The 10-Minute Guitar Practice Revolution: Making Every Second Count

Finding yourself with only 10 minutes to practice guitar today? Don't put that instrument down! In this enlightening episode, Steve Stein tackles one of the most common challenges guitarists face: how to make meaningful progress when time is scarce and motivation fluctuates.

Steve dismantles the harmful "all-or-nothing" mindset that prevents many players from maintaining consistency. Drawing a powerful parallel to health maintenance, he explains how even brief, focused practice sessions serve as essential "maintenance" for your guitar skills—much like those daily two-mile runs your doctor might prescribe for heart health. On busy days, Steve recommends zeroing in on fundamentals: legato warmups, picking exercises, and other rudimentary techniques that prevent backsliding. When more time becomes available, that's when growth-oriented practice can take center stage.

Particularly valuable is Steve's advice on breaking practice into multiple short sessions throughout your day and following your natural motivation rather than forcing rigid routines. "I don't shut down my technique because I'm supposed to go do creative practice," he explains, emphasizing the importance of riding waves of inspiration when they come. This flexible yet disciplined approach forms the foundation of the Guitar Zoom Academy methodology, where students receive daily guidance rather than traditional weekly lessons.

Whether you're struggling to find time in a packed schedule or battling motivation issues that keep your guitar in its case, this episode provides practical strategies to ensure your progress continues—even if it's just ten minutes at a time. Remember Steve's simple but profound advice: "Practice on the days that you eat." Your future guitar self will thank you for establishing this relationship with your instrument, no matter how brief your daily sessions might be. Ready to transform your approach to practice? Grab your guitar and press play!

Links:

Check out the GuitarZoom Academy:
https://academy.guitarzoom.com/

• Steve’s Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/stinemus...
• GuitarZoom Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/guitarz0...
• Songs Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/GuitarSo... .

Chapters

• 1:10 Introduction: Practice with limited time
• 2:48 Focus on fundamentals when time is short
• 3:57 Daily maintenance vs. growth practice
• 5:45 Breaking up practice throughout the day
• 7:36 Following motivation for effective practice
• 8:55 Guitar Zoom Academy introduction

Transcript

Steve: 0:35

Hey, steve Stine from Guitar Zoom Academy. Here and today we're going to be talking about how to practice when you have no time or any motivation. Okay, so let's just take an example here. Let's say you said to me look, I only have 10 minutes today to practice. Okay, sometimes that can be this all-or-nothing attitude that we get where, well, unless I can practice three hours a day, I'm just not even going to pick up the guitar, and that's a really, really bad way of approaching this.

Steve: 1:03

If you only have 10 minutes today, or 30 minutes today, or whatever it might be, the most important thing is making sure that you spend that time wisely. You can make good time effective time, I should say, or effective practice out of that 10 minutes or out of that 15 minutes that you might have. You just have to have the right mindset and understand what is it that you need to focus on most. What I usually try and tell people is, if you have a minimal amount of time in a day to practice, okay, saturday you're going to have two hours to practice, but today is Friday, it's a busy day, you don't have a lot of time. You've only got 10 or 15 minutes. So let's be smart about what we're going to work on that day. So, for instance, if I only have 10 or 15 minutes, I'm probably not going to start something new right? Or go into a topic of practice that's going to require more time than 10 or 15 minutes. Okay, I might just try and hit the rudiments, and that's often what I will tell people is on the days when you have less time, focus on fundamentals, focus on rudiments that you know you need to do. And think of it this way If you were told by your doctor that you should run two miles a day, okay, for whatever reason, you need to maintain this level of health for yourself, and so you need to eat less red meat and you need to practice, or you need to run two miles a day or something like that.

Steve: 2:33

Okay, so in order to maintain, you need to do that two miles a day and then eat less red meat, or whatever it might be. So on Saturday, maybe you decide you want to run three miles because you have extra time and you enjoy running, right, if you hate it, you're probably not going to do it, and let's hope you don't hate guitar playing. So if you decide you want to run three miles that day because you have more time and you want to elevate. You don't just want to maintain, but you actually want to elevate. So on the days when you have more time, you want to run a little bit longer and your doctor's like that's okay, you should do that, that's beneficial for you. Okay, so on the 10 minute days in our example, we're running those two miles. Okay, we're not necessarily getting faster or running longer, but we're maintaining because the only other option is is that we don't run two miles a day and then, unfortunately, we don't have a heart attack or whatever. It might be something terrible. Right, like the doctor said, we need to be doing this and we don't do that.

Steve: 3:39

So that's how I think about fundamental or rudimentary practice. When you have minimal amount of time, do focus, practice, turn off the TV, don't be on your phone, all these kind of things. Even if you only have 10 minutes, spend it with a quality routine. That will get you some sort of maintenance, right, if that makes sense. So you know, for me it would be like my legato warmups. That's something that I would do every day in my picking Okay, alternate picking, that sort of thing. There's just a basic routine that I run through all the time. It's not that I'm necessarily going to get faster or stronger because of that, but at the very least I'm certainly not going to slip backwards, and that's very important.

Steve: 4:21

And then, on the days when I do have more time, now I can make some choices on well, I'm going to do my routine. Obviously I'm going to do that because I always do this, because that's my maintenance. But then I'm going to do this and I'm going to work on this, I'm going to work on this right, and some days I'm going to do my routine and then I'm just going to my routine and then I'm just going to dive into songwriting or dive into improvisation, or it's a really great technique day. So I'm diving into technique and I'm going to do that for a long time. These are all choices that I can make. So it's easier when you have more time, but when you have less time, you have to really start making some some you know conscious decisions on what to do with that time, versus I just don't have enough time, so I'm not going to pick it up. That's a bad way of looking at it.

Steve: 5:04

Okay, now, if it's something that's very casual maybe the TV is on it. Maybe you're just running through some you know scratching or something like that If you've heard me talk about that sort of thing, which we do all of that in the academy as well but maybe you're doing something like that, or maybe you're doing a finger picking thing, or maybe you're running through an exercise, or you know a lift, a riff that you're learning for a song or you know whatever it might be, and that's fine, there's nothing wrong with that. But the most important thing is is that you're grabbing that guitar every day and and and maintaining that friendship with that guitar. Right, you have the guitar somewhere where, just every single day, you tell yourself I need to practice on the days that I eat, and so you pick up that guitar, even if it's only five or 10 minutes. Okay, some people practice five or 10 minutes throughout the day, so they might grab it right before. You know.

Steve: 5:52

Grab the pick up the guitar right before work or something and just warm up a little bit, or before school or whatever it might be. And then, after you get home, you know you play a little bit and do whatever hang out with the family, whatever it might be and then in the evening you grab the guitar again and play a little bit. So maybe you're only getting five or 10 minutes throughout the day, but maybe each one of those you're focusing on something a little bit different. In the morning you were just doing some legato warmups, and then you know when you got home you know the first thing you do is you do some scale or some. You know technique things with um, you know picking and whatever it might be. And then maybe in the afternoon or in the evening when you grab the guitar, the third time you know maybe that's when you're trying to work on some sort of song thing or whatever it might be. And you know none of these are long periods of time, but you're still getting regular practice, intervals of practice throughout the day, which is great. So some people are really good with a two hour practice. Some people are really good with just, you know, a few 20 minutes here and there, that that kind of work. And then you know when Saturday comes along and you've got more time, maybe that's when you hit it.

Steve: 6:55

The other thing I'll remind you too that I think is really important is motivation and the way you're feeling that day. So when I was younger I used to have kind of a routine that I had set up on a daily basis of I was going to do this for 20 minutes and then this for 20 minutes and this for, you know, 30 minutes and all that sort of thing. And again, if that works for you, I think that's great and it certainly worked for me for a while. But what I started recognizing is that it's almost easier for me to go with the way I'm feeling that day. I'm not making choices based on being lazy, I'm making choices based on the productivity of that day and how I feel.

Steve: 7:34

So if I feel on fire for technique that day, I don't shut down my technique because I'm supposed to go do creative practice or something like that. I don't shut down my technique because I'm supposed to go do, you know, creative practice or something like that. I don't shut it down, I go. And if I'm having a more creative day and you know the creative juices are flown and I'm feeling really good about my practice, I don't shut that down just because I'm supposed to go practice technique Now, I don't do that. The difference here is I'm not avoiding one or the other because I don't want to do it. The difference here is is that I'm I'm on a roll that day, I'm feeling good about something and I want to keep working through this experience that I'm having that day, and so you know that, to me, can be very motivating versus forcing myself to do something on a day when it's just not really working for me. All right.

Steve: 8:20

So remember, if you're interested, do me a favor, check out the Guitar Zoom Academy. Learn what it's about, see if it's something that might work for you. You know we work personally with each and every student on a daily basis. You know setting up a practice plan for you, keeping you accountable, assessment time, or you play for me, you, me. You grab your guitar, we get together, we talk about what you're doing, what's working, what's not working, and we do this again. It's not a 30-minute lesson or something like that a week. We do this on a daily basis, so you know exactly what you're supposed to be doing, you know exactly how to do it, and when you feel like you're a little stuck, you just have a conversation that day and then get right back to work. It's an amazing thing.