You are a beginning guitar student. You have a new guitar waiting for you to play it. You have a million other things to do before you can pick up your new baby and strum it, get the music out of it that you know is there. There’s that stack of bills to pay, the stack of dishes to wash. The 100’s of unanswered emails, the dog to walk, the car to wash, the laundry to fold… blah blah. When in your busy schedule can you find an hour to play with your new baby? One hour to practice and learn guitar. Where is the time?

do not fear. As a beginning guitar student, you don’t need to practice your guitar for hours every day. First, your fingers will hurt from trying to press the strings before calluses develop on your fingertips. It will take a while before your fingers are strong and hard enough for a long guitar session. As a beginning guitar student, if you can spend just 15 minutes on your guitar every day, you will see rapid improvement. The secret is that you have to pick up the guitar every day. Even just five minutes is better than missing a day.

The solution to this time management problem is quick and easy.

1. Keep your guitar out and at hand. Don’t keep your guitar in its case where you have to go and take it out to practice. Buy yourself an inexpensive guitar stand and keep your guitar near your favorite chair. Have some free time waiting for dinner to cook. Take your guitar and practice for a few minutes. The clothes in the dryer are not ready yet? Practice guitar while you wait. There are many short periods of time throughout the day where, if your guitar were handy, you could practice a bit. Just pick it up and play.
2. Have a plan of what you are going to practice, so that the little time you have to practice pays off. There is a difference between real guitar practice and just having fun. The practice is the exercises, scales, songs, and fingerings/chord charts you are working on. Circling is, well, just circling.
3. Finally, set aside 15 minutes of time each day when you go to practice guitar. Keep this schedule. This is your time to really learn something which, if you put in the effort, will be a wonderful experience. Everyone should be able to find 15 minutes in their schedule somewhere. Don’t watch that extra TV show, get up 15 minutes earlier in the morning, go to bed 15 minutes later at night. Somewhere in your day, there are 15 minutes.

The simple solution, just find a short period to practice every day. Don’t think you have to set yourself hours and hours to practice. Keep your guitar close at hand, pick it up during any available downtime. Schedule some time in your day and stick to it, for a real quick practice session. You will see and hear your chops growing rapidly.