Optimum unit of time for most productive guitar practice?

[55bar]

have listen to the latest Guitarwank podcast
an interesting dispute on this very topic ....
and a really funny quote from Zawinul too
made me laugh out-loud !

Same here, Henderson cracks me up.

[VinceMGuitar]

This is an interesting topic! For me the time of day has the biggest influence in the productivity and quality of my practice. I'm a morning person. I'm better off spending whatever time I can fit in before work (even 15 min or 1/2 hour) than spending a longer time after work. The creativity and inspiration is much more present and I'm much more productive. So I try to get up between 4:30-5:00 to give me that time.

[emanresu]

There is this "peak experience" with practicing of course. It means that you cant.. stop.. too.. good..
But that happens when a piece is completely ready. Or if its a lick or something short and simple, it comes quicker but lasts maybe for 10 minutes or so. When I was still playing classical guitar, when that happened, it felt if that was actually the real progress. Just to learn and sweat and do the hard work without getting that flow would be ugh.. damn awful. The weird thing is that with jazz tunes(wich are sure "simpler".. seemingly) this takes so much longer than with those old classical pieces.

[christianm77]

I recently retired from a job which took up a huge amount of my time. I used to get less than an hour of practice on a good day, usually 25-30 minutes in the morning and whatever time I could squeeze at night, if any. Now that I’m retired and have all the time in the world to practice, I noticed that the sense of urgency I used to have due to my limited time was no longer there, and my practice did not feel as focused. I found that besides being very specific in what I work on, practicing in time-bound increments has helped. Now I get about 3 good hours in, typically in 15-20 minute spurts (depending on what I’m working on) multiple time per day.

That's a good point. I do my most effective work when there's a time pressure.

ATM not doing much practice. Mostly rehearsing and playing gigs, but there's enough time in 1 hour slots and so on to grab a bit of warm up time, or to work on specific issues.

I think it's good that it's got to that point. Rehearsing with bands gives a clear focus on what to practice, and of course is bloody hard work in its own right.

At the moment I aim for 'casual practice' - nicking licks and chords rather than learning whole solos, trying different combinations of intervals through different scales every day rather than practicing a whole stack of stuff each time, and so on. I probably make up the same amount of practice hours, but all feels less 'high stakes' which I like.