Sharing Practice Routine templates for beginners

[juliedlk]

Hi all,

I'm starting Grade 2 and just made a couple of really nice structured templates to structure my different practice routines. I figured to share it + get feedback.
This took me some time so figured it might be handy for some who don't have a day off to spend on this I started of course from Justin's already great practice routine sheet.

I've been experimenting with different structure for the past 3,5 months (which is the short time i've been learning guitar). This now works for me.
If you're like me and need structure to feel at ease and need some variety on top of learning to really do a consistent practice routine, then this is for you.

There's three docs:
- Technique & knowledge practice
- Repertoire practice
- Goals & progress journal
Get them here

Why? My goals with these docs are to:
- measure progress
- have a structured practice routing (with must-haves + variety routines)
- make it easy to find the song's tab (justinguitar app, songsterr, songbook etc)

1. The technique & knowledge doc has following columns:
- timing (e.g. 5')
- title of exercise
- details (mostly detailing what I need to pay attention to e.g. 'practice at an even tempo of 60BPM')
- goal of the exercise (! since Justin stresses this all too much and I notice being reminded of it every time I practice helps me in an effective practice)
- 31 cells with the days of the month, in which I put the amount of time I actually practiced. I know you're not supposed to do more than the indicated time, but hey - reality And I like to be able to know how much I've actually practiced. (In OMC I don't note the time since it's always one minute, but I do note the amount of changes I was able to do, so that I also can track progress).
- total practice time per day

2. The repertoire practice sheet is slightly different:
- timing
- title of song/riff
- source (do I practice it off of Justin's app, Songsterr, or my songbook. I find myself losing so much time w this otherwise)
- level (I made levels for both riffs and songs for myself, in order to measure my progress. 3 levels for Riffs, 5 for songs)
- days of the month
- total practice time per day

There's some empty rows to add onto it. After 1 month I plan to update the printout of this.

3. Goals & progress journal
I tend to go overboard (which you probably figured by the length of this post & structured approach ;-)).
This doc is just a reference doc to remind myself of my goals on short and long term, and to keep a monthly journal of my progress. That's all.

Why do I ask for feedback?
Next month, I'm thinking to turn it into an interactive document (as an excuse to practice coda/IFTTT/Notion  ) that automatically starts a timer, records practice time, and integrates with tabs in guitarpro. That's why i'm gathering feedback too: especially interested in what frustrations/problems you encounter when practicing as a beginner. If anyone here is good at building low-code webapps and integrations/automations, let me know! 

FYI: I didn't find any recent posts sharing materials like this, but feel free to advise if I should post in another thread.

[Majik]

Emailing documents is so last decade...

Have you thought about importing them into Google Docs? This would not only make them easier to share, but would also allow you to make them more interactive and easier to link with the tools you mention.

Cheers,

Keith

[juliedlk]

Hi Keith,

Exactly what i mean by ‘mail you the link’.
I’m not allowed to post an external link here when i tried adding the URL. Any other way to do it? Didn’t try the FTP option yet.

I have a private gdrive link ready to share.

Cheers

[glpguitar]

You need 5 posts to be able to post the link on this forum (that's to prevent the spam). There's a thread that allows you to reach those 5 posts but I can't find it at the moment.

Other than that, the idea looks great. Not so much into data and analysis of my practice routines but looks great. Just don't get caught in spending more time on this than actually practising your instrument (it happened to me before and probably to many more users here as well) .

[Majik]

Ah, gotcha!. Sorry I misunderstood because you said they said they were word docs.

However, my suggestion still applies: if you are only using Google Drive as a sharing mechanism for some Word Docs files, you might want to convert them into native Google Docs files. That should improve the ability to automate them as most of the online tools that do this sort of integration, like the ones you have mentioned, expect a Google Docs/Sheet file as part of their integration.

If you want to post links you need to have made 5 posts. This is to prevent drive-by spammers from throwing up image spam (some of which can be quite offensive). There's a thread here you can post rubbish in to get your post count up:

https://justinguitarcommunity.com/index.php?topic=29431.msg241697#msg241697

By the way, if you post a link to a GDrive folder or file, then you are given everyone access to that original file. If they have edit access, they will be editing your copy. If you don't want that, I suggest you make sure that the documents are shared read-only.

Alternatively you can use the "Make a copy" trick if you are sharing individual files one at a time.

Cheers,

Keith

[juliedlk]

Other than that, the idea looks great. Not so much into data and analysis of my practice routines but looks great. Just don't get caught in spending more time on this than actually practising your instrument (it happened to me before and probably to many more users here as well) .

I tend to do this indeed, but I limit myself to do these things on finger-resting days This structure helps me assimilate information and consolidate different practice items, but it doesn't keep me from playing - on the contrary.
so no worries, but good tip though!

[juliedlk]

Great, thanks a lot for the 5-post thing! Never used a forum before 

Ah, gotcha!. Sorry I misunderstood because you said they said they were word docs.

No worries at all, Keith. Gdoc pro here, got it covered - private link, viewable read-only copy ofcourse. No need to convert as i'll start over in coda anyway (what a perfect excuse this practice routine is to start messing around in coda hehe . Works for me!

Anyway, thanks for help y'all! If anyone else reading wants the docs, I'll add the gdrive link to the original post now.

[Majik]

Cool beans.

Sorry if I came across as patronising but, in my experience, most people aren't that familiar with this stuff.

It looks like a useful and interesting  project. I may check out the gdrive link later when I get a chance, and will feed back if I do. Good luck with the Coda stuff. I must admit Coda is something I don't know anything about at this point.

Cheers,

Keith

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[juliedlk]

Aw thanks Keith, appreciate it. Sorry if I came across a bit harsh, didn't mean to.
I guess you figured 'newbie, let's help her get set up!' so your best intentions are absolutely appreciated! And you got me to finally hyperlink the gdrive, so props for that!

Thanks! I'm excited to mess around with it, as I'm a non-techie getting into tech design, so glad to find an excuse to do so. In essence, https://coda.io/is an interactive doc builder but I've seen my clients build crazy no-code webapps with it. If I end up building smth useful, I'll post the update here.

FYI: curious for your feedback.

Have a great day!

[Majik]

No harshness on your part at all.

Coda looks interesting. Thanks for the link. I will try to find time to explore it.

Cheers,

Keith

Sent from my Pixel 3 using Tapatalk

[stuartw]

I'm starting Grade 2.

Wow, that's quick from starting in March!! I too started in March and an nowhere close to this. Probably Grade 1 Lesson 3! Mind you I don't always get that much time to practice.

[juliedlk]

I made the same reflection, so went through everything again and seems i got it all down properly. I did 31 hours total, about 10min a day at first and now 30 more or less (5-6days per week).
I really did find the time bc I worked from home and was able to squeeze in practice in my breaks, so much fun! For the last 2 weeks i’ve been practising about an hour a day because i’m on holidays... i am amazed at what consistent practice does though!

But to be fair maybe the 2 years of practice i had 12years ago developed some latent muscle memory ?
In any case, super happy to have such progress. Now I need to make sure i learn the songs slow enough as i saw mistakes creeping into the chords before i ever registered the ‘slow practice’ message in the course 😅

Hopefully the docs are useful to you, stuartw! And good luck. Nothing wrong w going at your own pace! Slow and steady wins the race as they say.

[jsgreen]

I’d like to see the practice document / apologies if the link was in the thread, I couldn’t see it (on my phone).

Structure is something I need for my practices, looking forward to seeing what you put together!

[RubberBullet73]

Yes I would be keen to have a look at the templates if they are still available...? 

[Nimox]

Id be interested in checking these out and using them. Appreciate it ty very much!!!