Practice made simple - Make and Keep a Schedule

I’m always nattering on at you about how important practice is – for lots of reasons.  And you probably laugh and think (or say out loud?) “easy for you – that’s what you do for a living!”  Well, let’s pull that thread, shall we?

First, like you, I have a life – a home and house that need care and tending.  And perhaps like you, I’m not big on housework or tending to anything!  But these things must be done.  Groceries, call my Mom, laundry, prune the dog, take out the trash – it’s all there.

Second – only in my dreams do I have all day to play the harp!  Yes, I’m a professional, so yes, it is work and it is a business.  And yes, that means I often get trapped in Administrivialand - doing paperwork, making phone calls, sending email.  On the package its all flowers and hearts, but on the inside, it’s still work!  Booking students, gigs, networking, advertising, blogging, website maintenance, teaching students, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera*.

Third – I have a day job too – just like you.  With its commutes and joys and challenges.

And somewhere in there – I still need to fit in practicing.  So, how to do that?  I find a schedule is very very helpful.  But you need more than that.  You need to keep the schedule.  And in doing that you will allow yourself to meet some other gates as well:

• You will be better able to focus – this is time you have set aside, so you don’t need to be thinking about how it’s time to wash the dog or vacuum the garden.  Focus on your practicing.
• You will have built in time for self-evaluation – because you have dedicated time, you can apportion it to include self-evaluation.  Are you playing as well as you’d like? If not, how should you change your practice to improve?  If you are playing as well as you’d like – what should you take on as a new challenge?
• You will have time to get stuff done – because you have identified time to work, you won’t have to just “cross stuff off the list” but rather, you can bear down and work on individual elements of your playing until they are smoothed out while you also identify other things that need work.
• You will have time to be generous – to yourself (and by extension others) you will have dedicated time to play more fluidly so you can be more comfortable while performing, all the while learning to be nice to yourself as you progress and develop as a harper.
• You will have time to schedule for your best – you control your schedule so you decide when to practice.  If you’re not a morning person, do not bother scheduling your practice for 6am!  It’s your day, if you need to practice from midnight – do it! Just be sure you work with yourself.  And be flexible – if you need to change the schedule, change the schedule!
• You will have built in time to capture everything – be sure to include journaling and recording as part of your practice time.  They need to be – and if you plan them that way, they will get done.
• You will have built in time to be creative – creativity requires time and tools and time – if you add creativity time into your practice – you will have the time!

That is a lot to schedule in so it’s important to remember that there are seven days in a week.  You don’t have to do the same thing every day.   

Having a schedule means that you can have hard days and easy days, days that focus on a specific thing and days when you “play around”. Having a schedule means that you know which days are which, and that you are actually getting to all the things you have identified as important.  

Be prepared to do work when you have scheduled it and include some “free time” to enjoy yourself! And what could be more simple than that?

* be the first to identify the source of this quote in a comment for a prize!