Discipline techniques?

[sleeplessknight]

Alright guys, here's the deal. I occasionally find myself in a rut in regards to "regular" (i.e. daily) practice. I've got my weekly band practice with my funk band, and I've got "Jazz Guitar Tuesdays" with a friend of mine where we get together and jam, and I've got my actual *lesson* Thursday nights (when I'm not gigging). However, to get the absolute greatest bang for my buck in my continuing musical education, I really, desperately need to get some mental techniques under my belt for regular, disciplined practice.

How it generally works is, I get home from work. I'll putz around on the computer for a bit, look up and realize "hey, it's still early, I can browse ONE MORE WEBSITE, or look at ONE MORE AUCTION", or something equally retarded. In the back of my head is the voice going "stop, you fool. Put down the computer (or the book, or $generic_distraction), walk into the practice room, and just shed". But the "it's early!" voice takes over, and I go do that ONE MORE USELESS THING, and when I next look up it's 2am! ***? It's not that I don't get a lot of enjoyment out of self-directed practice, I have a regular instructor now and he gives me a lot of incredibly fun, arse-kicking exercises and tunes that help me improve all aspects of my playing. When I do sit down with my bass, or my guitar, or whatever, and do a real honest-to-goodness practice session, I feel *great*! I have a lot of fun with it, and I *know* I'll feel accomplished for having done it and made progress on $new_technique, or $new_song, or whatever. Once I get started, I'm golden. However, it's *getting* started that I have a problem with. My question for you all is, do any of you have this same problem, where you REALLY WANT to practice because you know you'll enjoy it, but you just have problems kicking it off? What do you do to overcome it? I know if I can just mentally get myself in gear, I'll be able to stay in that gear for the duration of an evening, but I guess I just need help in psyching myself out, or making that "one more useless thing" not so appealing to do, or something. What say you, wise vets of TB?

--Lee

[Jazzerbone]

An idea or two...

Set a daily alarm on your phone. Whatever time you decide on, stop what your doing (if possible) and play bass. The "one more time" syndrome is very common, you've just got to refuse to do it when the time comes.

It always helps me to leave my gear out so I don't have to spend 5 minutes pulling things out of cases and pluggin things in. It's much easier for me to walk in the room and just start playing. Wall mounts are nice things.

[mward69]

I don't like I should, So since I too am online till 2-3am I'll have my bass in my lap, after looking at useless crap online, I'll head over to youtube and either bring up an old song I haven't played in yrs..then start looking at some online lessons. That way I get SOME practice in and maybe learn something when wasting time online.

[elpelotero]

the internet has been the ruin of me for several years. It really eats up a lot of my time...Eventually you just get bored of it and do something else. Just try to resist the temptation is all I can say. Try to give yourself a list of websites you'll check on a daily basis to stay updated with. Then, check these once a day before you go to sleep and that's it.

[j.a.e.r.i.p]

i always get distracted when i'm practicing and just end up playing around and working on licks etc. Not very productive. I would like to be able to practice better.