I try to get my rooks and knights mobilized as soon as possible, leaving my queen and bishop for when i have a bit of control.
You can’t think about it like that.
Every time it’s your move, follow a routine like this:
1) Ask yourself “what are his threats?”.
2) Identify his threat(s), then determine if it/they are real. The best chess teacher ever said one can’t play this game passably well until one recognizes the unreality of the opponent’s unreal threats.
3) If the threats are unreal, you can do whatever you like. Ideally, developing new force with the biggest possible threat of your own.
4) If the threats are real, then there are three ways to deal with it: a) Hit him back harder, b) Put someone in the way, c) Run away. In any case, use inactive force.
There are two fundamental instructions for every position we ever play:
Examine all threatening moves. If you don’t see all of your threats, you win less efficiently. If you don’t see all of his, you lose.
Use inactive force. Superior force wins fights. The idea is to get all the force working, hit him one good time and lay him out flat. Bad players send out a piece or two, do a bit of skirmishing, then retreat to a neutral corner, dispatch another piece or two, lather, rinse, repeat. Good players get every unit working for one great push. The tricky part is that the other player is also gathering for one big push.