The Good Musician

Increase your Practice Efficiency Tenfold with a Diary

by Arjun Muralidharan on July 8th, 2007

“I used to be quite haphazard with my practice routines, until I tried using a diary.”

How does your practice routine look? You get down with your instrument when you feel like it, open up the page of some piece you want to play and start playing? Do you just grab that guitar and start jamming about scales?

Well, that’s hardly efficient if you want to get anywhere. Musical practice could potentially fill your entire day, but since we’re limited with our time, you have to keep two things in front of you at all times:

1. Practice more often, in shorter blocks.
2. Be focused in your decision what to practice.

Practicing an instrument is like doing a workout. Tracking it is important, and consistency is key. I used to be quite haphazard with my practice routines, until I tried using a diary. Writing down what I wanted to practice exactly, and then tracking how many minutes each day helped me see where I was failing.

Here’s a way to design your diary page:

1. One week per page
Keep a header that holds the dates of a certain week (e.g., July 9-16).

2. Exact list of things to practice
In the main area of the page, list out the exercises and pieces you want to practice this week.

3. Log your minutes
In the bottom part of a diary page, log each weekday and the minutes practiced on that day.

This way, you will always practice the right stuff in the right order, because you wrote it down. You will also be more disciplined because you will feel obliges to fill out the diary every day. Try this, it works. It also works for workouts and diets, but I guess music is the most fun, right?

Soon, we will explore the nooks and crannies of practicing music, so until then, stay tuned and subscribe or you might miss it!

POSTED IN: Your Instrument & You