I do like good quality notebooks, and have been using a Rollbahn for years. The nice thing is you can flick back through the pages and see old stuff you once worked on… like going back in time.
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I’m very much the technologist. Worked for Oracle corp in highly technical roles for many years. Yet when it comes to taking meeting notes and such I’ve always stuck to pen and paper. Have read recent tests where comprehension is reported to be higher with such tactile approaches as compared to taking notes on a laptop.
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Exactly. And not only that. It can give you new, very personalised perspectives that the digital realm just can’t deliver.
Hi,
I use pen and paper, but there is/was no structure there…I have neatly done all the grades lessons and put a lot of them (300+) in ‘favorites’, I know where I should look…maybe I will do that one day…
I learn songs, intros and riffs here and that’s how I improve the fastest
My goals are good sleep and have fun playing and one day playing live with some people i know at least one time 
Greetings,Rogier
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I want to echo what others have said. I keep spreadsheets and tables in Word docs to track things. I’ll attach a small example from grade 1 completion. I keep them displayed on my laptop during practice and edit them as needed when I make practice.
Perhaps, and this is just me thinking out loud, you could have templates available where people could log their progress. They could download them and print them out and put them in a binder when progress has been made, or when they are finished with a grade.
The app, maybe, could be streamlined so that it tracks you through the course and keeps track of your progress, but the fine minutiae is left to the user, like with the recommendation for the songbook. The app tracks, the student documents. Or perhaps, the app could generate a spreadsheet for the student? Again, just thinking out loud. Do I get my participation trophy? 
Yep.
Been using some or other form of notebook for years now. Never lets me down.
Never has a connection problem, battery problems are non-existent, the screen is always on and ready for you and editing is a breeze… 
These are nice too. I bought one after I heard Justin recommending keeping a lick journal. Decent quality paper and binding.
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Because you are writing it down I would suggest that you choose pen & paper.
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For Question 1.
I felt like I should chip in here too. I used the Practice Assistant quite extensivly Seen Here
Shortly after this near theend of Grade 1 all this data was lost bacause, making sweeping changes to the Routines section of the Practice Assistant, also removes the history of those routines. Unbeknown to me at the time (wasn’t obvious at the time). If there was a means to keep that stored somehow it wouldn’t have felt like the loss it was at that time. EVEN if the slef interest party can store offline !
From that point on, I stopped tracking
- Answered in question 1, loss of data
- This is obvious to me, Guidance above all else right through to becoming intermediate player
- Allows me to store my own data on my pc from the Assistant
R
Fanny said to write the answer in a reply instead 
its not really the same since I still use my computer
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I’m with Rogier on this one. People have been playing music since the beginning of time without the use of apps. I want to spend more time playing guitar and being out in the sunshine, and less time typing and staring at screens. Also, ever since college my learning has always been reinforced by writing notes.
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I keep my practice diary (pen and paper) front and centre of my desk (with my guitar right beside my chair). I do love a good notebook and also a nice pencil, although I use different coloured pens and the occasional highlighter in my practice journal.
I keep a tally of my practice, I guess it’s the same kind of motivation as a streak. I think having a streak you don’t want to lose can be good motivation, especially on days when you’re tired and not feeling it.
I also use it to jot down any notes or ideas I have when I practice and notes from things like the live Clubs.
I’m considering using the practice assistant as I often have the website open when I practice anyway to look things up, or listen to things again. Can you already link the website lessons and songs into the practice assistant? That would be helpful.
Thanks for asking
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I used the Practice Assistant in Grades 1 and 2, but when the lessons got longer in grade 3 and I needed more flexibility it became unusable for me. Pen and paper checklists and daily goal planning lists work now.
What I could have used is something like a Song Assistant. I have been using a spreadsheet in the Numbers app on my iPad to copy song titles to a spreadsheet and keeping track of songs practiced and progress. I might could achieve some of this with more understanding of the dashboard tracking but automatic lists of when I use a Song lesson video and dates completed would be nice.
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For me the main functionalities of integrated practice assistant should be flexibility, but also possibility to get insights from your stored practices. This means two things: (1) what you log as your practice should be stored and not deleted ever and (2) you should be able to used stored data to analyse. In example, I want to store each day of practice based on my categories and update time spent in minutes. I would like then to create reports that will take that data and summarise and present it in a new light - “How much time on average I played daily per each year?” "Do I increse or decrease avg timings? What did I focus on (i.e. rhythm, lead)? How did focus change through years? I would try to figure out why.
How much time I spend working on specific skills, i.e. economy picking? How much time I spent learning new songs? How much time I spend playing with people? Which months historicaly I have less or more time for practice? Is there a pattern and why? I would try to figure out ways to change this.
I think for this kind of fully inegrated tracking and analytical framework, the spreadsheets have little to no alternative. I have been using them since I started.
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I might be the odd one out but I use the practice assistant as well as pen and paper 
. I get value from both.
The assistant lets me track things over time and lets me see if I’ve spent too much practice time on (say) scale practice and too little on improvisation. I make my own routines to track specific exercises or songs, so I can see how much time I put into a song before an OM. I like the little graphs showing practice time for the week or month - easy to see outliers.
So why do I use pen and paper? Well I like writing diaries, I find it easier to create a new or modified routine on paper than online (too many clicks to find and move a routine into the right order), and I write my review of the week at the end of each page. I often go back and read what I thought about my own playing 6 or 12m back and that can be motivating to progress written down.
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I created a xls back in 2014 when starting the old Beginner’s Course. Its been morphing annually with my playing development ever since. Many examples have been shared in my Roadcase over the last decade or so.
The xls gives me the flexibility to add non-Justin material and include hyperlinks to online lessons and course material etc on my PC and links to some of the tools I use, Guitar Pro for example.
I did try the PA during BLIM and found it restrictive and I needed to create customise schedules to work with my focus areas. Didn’t gel with it personally but I think it would be beneficial to those going through G1 - 3. G4 and above would likely to be fine if you are just using Justin and only Justin. But I think once you hit the intermediate stage, you start searching out other teaches - something which Justin actually encourages along the line (though I can recall the video name to link it).
Mt 2 cents
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Yes, and even have the video lesson running while you do the practice if needed.
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I use the practice assistant and am generally happy with it. Just like any software, you do need to figure out how to use it for your particular needs and tastes. I routinely make my own practice routines and items, and find it to be fairly easy to use.
My only issue with the practice assistant right now is that it often does not save notes that I add to my practice items, or forgets the changes I make to my routines when I add a new item, remove an item, shuffle the order, etc. I have 2 practice routines that I rotate every other day. At the end of the routine, I’ll select the other routine so it’s ready to go. But when I load up the practice session the next day, it didn’t remember the change I made.
I access the Practice Assistant with my iPad using the Safari browser.
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For me a lot of it is just reducing screen time. I’m staring at a computer all day at work, and my phone all day, too. It’s exhausting having a device in my face all the time. I don’t want anything in my life that keeps me online more than I already am. I would absolutely spend money on material tools (like the printed songbooks, or even a neat planner), but I realize that is increasingly less feasible.
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