Redefining How I Practice

I have this on again-off again habit of trying to create a disciplined schedule for myself each day. There are certain goals that I would like to accomplish, but I find that unless I carve out time for them, I wind up doing none of them. There are too many distractions.

One of the items on my calendar is "practice". But the question that always confronts me is, "Practice WHAT?" The obvious answer is piano practice. But in the last six months I keep asking my self the troubling "Why" question. What am I practicing for? Who am I practicing for? I don't play in live venues very often anymore, mainly because the time involved versus the revenue earned doesn't usually work in my favor. So mainly my piano practice involves looking at songs that I'd just like to play well. There's some intrinsic value in that, but the problem is there are lots of things I would like to learn and do.

So in my schedule, under "practice", I'm going to experiment with several things. Yes, I'll keep practicing piano, but I also want to get better at writing. I'd like to finally learn to play guitar proficiently. I'd like to learn how to competently edit video. I'd like to learn how to cook well and grill well (for the life of me I can't bake a decent loaf of bread).

Maybe it's my age. Maybe I realize that there are more years behind me than ahead of me. But I suspect that focusing on something that I already do very well will certainly bring improvement, the amount of that improvement will be relatively small. However, if I can make some time to practice other things that I'm learning, the joy of seeing improvement will be much more intense.

I don't know. Maybe this will be an experiment that flops. I won't know until I try. I'll do my best to keep you up to date on the things that I'm learning, and will maybe even share the results here. Stay tuned.

I'd love to hear about the things you're practicing or learning. Let me know about them in the comments section below.