one of the keys to practicing moreeffectively is to have an organized practice schedule.
i get overwhelmed withmy to-do list a lot.
and when i have so much to do and it's not organized, i almost try to avoid getting started because i don't know what to work on.
idon't know where to start.
and when i'm actually practicing or doing other kinds of work and thoughts pop into my brain like, “oh no i forgot to do this, oh no iforgot to do that”, then it causes me to transition activities.
i don't get thefirst thing that i was working on done and i also lost time on the secondthing that i switched to.
this is both a problem during normal times – when you'rebusy, you have lots of deadlines, lessons first rehearsals, recitals, auditions.
andyou have to figure out what to practice everyday so that you can be prepared foreach deadline along the way.
but it's also a problem now during coronapause, because we all have these ideas of projects swimming around our brains anduntil we actually get those ideas out and put them in a calendar, we're notgoing to actually be effective in getting started.
so today i want to showyou how to create a practice schedule for yourself during coronapause.
so thatyou can use this time we have, as effectively as possible.
and best of allyou'll have created a system for yourself to organize your practice, maintain a practice schedule, and not feel overwhelmed when the deadlinesstart popping up and you have to start learning a bunch of new repertoire againfor lessons and recitals and whatever.
and by the way if you waste a little bitof time in the practice room one day, that's just a little bit of productivitythat you didn't get done that day.
but if you multiply that over days and weeksand months and years, that's going to lead to real impacts in your ultimateskill level as a musician.
so this is a little training about creating yourpractice schedule.
it's a little taste of a much more in-depth training course onhow to organize your practice that i'm releasing today.
if this little trainingabout creating a practice schedule is useful for you, and you feel like youwant to go a lot deeper and create a system for yourself to manage yourrepertoire, manage your daily practice session, and keep it all on track, thenyou should go check out the in-depth step-by-step course that we're releasingtoday called organize your practice.
you can check that out at robknopper.
com/organize-your-practice.
so i'll walk you through this simple six stepprocess to create your practice schedule.
the first step is to choose a place tohouse your practice schedule.
by that i mean, are you going to use paper andpencil, are you going to use a planner, are you going to use evernote, or a worddocument on your computer, or maybe ical or one of the other apps that you canuse to schedule and manage projects.
you just need two parts to it.
one part toorganize and write out your to-do lists, and another part that's the actualcalendar that you're going to use every day when you look at what you have to dothat day.
for me, i'm going to use post-it notes and the wall.
so over here i'mgoing to write out my to-do lists and my projects.
and over here is obviously mycalendar where i'll write out which day i'm gonna do which to-do.
step two is towrite out your projects.
first i have to learn the bach fugue and g-minor for mylesson on this day – in three weeks.
second is that on this day my first rehearsalfor mahler symphony number two is happening, so i have to have that learnedby here.
and third is that at the end of this calendar, i have to turn in myaudition tape for the new york phil timpani audition.
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these are made up.
itdoesn't matter.
what i'm trying to do here is show you how i would organizethis schedule.
step three is to write out a complete to-do list.
so for each ofthese separate projects, there's a list of things that i know i need to do inorder to be ready before the deadline of each of those projects.
so for instance, for the bach fugue i have to go through my normal note learning process.
formahler 5, i'm gonna follow the normal process i use to prepare for a firstrehearsal.
i talked about that in a different video, which you can go checkout here.
and for my new york phil tape, i have a special process that i go throughto prepare for an audition tape, which includes researching excerpts, doing mynormal note learning process, self recording one excerpt at a time, and thensetting aside a number of days to do the recording itself.
step four is to writeout your practice sessions.
now you don't know that each of these practicesessions is actually going to be available, but right now you're justpredicting when you're going to be able to practice.
this is important becauseobviously the amount of time you have each day to practice, is going to decidehow much of your to-dos you're going to be able to do each day.
a couple tipshere: don't make your practice session asabsolutely maximum as possible from the minute you stop something else until theminute you fall asleep.
you're going to end up having to have buffer time.
soit's important to factor that in now, so that you don't run out of time later on.
alright, once you've written out all of your available practice sessions, step five is to start sorting your work into days.
now a couple rules of thumbto keep in mind here.
first of all, it's good to front-load your work.
if you tryto give yourself more work early on and have less work later on, then it's moreacceptable to fall behind a little bit because you have some leeway and you cantrade those to-dos to later dates, if you need to.
another thing is if you can, give yourself at least one off day a week.
if you get ambitious and you giveyourself the maximum amount of work you can do based on that practice session, it's likely that you won't get everything done.
and that's a recipe forhaving to redo your schedule.
you're probably gonna have to redo yourschedule as you go anyway but if you can try to under schedule yourself, if possible, then youshould do that.
alright so i am done making my practice calendar and as youcan see it's beautiful.
finally step six is easy.
it's just twoparts.
one: do your assigned tasks for that day, and two: review and update yourschedule every day.
because you spent this time thinking through your practiceschedule carefully, you don't have to worry about getting everything done.
everything is going to get done by the deadline because you planned it out.
andit also motivates you to do that one task today because if you don't do ittoday, you know that tomorrow is for another task, so today it really isurgent to get that one done.
if you're ready to build better practice systemsso that you can get more done in the practice room, solve more problems inyour repertoire, and achieve a higher level as a musician faster, then youmight be interested in checking out our new course called organize your practice.
it's a four module step-by-step course that walks you through how toincorporate my practice system into your life.
it includes a set of detailedstep-by-step worksheets, calendars and templates, so that you can get thispractice system up and going right away.
it includes five long form interviewswith professional musicians on how they organize your practice, so that you canutilize some of their concepts and do structure trial and error into yourown practice system to see if they work better for you.
and i'm also starting theorganize your practice club.
this is a place where we're all going to gettogether to talk about organizing our practice.
it's going to include afacebook group where you can collaborate with other musicians on how they'reorganizing their practice.
i'm going to be hosting the organize your practiceclub for the entire length of this coronapause – up to three months.
including hosting these live sessions, being active in the facebook group, andhelping you figure out your own best practice system.
if you want to beinvolved in the organize practice club you have to enroll in the organize yourpractice course by this sunday at midnight.
again the website is alright if you like this videoplease give me a thumbs up below subscribe to the channel and i will seeyou in the next video.
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