A while back, I decided to simultaneously tackle both Country and Blues style in the Core Learning System. I'm not sure that was a wise choice but I've stuck with it. My morning practice session, therefore, starts off with a few minutes of warm up (a previous Country lesson that I never played well) and then it's on the current Country and Blues lessons. The blues part has it's own warm up period playing one form or another of the 12-bar blues and 30 minutes of improv incorporating the current and recent blues lessons. From there it's on to 30 minutes of song practice; whichever new song I'm working on is practiced every day, the ones I 'know' ;) alternated every other day.

The afternoon session is all drill...thirty minutes of scales, about 20 minutes on a flexibility/stretch/strength exercise http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xex90siLkXg , and a little over 20 minutes on chord progressions. That too is all timed and all played with a metronome the speed of which I increase monthly or so.

Recently that all has been adding up to more than three hours a day, six days a week (I hit 21+ hours each of the last three weeks). Needless to say that's a big chunk of my day but there's a lot more I don't get to. I expect that this summer, as other activities claim my time, my weekly practice time will drop. But there's so much more to get to, not to mention continuing on with the style lessons, that I keep a notebook of 'what's next.'

Here's what I think is most important...the time is fingers-on-strings time. It's actually timed playing. Further, what I do each session and how much time I expect to spend on it is written down beforehand. In other words, I use a written lesson plan, log the times, and keep the records. Overkill? Perhaps. Obsessive? Quite likely. Efficient...you bet! Noodling is allowed but it don't count. :)

For me the key is keeping practice *efficient*. I spend a lot of time on it but I still don't have enough time for everything I'd like to learn/practice. I've got to get the most bang for the buck.