I keep a list of about a half dozen complicated songs that I spent a lot of time learning and I enjoy playing. Maybe the song has a cool sounding chord progression, perhaps some licks, a solo or some fancy pickinā. I play one or two of these songs during most practice sessions so I donāt forget them. I try to focus on staying in time and playing cleanly.
Call it repertoire maintenance.
Iāll do the same. For me the hardest part is remembering all the lyrics. Iāll play the songs in āperformance modeā - so from beginning to end, playing through any mistakes and often record them too. Itās a very different type of practice.
For my part, I think the learning logs on this forum also serve a really useful purpose, especially for bedroom players. They give you goals to work towards and encourage you to actually stick to them. It works pretty well for me, anyway. It definitely helps motivate me to keep up my practice routine.
As for what you said about concentration, having a little ritual works quite well for me. I always start my two-hour practice session the same way: some pentatonic scales and a few riffs with the metronome. Then I know itās time to pick up where I left off the day before and work on getting it to sound clean.
I save playing through songs Iāve already learned for the end of the session, almost as a kind of reward, but also to make sure I donāt forget them.
Every now and then, I notice that something suddenly feels easier or sounds better than it did before. It doesnāt happen every time, of course, but when it does, itās really rewarding.
I like to do the opposite. Iāll sometimes set up (including my recording gear) hit record and the first note I play is the start of a song which Iāll sing beginning to end. I like to try and mimic the live environment as closely as I can, so no warm up, straight in.
Interesting topic and contributions.
The person I find myself more aligned with is Shane.
I do this, but I alternate practise with playing (80/20), because it keeps me motivated.
Several musicians of the past have said something over these lines: āIf an outside listener can recognise the piece youāre playing, youāre performing rather than practicingā. (Ivan Galamian, violinist)
Practicing makes you improve your musical skills a lot faster than playing, because it focuses on the minutiae of technique. E.g. bending, vibrato, timing, and so on.
One good way of practicing which even professional touring musicians do is taking a complicated piece and playing it really slowly, to perfection, noting every minor detail which can be lost when playing to speed.
See this by Dominic Miller
However, weāre all different and we also have different goals. If someoneās goal is relaxing and having fun with a musical instrument after work, then exclusively playing and never practicing is perfectly legitimate. Itās a lot better than doom scrolling on a smartphone or watching TV for sure.
Iām guessing most people on this forum donāt aspire to be professional musicians, so that approach will be common to many.
I personally have a different goal. I want to get very good and perform live with a band. I really enjoy that. To this goal, I dedicate at least 1hr every day to practice.
I like to follow a structured programme. I started playing the electric guitar 3 years ago (I knew some basic rhythm and campfire chords on acoustic before). I completed grades 1-4 on JG before I did BLIM3 last year. After BLIM3 I started working through the material again to digest it properly, but found I was getting lost without a proper structure, so I decided to sign up to RSL which is one of the 2 official music grading schools in the UK. I got the materials for all the electric guitar grades and started working on grade 5 by myself, after having been helpfully pointed to it as an appropriate level of difficulty for me by the teachers at JG. Iām almost at the end of my preparation and Iām hoping to do the grading exam this year. Then Iāll continue with the rest of the grades (until grade 8). Maybe Iāll start a learning log to share my progress. Following an official school gives me the confidence that Iām learning by using a well established programme which supposedly covers all the main aspects of the instrument and the skills required.
Currently Iām in an amateur band as a lead guitarist and vocalist sometimes, and that also helps.
Another thing Iāve found helpful is to try learning songs I like which are way beyond my current level. I spent almost 1 year on āAre you gonna go my wayā, including it in my practice routine, and found out itās a grade 7 song according to RSL. I have learnt it though, and Iāve learnt a lot through it.
I havenāt experienced a ādipā moment. Itās been pretty much āfull steam aheadā since I started. Again, that goes to say weāre all different. Iām quite skeptical of neurosciences that try to create mathematical models of human brains 
.
I hope you all keep playing and enjoying your guitars.
This was very useful for me. Iām one of the old folk but still upright & mobile. I AM intermediate, yea! I jumped from strumming to finger picking as soon as I felt comfortable with the cords & Iāve been jumping all over the place ever since. JG is my grounding point. My songs are old, back to the 60ās thru the 80ās but I LOVE them. My biggest problem is I keep finding another cool thing to make them better & start over, lots of Travis picking.
Iām 83 going on 30 in my minds eye. Unfortunately, I do have Sometimers Disease; meaning sometimes I can play the music without the music in front of me, but most of the time NOT! So, after 3 1/2 years Iām still at it as my life force & will bring it back with me in my next life instead of planning on being famous this round!
Itās great to have people who share without prejudice. What a great group!
Welcome to the community Nancy! Good to have you with us on this crazy journey 
Really great topic. I cycle frequently between feeling useless, punching the air, and feeling like Iām coasting and I think my problem is matching the type of session to my mood.
The types of play session as I see them are:
Learning: Iāll have 3 or 4 things that are outside my skill that Iām focusing hard on. This is a feeling good activity.
Practicing: these are the peices recently promoted from learning. Still not fluid, but able to play them without reference to a recording.
Playing: enjoying the songs I already know. This is for when it feels like Iāve got 10 thumbs. More often than not Iāll notice something wrong and polish it.
Gotta make sure I match what Iām doing with my current place in my confidence/paranoia cycle but also make sure I keep them balanced.
I also founding cycling the warm up songs helps, strumming the same campfire songs every single night just sets my mind wandering into a non cooperative state. Sometimes kife demands that though, and this is for emotional enrichment after all.
Hope this helps, wish I could reliably pull myself up next time at the bottom