Here’s a simple way to make your life as a songwriter much, much easier:
As you sit down for this course or anything else that you’re studying, open your practice journal. Keep it close to hand with the idea that if you hear something important that relates to your situation, your goals, your needs as a songwriter… that you’ll flip your notebook open and write it down.
Do this whenever you notice that a point resonates with you, or you hear something you want to remember, or whenever you notice that you don’t quite understand something.
When it comes to this *Art of Daily Practice* course, I encourage you to press “Pause” in the middle of these lessons absolutely anytime so that you can write in your practice journal. The material will wait patiently for you right here. Take as long as you need.
Capture any thoughts that this course sparks. Develop plans. Take notes. Form questions. Make connections between this course and your own experience or your own goals. And finally, resolve to take certain steps and actions to actually put these things into practice in your actual life.
Just listening to the course and agreeing with me won’t actually lead you to a practice routine. Actively engaging with the material, doing the worksheets, and actually doing the work to incorporate it into your life will.
Bridging that gap between “I should…” and “I *will*” begins in your journal—where you can spend a little time with yourself to work out what this stuff means to you and plan how you’re going to apply it.
Whatever you don’t write down, you’ll soon forget and lose. This is not a question of being smart or dumb, and it’s not a question of being young and old: human memory is fleeting unless you seize ideas and write them down. That includes me: my own memory is like a sieve. I write everything important down in a maraschino-colored Moleskine.
Keep your practice journal close. Let its very presence inspire you to reflect, to process what you’re learning, to explore… and to grow.