“Oh, so many things I want to practice, so little time to do them.” We all get like that sometimes. Here is my suggestion to make the most of your practice time. Regardless of the amount of time you have to practice, divide it into three parts.

Segment one will be “warm up”. Warm up with a little technical work. This is a good time to make sure your hands and arms are straight. Run through some familiar ladders. Play with a metronome. Metronome time can only take many hours if you are serious and serious about being a stronger musician. Play some of your favorite rhythm patterns too. Use different rhythm patterns while playing scales, chords, arpeggios, inversions of triads, and whatever else you can think of.

The next segment will be “growth.” Growth usually consists of non-musical work. Things like learning new scales and chords would fit into this category. Going over new theoretical ideas, learning new beats, or anything else new, these are all things that fit the growth segment. Now the more solid you get with your practice routine, I’m sure you can see how using a metronome you can cross the first two segments. When you move on to the second segment, turn up the challenge level and play unfamiliar scales or patterns. Increase the tempo or try increasing its subdivisions. For example, if you play eighth notes at 80 bpm, work in triplets or sixteenth notes at the same tempo.

The last segment is the “Fun / Jam” segment. That’s when you just have fun and play the songs you like, or put on a Jam-Along CD and throw some pentatonic licks on it. You can even change it to a “creative” segment. This is where you would be exploring songwriting ideas, creating melodies, or working on your improv skills. Make music!

Now we are all at different levels and we all have different goals. So feel free to be a little flexible with this plan. Let’s say you have an hour to practice. You can divide that hour into three 20-minute segments or two 15-minute segments and the third segment is 30 minutes. Maybe you really want to fine tune your rhythmic performance or pentatonic scales for an upcoming concert, audition, or rehearsal. You can lengthen your “growth” segment a bit and condense the other segments.

Also, make sure your goals are clear to you so that you know how to best customize the segments to fit your needs. Have fun with it!