How to keep a practice log for music lessons

A practice log is a record of what you practiced and for how long. If you take lessons, its job is simple: help you and your teacher see the week between lessons. Here is what makes a log worth keeping.

1. Log time by category, not only the total

A total of “three hours this week” hides the balance. Split your practice into a few categories, such as warm-up, technique, pieces, sight-reading and ear training, and log the time for each. You will see at once when one area gets all the time and another gets none.

2. Make logging take no effort

If logging means writing down start and end times, you will stop after a few days. Start timing when you start playing, and switch with a single action when you change what you are working on. The log should be a by-product of practising, not extra work.

3. Use your lesson days as the period

Weeks and months do not match how lessons work. Count from one lesson to the next, so the totals answer the question your teacher actually asks: what did you do since last time?

4. Look at it together at the start of the lesson

Thirty seconds is enough. Show the totals per category and the days you practiced. Your teacher can then adjust the assignments to what really happened, instead of what you remember.

5. Read the pattern, not single days

One short day means little. A view of many weeks, such as a calendar heat map, shows the habits that matter: practising mostly the day before the lesson, or long gaps after busy weeks.

Paper or an app?

A notebook works if you keep it next to your instrument. An app adds the totals for you. Practice Log n Share, which I made for my own sax lessons, does the five things above: tap a category card to time it, mark lesson days, and open the Share view at the lesson. It runs on iPhone and iPad, needs no account, and logging on 5 dates is free.