So I'd played poker pretty seriously for several years, and then hardly at all the past few. I'm just now returning, and viewing it with a ground up approach.
Basically I want to have a solid foundation, and get my thought process, and decision making at the table squared away.

I was a member of both DC and CLP, and still have a lot of the videos saved away, so I've been reviewing those.

So what I've been doing so far after a few sessions back. I'm trying to at least get some of these things to be somewhat effortless/habitual to save myself some mental energy.

I'm trying to make sure I keep track of the amount of players in the pot, the pot size, and their effective stacks. This is becoming much much easier, now that I'm actively working on it.

Mostly I've been trying to do my hand reading, and player reads in a kind of broad general sense. This is where I feel like I could use some suggestions and advice, on how/what to focus on.

So for preflop I'm looking at each player through the lens of... How much is he, calling, raising, and folding. I'm also trying to pay attention to post flop action in the same manner. I know paying attention at showdown will definitely help with putting them on more accurate ranges, but I essentially have been basing that mostly off of the action/any deviation from that particular person's standard.

Basically I don't want to junk my head up too much at first. So am I approaching this is a pretty decent way? Mostly at this point I'm ok with more broad/generalized reads, and I can refine them as I get a little more used to doing it.

Suggestions and advice are appreciated!

You'll soon be categorising your opponents into bands of tag, lag, nit etc. You don't need too many hands to get a good idea of what category a specific player is.

The hardest thing for live play is concentration. Online every detail is spoon fed to you in an idiot proof manner. Live requires much more attention.

Good luck

I do a few things to categorize people:

Do they play a lot of hands pre? Do they raise a lot pre? Do I see them 3-bet much and particularly do I see them turn up with non-premiums when they do 3-bets?
Post-flop - Are they more likely to make calling mistakes, betting mistakes or both?

It's not junk in your head. It's all part of the (lack of) information you need to work your way through each hand successfully. It's OK to simplify, but I think I would just take a few extra moments to work my way through all the information you think you have rather than cast off what could be useful in your decision.

You will eventually take back the pace that you had before. Ignoring information can lead to bad habits that are hard to turn around.

There's nothing wrong with 'working' on certain parts of your game each session, but I keep a paper with my cash that has certain basic poker points on it that get me into the game mindset and I always look at it before I get out of the car and walk in to play.

If you are referring to opponent 'information' I use nick names to help trigger my thoughts about each player. Mr. Bets-the-Turn Miss 76-suited BB-defender. Also spend an orbit watching 'only' 1-2 players when not in a hand to establish a behavior baseline to work from.

Sounds like you will be just fine, just don't out think yourself. Most of poker is face value anyway .. if not, nice hand and move on. GL

Thanks guys!

Answer,
When I said junked up, basically what I meant was trying to work on too many concepts all at once (which is the issue I think I had before). Despite being a winning player, I definitely had some fundamental leaks. Generally I want to say my reads/hand reading were my weakest points.

So I'm definitely being active as far as trying to pay attention.
I actually have a notebook at home from when I was watching the videos, I think I'll bring that a long and kind of glance at it before I go in!
I think the nicknames thing is really clever, and I'll give that a try!