How should I organize my playing and learning?

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Hi. I started to play guitar probably 23-24 years ago. I learned most of things alone. I never had teacher to teach me guitar. And it was big mistake. Because I was not learning in order and I skipped many things and learned some things wrong way. I also had to make pause because of college and other obligations. And I forgot many things.

Songs that I play are Aerials, Hypnotize and Roulette by System Of A Down, Inhale by Stone Sour, Sepultura - Slave New World, Deftones - My Own Summer, Linkin Park - One Step Closer, Rage Against The Machine - *illing in the name. I know other songs too, but I am not sure if I learned them well, or I use bad technique, and because of it I decided to relearn them when I learn chords, techniques etc. form this course that are used in those songs. So, I will relearn them.

I Januar 2022 I started to relearn 8 shaper of bare chords. I knew them before, I was learning them 8 months, but I made big pause and started to learn them in January 2022 again. Those chords are B major x2444x, B min x24432, B min7 x24232, B7 x24242. I play them all 5 minutes almost every day. I play x24242 10 minutes because I play it 5 minutes from 1st till 10 fret, and then 5 minutes from 11 to 13 fret. I play also F shaped barre chords 5 minutes each: F major 133211, F min 133111, F7 131211, F min7 131111. Months ago I added A shaped chords too: x13331. Less than week I started to learn F major 7 131241. I play them on all frets, because they are moveable chords.

I learned open min and maj chords long time ago. But I relearn them again. Now I learn to play them when thumb is behind neck, like when you play barre chords. I learned them long time ago differently: my thumb was not behind neck, so listener/observer could see my thumb. I am too lazy to upload pictures, but I think that you will figure this out.

I also do some exercises for down picking and alternate picking because I need them for Sepultura. I play down picking with this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HOAM5N_kd4E, then I play some riffs for alternate picking and down picking from this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lP0ECoYQb-M, there are time stamps in description, if you want to watch. I play every riff 5 minutes. It is 30 minutes all riffs and down picking. And there are pauses between.

Sometimes I also turn on metronome and play 30, or 40 BPM. because it should improve my rhythm. I play it 5 minutes.

I also play Open chords A, D, E and G 320033, 5 minutes each, and do routine that I learned from module 1. I learn module 2 now.

Sometimes I play also G, Cadd9, Dsus4 and D to master those chords.

Now you know that I do many things. Sometimes I do not have enough motivation to do it. For example I did not play guitar today.

I was also making music. But I stopped. But I record my ideas. Now I have more than 5000 ideas.

How should I organize my time? Is there some good program where I can write what I was playing during day, what songs and how many times, what chord and how long, what transitions and how long etc.? and at end of week, month, or year, or when I click button, it calculates how much I was playing some song, chord etc.? Practice assistant is ok, but I do not want to follow same routines always. It is boring. I want to play what I want to play today, and next day to play everything that I did not play day ago?

Also what to do with 5000 ideas? I know that there are some amazing ideas there, but I did not gave them names, so it will be hard to find them. I also do not know how to decide what ideas I should ignore and what I should use. Maybe I should make midi pack first, or maybe it would be waste of time.

Sorry for long post. I could not make this shorter.

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Wow there is a lot to process there.

How should I organize my time? Is there some good program where I can write what I was playing during day, what songs and how many times, what chord and how long, what transitions and how long etc.? and at end of week, month, or year, or when I click button, it calculates how much I was playing some song, chord etc.?

If you want to track overall practice I like the app Andante. It gives statistics such has number of practice sessions, total practice time by day/week/month/etc.

It is not great for tracking each chord/song individually. For that I would use a spreadsheet.

Practice assistant is ok, but I do not want to follow same routines always. It is boring. I want to play what I want to play today, and next day to play everything that I did not play day ago?

Just picking up the guitar and playing is not practice, it is play. Practice needs to have some structure to it. It sounds like you may do some of that with devoting a set amount of time and using a metronome. Practice should push you. Just practicing what you already know isn’t going to result in improvement. You need to practice things you can’t do until you can and then add something else you can’t do to your practice routine.

Also what to do with 5000 ideas? I know that there are some amazing ideas there, but I did not gave them names, so it will be hard to find them. I also do not know how to decide what ideas I should ignore and what I should use. Maybe I should make midi pack first, or maybe it would be waste of time.

There is a Nolan Bushnell quote that I use all the time. “Everyone who’s ever taken a shower has an idea. It’s the person who gets out of the shower, dries off and does something about it who makes a difference.”

I have lists and list of ideas as well. You just have to pick one and run with it.

I like using Evernote to track my ideas. There a lot of similar programs like Notion to do the same thing.

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I’m kind of a spreadsheet nerd so I track my practice time daily to ensure I’m focusing on my priorities. My goal is to development improvisation skills so I make sure that’s where I spend a big chunk my time. I still go off on tangents and mess around but I find that I’m progressing faster by taking a more disciplined approach with practice.

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HI Metal123, you have already gotten some good advice. One good bit of advice I got from Justing is to balance focused and disciplined practice with free form and fun practice. I am pretty old school and keep a written table for the timed practice schedule to make sure that I spend a couple of weeks on a specific module or set of practice elements. I alternate one week focused practice and one week of fun and play and exploring ideas. I also keep a daily log to keep track of what I do each day, especially for what is not in my regular practice schedule. I also keep a spreadsheet of the songs from Justin that I am working on. I have accumulated a lot of supplementary practice material so I sometimes work on material from that on my week off. Justin has a lot of practice suggestions in the grade 3 lessons. In fact it was added to provide a transition from beginner to intermediate. Justin also says that it is a good idea to have a mix of things you know well, things you are learning now and a few techniques and songs that are just a little beyond your skill to keep growing. It might be a good idea to start a learning log in the community forum and you can get more feedback on your learning and practice ideas and follow your progress. Have fun.