In how many ways can you divide an hour?
By Michael Gumley
Do you get bored easily during practice? Do you ever feel like there isn’t enough time to work through everything you need to? Do you put in hours each day and never feel like you’re getting anywhere?
If you’re saying yes to any of these questions then chances are you can improve your practice habits. If you want to practice more efficiently and get a bigger return on your time invested then this is the article for you.
I often hear students complain that they get bored during practice or that they don’t have enough time to cover the amount of content that they have. These two problems are at opposite ends of the spectrum but can both be solved in the same way. When it comes to practicing, most people have no plan whatsoever and quickly fall into the habit of playing what they already know which: 1) leads to boredom and 2) doesn’t help them improve.
Having a highly structured practice routine is one way to guarantee that you’ll not only never be bored when practicing but will also allow you to cover a huge amount of content within a single practice session.
A really good trick is to ask yourself:
“In how many ways can I divide the time I have so that I can cover more content?”
Simply changing the way you think about time can change the way you approach practice and what you will work on within the time you have. At the start of each week I like to plan out my allocated practice time and divide it into smaller micro practice sessions. I then assign what I need to work on for the week to each of these sessions. This ensures that I get to cover everything I need to cover and never spend so long on any one topic that I get bored of it.
Consider that you are setting aside an hour to practice. Let’s see in how many ways we can divide that:
1 x 60m
2 x 30m
3 x 20m
4 x 15m
6 x 10m
12 x 5m
Depending on how you choose to divide the hour, you can work on as little as one topic for 60 minutes or as many as 12 topics for 5 minutes each. Hopefully your mind just started ticking away at the realisation of this and you’re now excited at the idea of practice. Let’s take a more in depth look at each division.
1 x 60m
This is a horrible way to practice but probably the most common division of time for most players. The average person struggles to concentrate for 5 minutes let alone an hour straight, no wonder most people get bored and start noodling. The only time I would ever recommend practicing one topic for an hour is when you have 3 hours to practice each day and you’re covering a major area of playing and breaking it down into smaller topics. Say, you’re dedicating an hour to lead, an hour to rhythm and an hour to songwriting with smaller micro sessions mapped out within each category.
2 x 30m
Again, the larger the divisions of your practice time, the harder it will be to stay focused and the less content that you will get through. Having said that, the same rule of having a larger category to be practiced for 30 minutes and breaking that session down into related topics can work great. If you’re working on repertoire you can work on 3 sections of a new song and make great progress.
3 x 20m
This is probably my favorite way to practice because it allows me to cover a good number of topics without losing focus or feeling rushed. I like to assign 20 minutes to a particular technique and divide that time into 10 minutes of technical practice and 10 minutes of application practice. You can cover a great deal of ground in this way.
4 x 15m
This is a great way to cover a lot of content and ensure that many areas of your playing get attention within a single practice session. The shorter times will also ensure that you don’t get bored.
6 x 10m
This format allows you to get through a lot of content but can sometimes feel rushed. This is great when you have lots of technical and application based practice, but not so good for memorising long passages or repertoire.
12 x 5m
If you’re looking to maintain your fret board knowledge or cover a lot of repertoire in a short space of time then this division will allow you to cover a lot of ground. You will also find it almost impossible to get bored because of how rapidly the content being practiced changes on you. This method is much better for refining or reinforcing previously learned materials and doesn’t work well when you’re trying to learn things for the first time as you’ll be moving onto the next topic before you have time to absorb what you’re learning.
So, when you’re next thinking about practicing I’d highly encourage you to divide your time as presented in the article. Taking a few minutes before you practice to plan out the topics you’ll be covering and what you will do within each micro session will go a long way towards improving the quality of each practice session as well as helping you avoid boredom and overwhelm. Experiment with what works best with your attention span and the amount of content you need to work with and don’t be afraid to mix it up every now and then to keep it fresh.
About The Author
Michael is a progressive rock guitarists from Melbourne, Australia. He wishes he had more hours in a day and would love to own a time machine. Learn the secrets of effective practice with guitar lessons in Melbourne and become a better player today. Visit Michael’s website for a Free Introductory Lesson & other great resources