I like your idea of recording practice sessions. I think I need to start recording some of my practice so I can hear objectively what my progress is.

First off, I think you need to define some goals. They could be "I want to be able to cleanly play the major scale at 120 BPM", or "I want to be able to play the chords for Back in Black cleanly", or "I want to be able to play barre chords cleanly". You should make them realistic, meaningful, and measurable. This way, you will be encourages to keep going by feeling as though you've accomplished something. You should set some long term ones too like "by the end of the winter, I want to be able to play Life in the Fast Lane clean through". You may not hit them all, but you'll get closer to them...which is progress.

If at the end of the week you can do something you couldn't do earlier in the week, or you can do something better that you did earlier in the week, you've made progress. Progress is progress!

I find I'll have leaps of progress followed by small incremental progress.

Like you, I have days where I'll practice a lot and really dig into some lessons - sometimes up to 2 hours. Other days I'll fiddle with my guitar for 15 minutes. I try to pick my guitar up every day. I think that's a good practice.

I haven't had a chance to listen to your recordings, so I can't comment on those.

Hope that helps.