At the moment, my life is primarily dedicated to two things: music and my business (specifically Setaris). My business necessarily gets the lion’s share of my attention, So, it’s critical that I’m very efficient with the the 1-2 hours a day I get to spend on music. In the past, my practice sessions went like this:

Josh: “Hey, what do you want to work on today?”
Josh: “How about improvisation, or maybe playing in difficult keys. Oh!! I know! Transcription. That’s super important. Actually, the last time you played, you really weren’t playing anything rhythmically interesting. Maybe you should call up your drummer and talk to him about some exercises you can do…”

At about that point, I delegate my internal dialog to the back burner, and begin playing “Someday My Prince Will Come.” Over and over again. There’s probably some marginal benefit I get out of this, but I’m sure I could use my practice time much more effectively.

One day, after playing “Someday My Prince Will Come” in Bb for the 30th time, the crux of the problem dawned on me: my goal was too big and I couldn’t focus. So, I immediately went to work doing what anyone else does when they discover a problem: develop a process!! Okay, maybe I’m kinda in the minority there. Anyways here it goes:

1. At any time, I can focus on up to 3 goals depending on the time I have to dedicate to improvement, and what it is I want to accomplish. Reason: Too many goals can be distracting. In my opinion, you derive greater benefit by focusing on a few goals over a small period of time than you do by focusing on a lot of goals over a long period of time, even if you put the same net effort in for each goal.
2. I have to work on just those goals, and nothing else, for an extended period (e.g., at least 1 month). Reason: Same as above.
   If possible, I have to score my progress towards a goal with up to 3 metrics. Reason: This way I can see if the the things I’m doing to work towards my goals are actually having the desired effect.
3. I have to work on goals in 30-minute increments – call it a mini-session – by performing certain activities I believe to be in pursuit of that goal. After I complete a mini-session, I can give myself a checkmark for the associated goal (woohoo!!). Reason: Checkmarks feel good (you know they do), and they help you get a sense of how much time you’ve put into each goal.
4. I can dedicate multiple mini-sessions in a practice session to the same goal, but I must keep the number of checks for each goal nearly even (unless I deem one goal much more important – more to come on that). Reason: You probably will enjoy working on certain goals more than others. This rule encourages you to use working on more enjoyable goals as incentive for working on less enjoyable goals.
5. (Corollary to 5) It’s never fun to be all business. So, I make sure to plan for fun time. That is, I make “Have fun” one of my goals.

Here are my current goals for music:

1. Improve my right-hand dexterity
2. Become a better improviser, and improve my ability to listen to musical lines and play them back immediately
3. Have fun

Activities for goal 1:

1. Scales
2. Specific finger exercises (that I won’t try to describe)
3. Arpeggios

Metrics for goal 1:

1. The max tempo at which I can cleanly play a 4-octave D major scale
2. The max tempo at which I can cleanly play a 4-octave F# harmonic minor scale
3. The max tempo at which I can cleanly play a 4-octave Eb major arpeggio

Activities for goal 2:

1. Ear-training exercises (that, again, I won’t try to describe)
2. Transcribing

Metrics for goal 2:

1. Total number of 5-note melodies I can listen to and play back in a 15-minute session
2. Number of errors I make with those 5-note melodies in that 15-minute session

Activities for goal 3:

1. Apparently, play “Someday My Prince Will Come”
2. Chopsticks (just kidding)

No metrics for goal 3 – just having fun.

Here’s the google docs spreadsheet (yeah, I’m ridiculous, it’s true) I set up to track my progress.

There are a couple things worth pointing out here:

1. As you can see, I try to keep notes on each practice session so I can reflect on what I did.
2. I emphasized goal 2 by giving it 2 lines. So, I need to spend twice as much time on activities related to goal 2 as I do on those related to goal 1.

Now, while I focused on music for the purpose of this article, you can probably see how the same principles can be applied elsewhere. You can also apply it at multiple levels. For example, the two top-level goals for my life are “Become a better musician” and “Make Setaris a better business.” I could make a similar spreadsheet for these top-level goals, and use both simultaneously where the top-level “Become a better musician” goal would drill down into the goals above.

You might feel like what I’m suggesting is too cumbersome given its potential benefits. For some, that might be true, but I’ve found that the few minutes I spend planning and tracking have provided so much in return. If you’re still skeptical, maybe start a little smaller. For example, just write down your goals, be casually aware of how much time you’re spending on those things, and how much time you’re spending on others. Ultimately, the purpose of this technique is to create balance, and to help us be aware of how much we’re dividing our focus. If that sounds like a purpose you can buy into, give it a try for a week, and let me know how it goes.

So, this post is in dedication to Spanky for reminding me of two very important things that I’d like to share with you all. First, sometimes it takes only a tiny bit of effort on your part to make someone else’s life so much better. Second, I was thinking about how much I’d love to be able to record Spanky’s journey to share with others, and realized that it probably wouldn’t be possible. I could get the best video camera and microphone, and, still, I wouldn’t be able to capture the experience. Therein lies the problem and the epiphany. Capturing a moment in its entirety – the way it affects you emotionally, physically, intellectually – is a difficult, if not impossible, task. It takes more than simply capturing the moment. It requires creativity, insight, introspection, and fluency. In short, it requires artistry.