No Time to Practice Guitar

Do you have a problem “fitting in” practice time?  When I first started playing guitar (and still sometimes today) I had a problem taking the time to practice.  Guitar is one of those things where you must practice to get better at playing.  One and a half hours of practice the night before your lesson does not equal fifteen minutes a day for six days when it comes to practice time.  At the time I thought it did.  I could come up with many excuses such as:

I’m too tired to practice

My fingers hurt

It takes too long to get setup to practice

I don’t know what to practice

I don’t have time

Most of the excuses would have taken care of themselves if I had only practiced each day.  The rest can be taken care of with a little planning and organization.

Guitar Practice Tips

First of all, no one has enough time but we do all have the same amount of time, 24 hours a day 7 Days a week.  That is fixed.  What we can do is utilize the time we have available a little better.  One of the things that helped me to start practicing every day is to set my guitar either on a stand or in the case close to where I sit in my home.  This made it easy for me to reach over pick up the guitar and spend a little time practicing.

Second, have some items to practice set out close to the guitar that you want to practice each week.  This can be a song you are learning, chords you are practicing, technique exercises, or something pertaining to your lesson that week.  This will help you spend less time deciding what to practice and more time actually practicing.

As I mentioned earlier, one and a half hours of practice the night before your lesson does not equal fifteen minutes a day for six days when it comes to practice time.  Consistency will help multiply your improvement.  Plan to practice at least fifteen minutes each day and you will on your way to seeing some improvement.  You can build up to more practice time as you get better at utilizing your time.   If you have a problem finding that fifteen minutes, do like I did.  I had plenty of time to watch television, and play video games so instead of spending all my time doing those things I re-prioritized.  Instead of watching that movie I have seen fifty times I practiced a little.  Instead of playing Guitar Hero again, I would be the hero and practice my guitar.  You can do this too.

Share in the comments what has helped you practice guitar.