Routine, or not routine.

May 4

For the last week or so I've been avoiding my practicing routine. Why? I'm not sure. At one point I was away from home for the weekend; that doesn't always matter, but this time it did. There were a few days when I started the routine, but ran out of concentration before I was done. Those two things contributed to a loss of momentum, which shouldn't really have made much difference, but maybe actually did. There were no days over that stretch when I didn't pick up the guitar, but there were one or two when I didn't do anything I would call practicing.

I got back to it by saying, I'll just practice whatever I feel like practicing for today and see what happens. And what happened wasn't all that different from what I did when I followed the routine. A little more fun, actually.

So:

Maybe I was trying too hard.
Maybe I just needed a break.

But also:

Maybe the practice routine was too structured.
Maybe the routine was not taking me towards the things I want to accomplish. Or, the flip side: Maybe the things I thought I wanted to accomplish sounded like good ideas, but were not turning out to be as important as I thought they would be.

And in the end, while it's helpful to think about what it means to avoid your own routine when you've designed it to be effective and enjoyable, it's probably just one of those things that happens from time to time.

Back at it today. Do it anyway.