There are many aspiring guitar players who spend hours and hours reading articles and books on practicing and visit guitar discussion forums, but then don’t have enough time to apply all the information into their guitar practice routines.

There is even another category of guitar players who spend hours surfing the web, watching TV or doing other meaningless stuff but still lament how busy they are and how hard it is to find the time for practicing. I know that because I used to be one of them. And it was not so long ago.

If you don’t find time to actually sit down with your guitar and practice, it doesn’t matter how much data you have gathered.

You can read every book and every article on practicing but if you don’t practice, you can only be the greatest guitar practice theoretician in the history of the world. What you do, determines the results you’ll get. There is no substitution for practicing.

But don’t get me wrong. I do believe that reading is fantastic, for me it is one of the most rewarding activities. It is also great to get advice from more accomplished guitar players and other musicians. But if you really want to get somewhere, you must apply what you have learned. It is your responsibility to find out how any piece of advice can help you to become better at what you do.

With that said, here’s a little technique that I use to make sure I get my guitar workout done every day.

I call it “The ASAP technique“.

The ASAP technique means to do your guitar practice session as soon as possible in any given day.

Let’s face it – we are all “busy”, we have all kind of commitments, there are far too many distractions in this world. If you want to make sure to get your guitar practice done, you have to decide to do it as early as possible. This is the best way I know to never miss it.

I don’t want to fall into the trap of some random events or distractions to prevent me from doing what is really important to me. That’s why I do it as soon as possible.

In an ideal world I would always practice early in the morning, but that’s not always an option. Sometimes I have more time in the morning, other times in the evening. The key is to complete your guitar workout as soon as you have time available.

Here’s how I apply this technique into my own life:

On the most days I will practice first thing in the morning. That’s when I am most productive and have the most energy. On the days when I cannot practice in the morning, I will do it as soon as I have enough time to get it done. It is really that simple.

For a long time my problem was that if I had a whole day free, I would usually postpone my practice session till it was too late or I was too tired. With the ASAP technique, I have solved this problem forever. Even if it is a weekend and I can do whatever I want, I will still do my practice as the first thing in the morning. I can’t even tell you how this simple change in my behavior helped me to get so much more done.

If you want to take this technique up a notch, schedule you guitar practice session one day in advance. Once it is in your schedule, it is quite hard not to do it.

Do you struggle to find the time for your guitar practice?

Please try to use this technique and let me know how it works for you.

Do you have any other strategies that help you to get the important stuff done?

Image courtesy: Redfishingboat (Mick O)

If you enjoyed this article, please subscribe: