If You’re Not Setting Deadlines, You’re Wasting Practice Time

Your practice can be consistent and still feel like it’s going nowhere. When there’s no deadline, it’s easy to drift through scales, licks, and exercises without ever feeling finished, and that “unfinished” feeling quietly kills motivation. We talk about the simplest fix: give your guitar practice a real finish line, even if you don’t have a band, a gig, or a rehearsal on the calendar.

I walk through a pressure test that makes the idea click fast: imagine getting called to learn a 30-song set list in two weeks. Suddenly you’re not casually practicing, you’re planning. You’re sorting songs by difficulty, learning structures first, deciding which riffs and fills actually matter, and adapting parts that are outside your current wheelhouse. That’s not cheating, that’s real-world musicianship: prioritizing, simplifying when needed, and delivering the song.

From there, we turn it into a repeatable system using mock deadlines. Pick a timeframe, choose songs that are challenging but realistic, set a clear outcome (play start to finish, record yourself, memorize forms), and hold yourself accountable. I also share why “professional” isn’t about getting paid, it’s a mindset of being prepared, using your time wisely, and building a cushion so you can handle surprises with confidence.

If you want more support, I also explain how GuitarZoom Academy works and what daily interaction and custom guidance can look like. Subscribe for more practical guitar lessons, share this with a friend who feels stuck, and leave a review with the next deadline you’re committing to.

Thanks for being here!! I will continue to do my best to bring you the best, most informative guitar discussions to help you along your guitar journey!

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Thank you!
Steve

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... . 

Transcript

Setting Purpose With Deadlines

Steve 0:35

Hey, this is Steve Stein from Guitar Zoom Academy, and I want to talk to you about the importance of creating deadlines in your practice. Now think about it this way. If you don't have deadlines in your guitar playing, oftentimes what happens is you don't feel like you're finishing anything. You just practice different things, but it feels like you really don't have a purpose. So think about it this way. If all of a sudden you got a call from somebody that said, Hey, we want you to play with us. We're going to be doing 30 songs. We want you to learn our set list. We're going to do 30 tunes. And we'd like you to play with us in two weeks. Okay? You have 14 days to get ready. Think about how your practice would change. Think about how much you'd practice and with what kind of um determination you'd practice. Think about how you'd organize. Okay, I've got these 30 songs that I have to learn. So I need to start sifting through these songs and figuring out what do I need to learn of this one? How much do I need to learn of this one? What am I going to do with this one? Okay. The practice changes dramatically because all of a sudden you realize you have a deadline. 14 days from now, whether you're ready or not, you got a job to do. And you don't want to not be ready. You don't want to let anybody down. So you got to get in here and figure out how to play these songs. Some of these songs might be really easy, but some of these songs might not. Some of these songs might take a lot of practice and a lot of time. Some of these songs might have sections that you're not physically prepared for, for instance. Maybe the solo for this song is out of your wheelhouse at this point. If you had three more months to practice, you could get ready for this, but you don't have three months. You have two, you have two weeks. So you've got to make a plan of, well, I can't play the solo the way it's written. I need to make a plan of how I'm going to play this. I need to memorize these songs, at least to the best of my ability, right? Learn the structures of these songs, figure out how the chords go, what are the riffs? Are there any fills? Are there things I could leave out because I only have two weeks to learn these? See, that's a completely different way of approaching practice versus I'm going to work on some scales and I'm going to work on some finger exercises. Again, nothing wrong with that. That's a great way of practicing, but it's not the whole picture. The problem without with not having some sort of deadline in your life is that you don't really feel any urgency. There's no real need to progress. You just do the same things over and over and over. So what happens a lot of times with people is when they're doing that, they start feeling um sort of um listless. Like they don't, I, you know, why am I doing this? Why am I working on this stuff? I'm not really getting anywhere. I, you know, I don't play in a band. I I'm never I don't want to be famous. Like I hear people say this stuff all the time. I don't want to be famous. Take all of that out of the equation. It's nothing to do with fame. It has to do with, as a as a guitar player and as a musician in general, we should have some sort of want to play with other people. What keeps us from getting there is our lack of confidence in ourselves. And also, oftentimes, our misunderstanding of what is actually needed from us. We think that we don't have something to offer because we look at other people and we compare ourselves to them. Okay. There's a million levels of uh skill set and you know, all of these different kinds of things that we have as musicians, certainly for us as guitar players. And just because you can't do this, this, or this doesn't mean you you can't do these things. And so what you have to start learning is even though you might not be in a band, maybe you don't have a rehearsal coming up, maybe there aren't people that you're playing with at this point, you can still create situations that make you feel like you have a deadline. Okay. So here's what I want you to think about. When you create a deadline, it forces you to start making some choices, making some decisions, prioritizing what you're doing and how you're doing it. When you do practice, you're practicing with purpose. There's something you have to work on to get it ready. So a really great thing to do for yourself is to create some mock deadlines. Okay. Today is Monday, for instance. By Saturday, I'm going to learn these three songs, or these four songs, or these five songs, whatever it is, or this song, whatever it is. Your practice will become very different because of how you're going to approach these things. Now you have to be smart about the songs that you're choosing. You can't just choose five super, super easy songs that don't require any effort at all. And in the same breath, you can't choose five songs that are just absolutely impossible for you to play right now. You have to be realistic about this. Okay? Think of some songs that are kind of in your wheelhouse that you enjoy, but they, you know, they sound like they take some work. And create a deadline for yourself, create a mock deadline. So you start learning what it feels like to have to get a job done. And how once you get into these songs, you have to start making some real-world choices, just like all of us do. Okay. You don't have five years to work on this song to work on every single part of it and make it perfect. You have a week, right? Or six days if today is Monday, or five days till Saturday, to get these five songs ready. And what does that mean? Well, it means I'm going to be playing this, but I'm going to skip these little things here because I don't have time. Okay. Or I'm going to do this solo, but I'm not going to do it the way it was written because I don't have time. Okay. It's a different way of thinking about things. And it's a great way to practice is creating mock deadlines. The more you get used to being able to do that, the more you start realizing how to make these decisions in your head, how to prioritize which songs to do first, what parts you need to focus on, what parts you need to redo in a way that's going to benefit you. It's going to work for you. It's going to, you know, make you feel better about the situation, develop your confidence. And hopefully start making you realize that you can do this. You know, maybe you you start working with your local church and start playing with them or some friends in the neighborhood or something like that, where you actually start creating deadlines. Okay. You don't need a band, you don't need a gig. Okay. You need to learn how to create that pressure for yourself and understand that how your general practice is very different than your deadline practice. Okay. I can work on all kinds of things on my own. You know, when I don't have a deadline coming up and I'm working on this and I'm learning this lick and doing this thing. But then all of a sudden, I'll have something that's coming up. And now I got to start shifting into that mode in my brain of getting ready for this thing. Maybe it's a band I've played with before, but I have to brush up on the material. Maybe it's something brand new that I've never played with these people before, or this situation that I'm going to be playing in. I don't want to let people down. I my one of my worst fears is showing up and not being able to do the job. So I practice as much as I need to to be ready. And ready for me doesn't mean, you know, I'm working my way up to this line. Ready for me means I'm going to work up to this line and surpass this line. That way, if anything goes wrong or something like that, or there's adjustments that need to be made, I've got this cushion so I can be ready. That's how I think about it. That to me is the term professional. Okay. When people say, well, I don't ever want to be a professional, what does that even mean? I mean, is it because you play 300 days a year that makes you a professional? Or, you know what? Like you get paid a certain amount of money, it makes you a professional. For me, professionalism is a mindset. You have to learn how to do the job and do it well and efficiently and all those other things. Be compatible, you know, all that kind of stuff. And then along the way, you've got to gain confidence and control in yourself, understand how to do this. Be smart with your time, right? I've got till Saturday to get these songs ready. I've got to be smart. I can't wait until Friday and then start on them. I've got to, I've got to use my time wisely. I've got to choose which songs I need to work on first. Again, everybody's different this way, but this is something that you need to need to think about when it comes to developing a different frame of mind for practice. Okay? So here's some simple ways that you can create some deadlines for yourself. Number one is pick a time frame, like again, by next Friday or in two weeks, and then assign a clear outcome. I'm going to be able to play this song from start to finish, or I'm going to record this thing, or I'm going to memorize this whatever. And these it doesn't just have to be songs. Okay. You could have other deadlines as well. But I think songs work really, really effectively because you start learning how to do this in the real world. So if you and I were to jam together and we say, oh, let's learn these songs, you understand how you're going to have to approach this to get those songs ready by the time we get together, you see? So this is a great thing for you to practice. Pick a timeline, assign a clear outcome of what it is that you want to be able to do, and then be accountable for that. Okay. I'm going to be able to play these five songs all the way through by Saturday, making the adjustments that I need to be able to, or I need to make so I can play these by Saturday. Okay? I'm going to improvise over this backing track and record it on Saturday, right? Or whatever. I mean, there's a million things that you could do with this, but this builds consistency in your playing. It builds confidence in you and it turns your practice into actual results. And the other thing for me that's really important is you just start developing this real-world ability of being able to look at a situation and figure out how am I going to approach this to get the job done. Okay? Very important for you. Now, if you struggle with these sorts of things, I'm just reminding you, we here at Guitar Zoom have what we call the Guitar Zoom Academy. And uh this is something, it's very unique where we don't, you know, work with you on a weekly basis or something like that. We interact every day. And there's multiple ways that we do this. Lots of learning resources and opportunities and different kinds of things like that, lots of assessments of your playing, lots of real conversations about you, about your playing, about your struggles, certainly about your goals. And we build something that's customized to you. It's not a cookie cutter thing. It's not watching a bunch of videos. It's actually developing a human relationship and working together. So if that sounds like something that you're interested in, there, you know, you can always go to guitarzoom.com and check it out and see if it's something that would work for you. And if not, that's great too. Uh, I wish you the best and hope that you can get this organized and take this whole experience to another level. Enjoy it. Be motivated, be excited, love your guitar playing. That's what this whole thing's about. So I'll touch you later.