Checks, Captures, Threats...and what?
The first thing you learn when you start to train tactics is to look for forcing moves, specifically Checks, Captures, and Threads (the famous CCT) as they force your opponent to take action. So that is what I did, or tried to do when solving tactics and in my games.
While reading the book “Improve Your Chess Calculation” by GM and coach RB Ramesh I found an interesting fourth component to this algorithm, Pawn Breaks.
In chapter 4, titled Forcing Moves, he says that including pawn breaks in your list of forcing moves can help improve your calculation skills quickly
I think this tip worked for me, just by having that in the back of my mind while accessing a position, trying to find a plan, or looking for a tactic.
for example in a 15+10 rapid Lichess game, I reached this position:
Normally here I would play something like Nd7, which I think is good enough, but by searching for pawn breaks as a forcing move I saw c5, which threatened to capture the d4 pawn, and if white plays dxc5 the pawn on e5 will fall making way for the majority of my pieces that are in the center.
I hope you found this tip useful, and let me know in the comments if you already knew this or if it’s the first time