I have a full time job, wife, and child so I know it can be difficult at times. I try to at least get and hour of practice per day. What I do to ensure that is wake up a little earlier than everyone else and practice for a half an hour before starting the day. Then I also get a half an hour in before I go to bed.
For the most part Iām usually successful but there are some days where I only get the morning half hour in or maybe 45 min total. Starting the day with it ensures that I at least get half of in.
I use Justinās practice assistant for this. Separating my practice into 5 minute chunks. I might work on rhythm for a song for 5 minutes then switch to chord changes for another 5.ā And so on. If youāre time poor every minute counts.
I donāt find nearly as much time to practice as Iād like to, but one great way I find to practice is on my lunch break at work. Most days I can practice ~ 40 minutes out of my hour lunch break. I leave an electric guitar (thatās not worth much) at work, and I have an AmPlug I use so I can hear myself but with my office door shut nobody else can hear me (or not too much anyway). So if practicing on your lunch break at work is possible, thatās a great way to get some good practice time in.
For some reason when I read the question I thought you meant writing songs - you mean learning songs?
Iām in a similar situation to Alexis, so learning new songs happens in the evenings after the kids are asleep. I donāt watch much TV, and very seldom play video games. Learning new songs from zero is mentally tiring so I only do that when I feel like it, but practicing ones I already know to get better is possible even when tired.
I think it can really depend what your life balance is like. If you have to get up super early and have a long commute, or travel for work frequently, itās going to be hard. Iām fortunate in that I have reasonable work/life balance.
Yes. I am the living proof of how effective the Justin timeboxing is haha. I learned that when I just started guitar with Justin vids, and it helps me to improve tremendously in no time
For my current stage āpractisingā have different meaning in a way that I need to actually study the songs xD (figure out the way I play on guitar)
Listened to Andy Mckeeās Rylynn and realised I know bit part of the song but never got to finish learning it T.T (same as the most recent song on my learning logā¦)
Never thought of that. That is certainly creative use of time! I usually would read books during spare time in work. In my humble opinion,
having a good mentality and lifestyle would indirectly improve my guitar playing, wouldnt it? =)
I think @jkahn makes an important point here. I know I could get in more practice time if I made different choices with how I spend my time. I think there is a fine line between rest & relaxation and āwastingā time eg watching TV just to unwind is not necessarily bad but can easily become a bad habit that consumes lots of time.
I usually try to get one to two hours of practice in daily. But that doesnāt always work, since i attend school in the evenings, twice a week, and on friday evenings, nothing gets done. So that leaves the other days of the week to get some practice done. And even that isnāt all that simple, because every now and then, i get the urge to watch the latest episode of this or that series iām following.
Itāll always be an excersice, i guess, in what i want to do and what i know i must do.
The important thing for me is not to fret about it.
a dedicated place in the house, doesnāt need to be a place reserved for guitaring only. Just a place where you can go to, to get in the right mindset.
Timeboxing is mentioned before; knowing in the morning or the day before when you want to spend x amount of time sure helps.
Remove distractions and manage expectations; I tell my family Iāll be up āmaking musicā for the coming hour or so. Try to get done what needs to be done (that day) first though. When you have kids, timeboxing becomes even more crucial.
Then, when you are in your place, time and āzoneā; approach the song properly: Tip: Memorizing songs
Learning songs is a different discipline to practicing. Iāve never devoted much time to practicing until recently so my time was spent learning songs. As Justin says, you need to play the song through at least 5 times before you start. To really learn the song, I would put it on a CD and play it in the car on the way to/from work.
At home I have software that lets me slow down, change pitch, edit and loop songs or parts of songs. So to learn I have to be in front of a computer. Often this would be in a bedroom away from the children as they got older. I had to snatch whatever time I could which probably meant learning things in a rush and never really mastering them.
Now Iām semi-retired I have more time and can āpracticeā in the morning first thing but learning songs needs more focus so is later in the day.
Some terrific comments here already on carving out time, practice segmentation and where you have set up / set aside to practice.
In terms of the process itself, I think accepting that alot / most songs will be a lengthy process to go through and master is fundamental with the limited time most of us have. Baby steps is key and I do like to follow alot of Justinās advice here. Mainly, if itās a song I donāt know that well to really listen to it a number of time, and augment that with say listening to songs I want to learn in the car. Actually getting it under my fingers is about simplicity at first, single strums per bar to get changes and timing understood which can help identify sections or chord changes that may need more work. Things like that can be worked on in OMC exercises for that particular song. If thereās any single string pieces or picking needed thatās also broken into a dedicated section of my practice. Then in time begin to piece it all together, get a strumming pattern going and it should come together
I am quite lucky. The kids have grown and gone. I work 7-3 and my wife does a split shift, so in the afternoon she leave for work at about 2.30 and I get home at about 3.30. That leaves me a good couple of hours every day to get some practice in. Obviously life gets in the way sometimes but other than that all is good.
I do tend to find that during the week I practice OMCās and scales, that sort of thing, along with songs but at weekends, that will just be for playing songs.
Hi Peter! Found your thoughts intriguing, and thinking of you must going through some difficult guitar solos similar to me And it does take some skills, which may have been the reason why professional guitarists picking up songs at a faster pace.
For my situation, I have enough muscle memory to execute most basic techniques, so my problems are to first figure out the songs (this is mentally exhausting, really ), then tackle the technical difficulty for specific song (by means of practising to develop muscle memory do help, but there many other aspects that contribute to the difficulties)
Then it comes to when I need to put it to work. That alone takes some serious motivation and reasons lol. Personally I am single young adult (the youth, haha) right now I will try to adopt fellow ideas here and squeeze out some time for the study of new songs
I just have my time slot booked in the evenings which I try (and mostly being successful at it) not to miss out on. Help the fact I donāt have children too so plenty more time available to my disposal comparing to many other people Also nowadays I donāt do warmups or exercises - I just jump the gun with stuff I am learning straight away and if I am a bit wobbly at the start I just use a song I previously learnt that has some similarities to one I am learning now. That way I can warm up quicker and in a more fun way
@DarkWillowTM hi you must be learning by ear like me too. Thatās quite a skill. Iāve had years (decades) to develop it. Software helps but that didnāt exist when I started.
i was fortunate in that I worked from home which helped from 2 perspectives. I had more time due to no time spent traveling, and the guitar was always close at hand for a quick song or two.
I recall a few years back one of the team members kept a guitar in the office and at lunch and various breaks it would come out for a quick tune or two.
For me the biggest thing was the mindset that made it a daily routine no matter what. It became part of my lifestyle, similar to having a cuppa the first thing in the morning.
As another dad with full time job, Iāve given up on learning songs for the most part!
Iāve come to accept that Iāll never have enough time to learn a complicated song note for note, and thatās OK, I do not need to.
Instead, Iām focusing on becoming a good musician first, good guitarist second.
What that means for me is, rather than knowing a number of specific songs, being able adapt to different situations as quickly and well as possible.
For e.g. if a jam is coming up, Iād like to be able to learn a few songs in a few days to an acceptable level to perform. Iād like to be able to go to a blues jam and play songs that I do not necessarily know in advance. Be able to quickly learn a few songs to fill in for a guitarist role at the last minute. Like a dep guitarist.
To achieve that, Iām focusing my practices on musicianship, things like being able to play a chord progression in a given key without preparation, play the same chords in high or low registers to avoid conflicting with other guitarists, have good timing, know how to play different rhythms in different musical styles, improvise, and similar.
The idea is to spend the majority of my time for general improvements so I can quickly prepare for an upcoming opportunity to perform - without learning the details of the songs very well, but by performing them at a decent level.
Iām also fairly busy; Iām working and putting myself through a new university degree. I would say learning a new song is a lot like eating an elephant: you just take one bite at a time. It might take you a lot longer than someone who can practice for eight hours. You can still make a lot of progress, even with practice sessions of 10-20 minutes as many days-per-week as possible. Divide the song into managable chunks and practice each one, and then start putting them together. I, for one, actually enjoy the progress Iām making, even on short little practice sessions.
I would go through each of your comments carefully and find different insights 
And it does take some skills, which may have been the reason why professional guitarists picking up songs at a faster pace.
), then tackle the technical difficulty for specific song (by means of practising to develop muscle memory do help, but there many other aspects that contribute to the difficulties)
Also nowadays I donāt do warmups or exercises - I just jump the gun with stuff I am learning straight away and if I am a bit wobbly at the start I just use a song I previously learnt that has some similarities to one I am learning now. That way I can warm up quicker and in a more fun way