>>To the original poster, spend time watching TV and doing finger exercises

This is also an excellent way to build up your listening ability and your ear by playing along with background music in TV shows or commercials.
Listening to the music and trying to figure out leads to play to it for instance.
Watch a TV show and try to figure out what chord is being played in the background.
Besides being an advantage for learning guitar, it's also kinda fun.
If a show starts getting boring, play some backup country twang sounds over the romantic piano music or add power chords to a ballad.

If somebody starts singing, see how fast you can pick out the notes on the fretboard. Eventually, after years of practice, you can literally see the notes in your head as you're hearing them and by the time a song is finished, you already know how to play it.