How to Organize Practice 

The most likely cause of your frustration is that you’ve engaged in more mass practice (think “cramming”), than distributed practice. Even if you think there’s not much “mass” about your practice, you may still be suffering the consequences of trying to learn something without the benefit of repeated focus on it within a particular time frame. Cramming is fine if you want to pass a test the next day, but it’s ineffective for long term retention.

Instead, try distributed practice. You can do that by studying or practicing more frequently and for a shorter amount of time. Ideally, you would focus for at least one period daily on ingraining the new skill. If daily practice is unrealistic for you, though, try lowering your expectations about the amount of time you need to practice on the days that you can’t log in a full session. Just make it a point to carve out a few minutes some time before you go to sleep to check in with the material.

When You Miss

If you can’t manage even a short practice session, commit to thinking through your new skill at various intervals throughout the day. Mental practice is one of the most powerful tools you can possess. Fortunately, the intensity of focus required in this type of practice means that you can devote less time to each session. Of course, just as in conventional guitar practice, you have to do it to make progress!

Mental practice has the added advantage of forcing you to dig for the answer as opposed to checking your notes or tabs. The more often you rehearse mentally, the better your results will be. Make a commitment to practicing mentally every day for a week. You’ll be amazed at the results!