defence move but u still wanna move it, use another piece to take his job first then move it on the next move. And if some pieces have a better square to go to, make sure to try to help them get there before your opponent does. Count the moves number and see if it's too slow or it's fine to be done. 3. Identify opponents' position. All opponent moves have a purpose. You have to understand what becomes stronger, what's become weaker after they move. And since u did step 1, you understand what kind of squares or actions you and your opponent might wanna focus on. You can stop it or do it before them in time when U understand opponent truly. 4. Understand what "you have, opponent doesn't have" and "you don't have, opponent has". Those are the key turning points of the game usually. Everyone will try to make a transformation of position with it. Identify it fast and do the proper action. 5. Understand how each pieces work. Understand what kind of pieces U have benefits you. For example, a bishop pair is better than a knight pair usually, if it's a bishop vs knight game, sometimes if U feel bishops are useless, they are actually potienal monsters in the later position. Another example is King's position. King is strong in the centre in endgames, weak af in opening and middle game. Make sure they are accessible to the centre while not be attacked in opening/ middle game. (Not gonna explain one by one here) 6. For actual action, since U know step 1, use your piece to take control of those target squares or target pieces. If U can control more by one piece, it is usually a good move. If U need a sequence of moves to do that, it's exactly the plan line U should not give up on. Since u have step1, U don't need to worry a lot in thinking the wrong plan usually.