Your Ultimate Guide to Practice Journaling - PHH 253

What if playing the harp felt easier the way you thought it would be? Not because you practiced more, but because you finally understood what was getting in your way. I'm Anne Sullivan, and welcome to Practicing Harp Happiness. Here we tackle the real challenges harpists struggle with: the sticky passages, the tricky fingerings, prepping for performance, and all the ingredients that go into making music sound the way you want it to. I've studied with world-class harpists, taught at a top conservatory for 20 years, and I love playing the harp. But what I love just as much is breaking down the real challenges harpists face and turning them into clear step-by-step solutions, the same ones I teach my students and use myself. So if you're ready to play the music you love with more confidence, clarity, and joy, you're in the right place. So let's get started. Welcome to the show. I was recently at the home of a harpist friend, and she showed me her stack of diaries, her appointment books from past years. There were decades of them. She was deciding it was time to get rid of them, but she wasn't quite ready to do it. So I had to admit that I pitched mine long ago, and still occasionally I have wished that I still had them. They'd be fun to look through. Those entries, even the most prosaic ones, right, recall so many memories. They bring to mind places, people, and events that you've nearly forgotten. Suddenly you're transported to a, a different time and place, even a different version of you. And this can give you a different perspective on where you are and even who you are now. But we aren't talking about calendars or diaries today. We're talking about practice journals and the variety of ways that you can use them. Now, right off the bat, I will say that some of these ways are more impactful than others in terms of promoting your progress and growth. For instance, if you've been using your practice journal as a simple way to keep track of what you've done, I think you're underutilizing your journal. It can be an engine for tremendous forward momentum, not just a log of today's practice. And we're going to explore some of those ways today. One important disclaimer here. I am not one of those people who are natural journalers. Although many of my friends in our teen years kept diaries of all kinds, I was never able to. I wasn't one of those. It always seemed like a good idea, but I didn't really enjoy it. Now, I appreciate that some people are very good at this and really love it, and I wanted to be clear in case you're more like me that I am not one of those people. However, I do use a practice journal, and so I know firsthand how valuable it can be. So if you're a journal lover, you're going to find some new ideas for journaling today, at least I hope you will. And if you're a little reluctant to dive into this journaling thing, please be patient because I understand where you're coming from and I have some key tips for you too. And of course, I would be remiss if I didn't remind you that I have my own version of a practice journal that you can purchase. We call it the Spark Practice Journal and it embodies all the components we're going to be talking about today. And in fact, I designed this journal not just to help my students but because it's the way that I learned finally to practice. Many of you know I was not a big fan of practice when I was a young harpist growing up, and I really had to discover the, the purpose for practice and what makes it so important. So I had to come up with my own system for practice, and I came up with my own system for practice journaling. Now, This incorporates that. It incorporates a lot more. I'm talking about my Spark Practice Journal here. It incorporates the elements of it that I use and focus on and the elements that you might want to focus on as well. Please understand that you don't have to use every aspect of this practice journal, but it does give you the room to work the way you want and to get all the benefits of journaling. And that's what we'll be talking about today, not the Spark Practice Journal per se, although I'd be thrilled if you wanna give that a try, but how a practice journal can help move you forward in the way that you want to. Now, if you want to order the Spark Practice Journal, I've put a link in the show notes, or you can just go to heartmastery.com, click on shop, click on practice resources, and you'll see it there. We offer two different sizes of print version if you want us to send you a print version. It's sort of spiral bound, and there's a smaller sort of notebook size, 6x9, I think, kind of version. And then the larger version that's sort of the, the usual size big pages. Just depends on what you like. And of course we have a PDF version that you can download and print as you like. So those 3 options are there for you. And you may have a practice journal that you love. That's fine with me too. But we're going to talk about how you can use whatever practice journal system you like more effectively to help speed your progress. That's our objective today, and I'd like to start by telling you a little about my very first practice journal experiences. My first experience with anything resembling a practice journal might have been like yours. Mine was the assignment book that my piano teacher had where she wrote down for me every week in our lesson what I was supposed to do to prepare for next week's lesson. Now, I have no idea what kind of printed and published assignment books there were back then. That was a long time ago. I know that there's practically an infinite number now. You can find all kinds of detailed assignment books with all kinds of great features in them. But mine was just a simple, small manuscript paper book, you know, all the staff lines on it that my teacher wrote everything I was supposed to do. Now, she was a very good teacher, so she was very organized, and she would write down those things I was supposed to do, knowing that my book was going to be right on the music rack next to my music, and it could almost work like a little checklist. Do this, do this, do this, do this. And of course, with her wisdom and her expertise at teaching, she knew pretty much how I— how much work to give me to fill the practice time that she expected me to, to in. The flaw in this system was that I didn't do the practice. I hated the practice, and it's not a failing on anybody's part but my own. It was a constant source of frustration to my teachers, to my parents, and to me as well. But it took me a long time to get that figured out. I was a teenager, a late teenager, before I really got the idea. So This kind of practice assignment book was very useful because it really showed me exactly what to do, but this is such a bare-bones form for a practice journal. I'm sure that if you do any practice journaling, this might be a feature of what you do, but it's certainly not the whole thing. It's really rather limited because when you have a practice assignment book. You know what you're supposed to be doing. You've got your checklist to follow, and the idea being that you know what you're supposed to do in order to meet the next milestone. And in my case, with those early piano lessons, the milestone was my next lesson. This was what I had to prepare. That kind of a checklist is useful, and it can be very comforting because you know exactly what you're supposed to do. But the limitation on that system is that it's just an action guide, and if you don't do what you're supposed to do, you're not going to get anywhere. Your progress isn't relying on the fact that you have an assignment sheet. Your progress is built on the action that you take to follow it. Hence the problem I was having with my own practice, right? It doesn't matter how good the practice system is. If you don't follow it. So the assignment was there, and then it's the student's choice to follow it or not. Following it is great. Not following it may not be a problem, but the intention and the direction are going to play a big part in that. So let's realize that for our discussion, a practice journal isn't just an assignment book. It's got to be more than that. Lots of practice journals include sort of an after-action review, right? When your practice is done, you get to write down what you did. The kinds of assignment books that a lot of children get have little, you know, things you can check off to say, "Yes, I did this. Yes, I did this. No, I didn't." And it builds in some accountability. Accountability is really key in any kind of practice situation, let alone a practice journal, right? If you want to make more progress, being accountable in some way helps you stay on track and helps you see the measurement of your actions, which is how we get to progress. And somehow just seeing that record of, yep, did it, yep, did it, yes, I did it, yes, I did it, that helps keep you going. So that after-action review, after practice, you know, writing down what you did, what went well, what didn't, all that kind of stuff, that's definitely a next-level use of a practice journal. It's not only a record of what you did and hopefully a little bit of how it went, you know, did it go the way you expected? Did you encounter questions or difficulties that you didn't expect what happened. It's very useful for a teacher because when you show that sort of thing to your teacher, then your teacher can see what might be missing from what you're doing in your practice. It can be a way to say, okay, wait, I see what you did, but here's a different way to work on it that may help you get better results. That's kind of definitely not kind of anything about it. It is definitely a next-level use of a practice journal. You're going to not only have that expectation for what you're supposed to do, like an assignment book does, but you're going to have that, well, this is how it went component that lets you springboard your next day's work from this day's work. So that accountability portion, that you know, reflection on your, uh, progress this day. That's really important. And I think it's a difficult thing for a lot of people to do because they either are trapped into saying, well, yes, I did this and I did it 10 times, or something very quantifiable like that, or they get into the weeds of self-correction and, well, I should have done this, I should be doing this. And it can be uncomfortable and sometimes even unhelpful if you're going into that sort of blame game, you know, oh, it didn't go the way I wanted, or I should have done more practice, or I didn't get to this. So that can be dangerous territory. There are ways to stay out of the guilt trip land But I think in general, the accountability portion of it is very helpful. So there's a next level component to practice journaling, but there's still more. Some people find that using a practice journal as a journal is a very helpful way to live their harp life, to not worry so much about the what I did, what I should have done, what I'm supposed to do aspect of practice, but to consider more how they feel about their practice and their harp playing, to write down their reflections about the music that they're working on or the skills that they're working on, and to be more holistic about it and less task-oriented. This is the kind of journaling that I am least comfortable with, but I really admire the people that do it and do it well. I'm all about getting things done. Don't get me wrong, I find a lot of fulfillment in my music, and the music is important to me, but I don't generally write about it. But if that's the kind of thing that you do express well— maybe you were one of those that kept a terrific diary as a teenager, and of course this was where I abysmally failed— but if this is the kind of writing that is helpful to you, by all means do it. It can be extremely helpful to see how you connect and to explore how you connect to music and how meaningful it is to you. There's no point in making progress at anything, especially anything related to harp playing and music, if it doesn't connect with you in the very depths of your being, right? If it's not really meaningful to you, then there's really no reason to spend the, the hours and the effort that we do trying to do it better. So I'm sure that that's the kind of connection that you have to your heart playing, or you wouldn't be listening to this podcast. And if you enjoy exploring that and writing down your thoughts about that, then that's a wonderful component for a practice journal. I would say by all means include it. But I would also say if that's not you, that's okay because you don't have to be writing down your thoughts as long as you're remembering that music practice, music playing, the habit of playing music has a point. And that point is fulfillment for you, communication of music to the world. There are all kinds of wonderful reasons to play beyond trying to get a particular fingering correct. So as long as you're not only focused on trying to do things right, but you're focused on what is beautiful and wonderful about playing music, then you're doing the right thing. On the other hand too, you might truly enjoy writing about those things, but remember that practice doesn't just call on you to express yourself But there are specific things you need to do if you want to continue to play music at a higher level. So we need a balance of those things. I would encourage you to try writing down those reflections. I have tried, and occasionally I will do them, but I'm just not very comfortable with it, not very good at it. So, you know, that's— it's an okay thing. All of these 3 components that we just talked about— the assignment, kind of thing, and the after-action, after-practice review sort of thing, and the reflection idea. All of these are important components of a good practice journal system. The extent to which you employ any one of these is up to you, and you know you best. So as they say these days, you do you. But all three of these can be helpful and beneficial. I will say, not being very good at writing down reflections like that in my practice journal, I will say that a practice of doing that, or even doing it occasionally, is really good for reconnecting with your sources of inspiration and your motivation, for redirecting your energy when you need it, when you need to just pull in a little bit more of the, the why. Into your playing. All of that is important, and I think you can find those reflections a source of strength in your playing. The fourth major component of a good practice journal system is the planning component. This is the one that is most critical for me and the one I have found is really critical for a lot of my students. It's quickest way to be sure that you're staying on track. It makes it very simple to know what you're supposed to be doing every day. Now, in the Spark Practice Journal, we break your objectives down into 90-day segments just because it's an easy time frame to work with, and it's not so long that you don't— that your, your dreams just die from having been delayed for so long. But if you can live in that 90-day world or adjust the time length to suit you and to suit your objectives, but to say, this is what I want to accomplish in these next 3 months, and then plan out a little bit of where you think you're going to be in, you know, after month 1 and after month 2 so that you can finish month 3 where you want to finish and break that down just a little bit It's a minimal amount of planning. I know it may seem like it's something that is sort of foreign and you're putting time constraints on music that may feel uncomfortable for you. But when you just do it even sort of in a general sense, saying, okay, I want to have these pieces learned. We do it all the time. We do it for Christmas stuff, right? I want to have these pieces learned by Christmas. You can do that without it having to be Christmas. You can do that at any time of year and say, this is what I want to have done and if I want to have it done then I have to be this far along by this date and this far along by that next big milestone so that I know I can finish on time. Just that little bit of breakdown of the steps that you're going to use to accomplish whatever you want to accomplish, whether it's a piece you're going to learn, a repertoire you want to have ready, a technique you're working on, a book you're working your way through, any of those things, having those big sort of progress milestones in place, it's going to keep you on track. If you were having weekly lessons with a teacher, and maybe you are, your teacher's kind of doing that for you. You know, if you've got your end target date, well, your teacher's helping you organize the work that you have to do. Say, okay, this is the next thing you have to do, and this is by when you have to do it. If you don't have a teacher or you're not seeing your teacher that regularly, this is a great way to track it for yourself. It doesn't have to be done with any special musical expertise. What you need to do, the requisites that you need in order to do this planning well, you need to know the time that you have available and how you like to practice. What your practice pattern has been, um, how long you think it's going to take you to learn something. Those are the only things that you need to really take into account. So the planning system is really easy: what do you want to do, when do you want to have it done by, and what are the 2 or 3 big milestones you need to meet along the way so that you can be sure that you're making progress in the time frame you want. That's really all there is to it at the macro level. And the thing is that once you've put those in place, then you can work down. Well, if this is what I need to achieve in this month, this is what I need to do this week. And once you know what you need to do this week, you have a guide for every day's practice that week. It gets down to that level, and it's it just feels like a natural progression. You don't have to stress over what you're going to do in your practice every day and if it's going to be effective. You know what you need to do and you know why and you know your time frame. It makes planning your practice very easy and it makes the progress nearly automatic. All you have to do is follow your plan. So the practice journal as a planning tool where you can write out your plans and you don't have to continually reinvent them. You sit down there and you say, okay, this is where I want to be at the end of these 3 months, this is where I want to be at the end of the second month, this is where I want to be at the end of this month, this is how it's going to break down week by week, this is what I have to do this week. Very simple. This is one of the things that we do in the Spark Journal that's just a little bit different from some other systems. It's idea of really being clear about what it is you want to do and directing your practice toward a specific objective. Sometimes I call these goals, sometimes I call them objectives, sometimes I call them projects or plans. If the word goal feels too heavy for you, feels like it's, you know, it's got a lot of weight to it, then just use something easier like, this is my, this is my idea. This is my desire. This is what I think I want to do. And then create your plan accordingly. But the power of having that idea, having that thing that you want to do, and the time frame in which you intend to accomplish it, that is the factor that will move you faster than just about anything else toward getting there. And that's perhaps the most powerful part of any practice journal system. So let's talk about how you can put all these pieces together and journal more effectively. First, I hope I have you convinced that you should be keeping a practice journal. And remember, this is coming to you from one who is not naturally a journal keeper, but a practice journal is going to be powerful. At the very least, it is a reminder of your intentions, and it's going to help give you some accountability. When you can check off the practice that you've done today at that very basic level, when you can fill in that little spot on your practice journal and say, "Oh look, I did this today," it's going to give you that little burst of enthusiasm that's going to help bring you back to the harp tomorrow. And that even puts aside the value of organization and planning that it's going to bring you, right? So please do consider keeping a practice journal. If you've never done one, make it nice and simple, and we'll talk about how to do it very simply right now. So yes, I want you to keep one, and that's why accountability, remember, is one huge predictor of results. That's one of the reasons we hold practice labs in the hub, and generally twice a week unless I can't be there, we hold practice hubs just so that for those 2 days a week, those of us who are able to show up have a little bit of accountability. We just show up and practice silently. Nobody hears us, we don't hear anybody else, but that time is assigned and put aside for our practice. Accountability is powerful. You know, the power of a streak, right? So remember that the practice journal is one way that you can build accountability into your own practice. So I would ask you to consider it just for that reason to start with. Now let's look at what you can do with it. If you're not used to keeping a practice journal, or if you do keep a practice journal but you're feeling like it's not really doing very much for you, In either of those circumstances, my advice to you is to start with the planning portion of it. This may seem like it's a little bit backwards. Why don't you just start with, you know, what you're going to do today? But I find that if you decide what it is you want to accomplish— maybe you don't want to think 3 months out, maybe you want to say, okay, by this day next month, what would I like to have done? And then say, all right, well, if I need to do that in 4 weeks, what do I need to have done in 2 weeks? And give yourself that little interim objective to try to hit and say, all right, well, if that's what I want to hit in 2 weeks, then what am I going to work on this week? And then you know, then you know what your practice is going to be. So if you've never done this before, And if it feels like it might be too difficult for you, I'm gonna tell you to give it a try because it's actually the easiest place to start because you already know what you want to do. And if you haven't given that a thought, then maybe you're just kind of wandering around in your practice and we wanna put a stop to that too. We'd like your practice to bring progress. So start with that objective. Say, all right, this is what I want to do. And here's my halfway marker. And so with that in mind, here's what I need to do this week. And then write those things down. You don't have to write a million things down. You don't even have to write down everything you want to do in your practice. Some people like to list every little thing. I'm going to work on these exercises and then I'm going to work on these scales and I'm going to work on these etudes and I'm going to work on this part of this piece and this part of this piece and this part of this piece. Sort of that assignment assignment book kind of thing. You don't have to do that. If that's what you like, then go ahead, but don't skip this planning part. And if you don't want to write down everything that you want to do in your practice because you like to be just a little more freeform, that's okay. Write down those 3 big things that you want to do, that you need to do in order to get done what you want to get done, to achieve that objective or to meet that, that goal. What are the 3 things that you need to work on to have that happen? Write down those, and then they're the only things that you are promising to do in your practice. Everything else, you can take it as it comes. You can be freeform if you want. You don't have to have every moment planned, but you need to have those big steps that you want to take. Those you should plan and those you should put in. So the planning component needs to go first. Anything after that is kind of up to you. What I would suggest is that if you're the assignment book type, go ahead and write down everything. And then if you're the assignment book type, you probably also like to check all those things off. I did this, this, this, this, this today, and I'm going to start with this tomorrow. That's great. Don't ignore the longer-range planning aspect of it though, or you can get so caught up in the doing of all these little things that you lose sight of the one thing that you really want to have accomplished. So keep that planning part of it in perspective. I would say don't ignore the free-form journaling, the how you feel about your practice. I think that's really important too. And in either case, whether you're the, the, the I-like-to-write-the-diary kind or not, at the end of your week, write a little recap. Could be just 2 or 3 sentences of what you've done and say, all right, well, look, I, I did really well on this. I had hoped to do a little bit more on this than I got done, but this is what I'm going to do next week. So that end-of-week review, saying, okay, yep, stuck to my plan pretty well, or, oh, I kind of I missed the mark here and I want to do this next week. Very, very helpful. I will say that this is the key thing for me with my own practice journaling: getting the big picture in there, knowing that there are going to be lots of other things I have to work on. Something that I need to play through for a student, something I need to rewrite for a student that's going to take some practice time, something that, you know, some other project that comes up or an extra concert that I'm preparing for. All that's fine, but for me, having those big objectives in place and following through, that's important. So my practice journal probably looks a lot emptier than some of yours because I don't write down everything that I do, but I do write down the big things that I do. And that's what's really important to me, keeping track of those bigger projects. So that's my own practice journal. Practice. I would urge you to start with the planning. Don't start from the little nitty-gritty. If, if you love the nitty-gritty, then go ahead and do that. Just don't ignore the planning. Whatever you do, I have one really important warning perhaps for you, or at least, at the very least, a strong recommendation. Whatever you choose to make your practice journal system, don't make the system more important than the action. Don't spend so much time designing your practice system or even using your practice journal system that you actually aren't doing the practice, right? Spend only as much time as you actually need to to get that done, because after all, it's what you do in your practice that's more important than what you've written in your practice journal. So be sure to keep that in perspective. Going along with that idea, I ran across an old blog post of mine that I had written quite a number of years ago, and it's about a different definition of practice. It's not a new definition, but it might be one you haven't thought of for a while, and it was something we were talking about at the retreat recently. And when I found this blog post, I thought this would be the perfect time to share that with you. So I've put a link to that blog post in the show notes just to give you a different idea about practice, one that's not quite so based on, "I must do this, then I do this, then I do this." This is a different way to look at it, and you might be interested in that. If you are, I've put that link in the show notes for you, and you can explore that. So just a quick recap: you can use your practice journal as an assignment book, or as a practice log to say what you've done, or as a kind of diary to write down your reflections about your practice and your playing, or as a strategic planning tool. All 4 of those are valuable. I think that the assignment book angle is possibly the least powerful of all of those. It's just sort of a check the list. It doesn't have direction. The others are more helpful for sustaining direction, and of course the planning aspect is important for creating that direction, for declaring that direction to yourself, and for using that direction to help keep you on track every month, every week, every day. So So that's how I think you can use a practice journal, and I hope that you can explore some of this in your own practice journaling. Next week on the podcast, we're going to be talking about keys and scales. Now, this may not seem like a very interesting topic, but I am hoping that I'm going to be able to, to clear up a lot of confusion about how keys and scales work and how you can effectively practice them, maybe even truly learn your key signatures for the first time. So we're going to be talking about that on the podcast next week. And in the meantime, until I talk to you then, remember that every day is a day you can add more harp happiness to the universe, to your world, and to your spirit. And all you have to do is play. Thanks so much for listening, and I'll see you next time. Enjoyed today's episode? Then share it with a harpist friend, subscribe for your weekly harp happiness boost, and check out harpmastery.com or the Harp Mastery app in your app store for more resources and ways to connect. I'll see you next time.