An Essential Guide To Creating A Guitar Practice Schedule

Guitar Practice Schedule IV: The Half Hour Drill

Here is where we need to be really conscious of the time we use, and how we use it. 

This thirty minute drill is intended to light your fingers up quickly and inject some energy into your guitar playing.

Pro Tip: It’s important to pace your playing with your metronome now that you’re dealing with less time.

In order to be super effective, you can set your metronome low and work your way up in tempo by intervals of 5bpm until you’re at a tempo that is comfortable yet challenging to nail down. Give it a shot!

30 MINUTE GUITAR PRACTICE SCHEDULE LAYOUT:

• 5 Minutes – Warm Up/Stretching
• 5 Minutes – Chromatic scale ascending & descending (start tempo: 80bpm)
• 10 Minutes – Speed training (alternate picking) (start tempo: 80bpm)
• 10 Minutes – Learn a new chord & practice it!
• 10 Minutes – Song practice or Improv

Pro Tip: As we narrow our time window, we will find ourselves more focused on technical ability and movement in our practice routine.

This is important because even if we only have a few minutes, we can cover a lot of ground with a routine that is grounded in movement.

Focus on getting those fingers moving, no matter how long you have!

Guitar Practice Schedule V: Fifteen Minute Speedrun

This one is for the early risers who want to get a few good minutes of guitar practice in before their day starts.

• If you’re the type of person who is short on time and deterred from creating a guitar practice schedule as a result, this is for you too.
• Fifteen minutes is plenty of time to put together a quick routine to keep your fingers excited about playing the guitar.

Pro Tip: Even though we’ll have to shorten our stretching time slightly, we still need to make sure we’re stretching.

If you’re planning on taking a run at your guitar for fifteen minutes a day and you want to make progress, you need to make sure your hands are as up for the challenge as your brain.

15 MINUTE GUITAR PRACTICE SCHEDULE LAYOUT:

• 3 Minutes – Stretching
• 2 Minutes – Chromatic scale ascending & descending (start tempo: 80bpm)
• 5 Minutes – Speed training (alternate picking) (start tempo: 80bpm)
• 5 Minutes – New chord study

This routine gets your fingers moving as much as possible, helping them push their limitations with each practice session.

The idea of learning a new chord each day is a fantastic concept to keep our brains ticking and our fingers moving – all while we continue to make progress on our favourite instrument.

Don’t shy away from the guitar due to fear of lack of time. Once you schedule out your day, you’ll find that you often have more time than you think you do.

Even if you don’t, fifteen concentrated minutes with the guitar will do you more good than two hours of unfocused practice.

Guitar Practice Schedule VI: Five Minutes Or Less

A five minute practice routine might sound crazy, but you can cover a lot of ground if you’re focused enough.

The point with this five minute drill is not to break an incredible amount of ground with your playing, but to keep your fingers limber.

• We don’t recommend exclusively sticking to a five minute daily practice regimen, but if it’s all the time you’ve got then you’ve got to work with it!
• Try to stretch in advance of sitting down to play, that way you will give yourself more time to actually play your instrument.

5 MINUTE GUITAR PRACTICE SCHEDULE LAYOUT:

• 1 Minute – Stretching
• 2 Minutes – Chromatic scale ascending & descending (start tempo: 80bpm)
• 2 Minutes – Chord practice – As many chords as you can play, in even time to a metronome.

Pro Tip: Time management is everything. Slotting in even a few minutes every day to play guitar not only does wonders for your hands, but for your brain as well.

Studies have shown that music decreases stress, and the practice of music can help keep the brain stimulated, leading to better defense against age-related ailments in the brain.

Daily practice does wonders for us on all fronts, and should never be discounted. Make a solid effort to practice guitar everyday and your brain will thank you!

Where Do I Go From Here?

Having a solid guitar practice schedule is important, and so is staying inspired. 

Remember to try and switch up your routine every now and again to keep things fresh and exciting.

New chords, new riffs and new scales will keep us engaged and determined to conquer this mysterious and amazing instrument.

So what are you waiting for? Get practicing!

Recommended Resources

If you enjoyed this lesson on building a guitar practice schedule around your life, you’ll love the other free content we have available below:

• D Minor Scale 
• Spanish Guitar Scales
• Guitar Notes Explained
• Reading Guitar Music