[onefadedfan]

so ive been going through the whole "have fun and learn songs you like and learn some chords" phase, and i'm proud to say i've learned some stuff i never thought id be playing at this point...seems pretty advanced to me at least from where i thought i would be. however, it's still fairly sloppy and when i get to the middle part of the song the temp changes and speeds up so i haven't ventured there yet. anyway...i was wondering how everyone here practices. i want to practice to where i can hone my skills and develop speed and accuracy, not just keep playing the song over and over (which i do anyway). i just feel that ive climbed to that level and now am stuck because my practice sessions have no structure...i just play. so before i start babbling more, how do you all structure your practices?

[johnnydoxx]

I have several goals:
Short-term I want to play chords and strum well enough to participate in local jam sessions (mainly country music), play for our family reunions, and play in the park for fun. I'm pretty well there now.
Long-term I want to play some lead and get cleaner and faster chord changes, plus play some tougher songs (some of the old standards like Stardust, Misty, etc.)

Right now I'm concentrating on short-term. I vary my practices.
In one, I play and sing from my selected set of songs, which I have in a three-ring notebook, so I can get those songs good enough for the venues I mentioned above.
In another, I set up my drum machine and play along, paying a lot of attention to keeping the tempo and strum patterns, not worrying about the singing.
In another, I only play the songs (no singing) no drum machine. The goal is to really hear the gronks and clunks and get them better. In this mode I stop at a gronk and repeat until it sounds OK.
In another, I play from a book of songs that I don't usually play. I try to play all the chords listed. (When I play for the venues above, I leave out dim and other 'too many in a measure' chords, because I can't switch to them fast enough yet.)
Another - I put on one earphone (so I can hear myself in the other ear) and crank up Sirius country music from our satellite TV, then try to play along. Getting the key, chord changes, and strumming technique emulation is what I concentrate on.

And I begin each practice with 5 - 10 minutes of finger exercises. Someone posted a set here a while back. Basically runs up and down the neck with different fingering patterns.