Practice Schedule

 If you followed Step 1/Goal Setting and Step 2/Time Management you should have the following information:

1) A set of long term goals - where YOU want to be as a player in 5 years time.

2) A set of intermediate goals - where YOU should be in 18 months/2 years time on the way towards your long time goal.

3) A set of short term goals - where you want to be in 3 months time on the way towards your intermediate goal.

4) A schedule of time units for the coming week(s) that can be filled with practicing.

Constructing Your Practice Schedule

Your Practice Schedule is a document that serves two purposes - it identifies what you are going to be practicing in the coming week(s) and it identifies the time(s) that you have put aside to practice each day.

TIP - if you have identified, say, an hour a day is available for practice every day and for whatever reason you miss three or four days practice don't make a habit of thinking something like this: "I'm free on saturday, I'll just do four hours of practice then." Shorter, regular sessions work better than longer, irregular sessions.

Print your Practice Schedule out - this page (or these pages) will go in the practice folder/binder that we'll talk about in Step 4/Daily Record - it should be a simple document.

Here's an example in PDF format that I mocked up based on the format I use.

TIP You don't need anything fancy for this, just something simple and straightforward that allows you to focus on producing the information that you need to practice for the upcoming week(s).

Working out a practice schedule is great because it not only tells you what you are going to practice, but when!

One thing that I can't stress highly enough is that for the first six weeks or so of following your practice schedule - longer if you can manage it - be harsh with yourself and make yourself follow the routine. The reason: according to psychologists it takes about six weeks for new actions to become so ingrained in our conscious/unconsciousness that they can be called habits.

Use your practice schedule to develop a practice habit! You won't regret it.

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