This is how I manage my time and why...

Part of being a successful musician is knowing how to manage your time while practicing. There are several aspects that go into time management when trying to develop an effective practice schedule as a pianist.

These considerations are:

1. What time of day to practice?

2. How long should you practice?

3. Should you practice all at once or in small sections?

4. What should you prioritize during your practice time? 

What time of day should you practice?

The time of day we practice makes a huge difference on our ability to learn and absorb our music quickly. It is also highly individual and you must discover your own best practice times based on your own internal clock. For example; a night owl should never make it their goal to wake up and practice at 7AM. This would be a complete waste of their time since it goes against their nature and when they are most creative. Also physically forcing themselves to wake up early to practice at an unnatural time for them will ensure they will be physically stiff and have trouble warming up. Lack of effective warmup and stiff playing could potentially cause an injury. 

For me, a mild night owl, I find my best playing is in the evening but that I am able to warm up effectively and easily get into flow any time after noon. It is advantageous for me to have my best playing be later in the day since concerts are always at night. It's possible, that many pianists preferences for evening playing is actually entrainment from performing so much in the evening. 

Now, not always can we strictly practice at our ideal times and sometimes we have to play at very undesirable times. Reasons for this can include lessons, master classes, performing classes and simply being so busy we have to grab any time we can to practice. Obviously I am not able to practice at my ideal time everyday, but I do work to make it a priority to schedule my practicing around the times I know I'll be most physically and mentally sharp. 

How long should you practice?

Many people think the answer to this questions is, "As much as humanely possible!". But this is not how effective time management for practicing works. Many people believe in practicing certain amounts of hours per day but if your schedule is chaotic, this method doesn't work. Some composers and pianists believed in specific amounts of times. Chopin didn't believe you should ever practice more than three hours a day and those three hours should be hyper focused. Liszt warmed up with technical exercises for four hours BEFORE starting his regular practice. The answer to this question is dependent on the individual, how fast they can enter flow, how long they can remain in flow and what they are working on. I personally find four hours to be the perfect amount of practicing in a day. Sustaining more than 4 hours can lead me to injury since my pieces are highly technical. It's important for every performer to experiment with times to find what works best for their repertoire while also not over practicing and risking injury. 

Should you practice all at once or in small sections?

Does practicing for four hours straight return the best results or is it better to practice for 30 minutes increments? The old fashioned method would be to practice all at once, but this is only physically healthy if you have built up the stamina otherwise you will get injured. When working on very physically demanding pieces, you must take breaks to allow your muscles to completely relax. I find micro breaks to be the most effective for me. If the section I'm practicing is extremely difficult then I will often practice for a couple minutes and then take a 30 second break. Generally though I practice for 30 minutes and take a 5 minutes break and I make sure to stand up and move around to stretch at least once an hour. 

Some pianists have trouble concentrating for more than an hour and will chose to practice for an intense hour then move to another activity before having another practice session. It's important to find what works best for you so you do not become mentally or physically exhausted. 

What should you prioritize during your practice time?

Should you work on the new etude you're studying for two out of your three practice hours? Should you spend the majority of your time focused on the hardest sections of a piece? Prioritizing your focus during practice can be daunting but is very important to effectively learning your music in the least amount of time. Many are so excited when starting anything new, they completely forego their current repertoire and spend hours each day on their new piece. This is an unwise approach since learning new music is mentally draining and you can burn out on the new piece by over practicing. 

I try to optimize my practice time by isolating the sections that need the most practice time and working on them first. I also do not practice based on what I "want" to practice. We all have our favorite sections and pieces to practice but it's more important to prioritize what needs work over our immediate enjoyment. At the end of a practice session I might take some extra time to sight read or play things I've been wanting to play as a reward. 

What if you are prevented from practicing effective practice time management due to outside circumstances?

I think it's important to remember that I'm giving examples of ideal situations when discussing practice time management. As a professional musician and doctoral student, I rarely get to enjoy ideal practice conditions. For example, I have a performance recently where I was only able to to learn the music in one day. I practiced for nine hours straight, I even ate at the piano to make sure I new the repertoire in time! 

It's ok to not always be perfect when managing your practice time. The most important thing is consistency and finding your own individual answers to the questioned we discussed above.