Practice Log Tracker

The Practice Log Tracker logs actual sessions to a seven day log (a record) where you can view where you spent your time. You can enter data on your computer keyboard if you want to work fast; or you can use mouse or touch screen. What you type in resides only in your browser memory during that session. Treat it like scratchpad to experiment with how you might like to log your practice time.

Here’s a screen shot of the left side of the Session Stamp, the part where you input your practice information: Select the day, select the focus lane, describe material you practiced. Add in the number of minutes you did and/or the clean tempo you reached. Rate your level of concentration using the focus quality slider, rate your energy level with those buttons after the session, and record one single bottleneck or win in the diagnostic note field. Hit the Stamp button and it saves that entry into your ledger.

How to Use the Practice Log Tracker

On the far right, just under top is the Insight Strip that summarizes what’s going on with your week in a glance. How many stamps did you make on sessions? How many minutes of practice did you log? Which is your least fed focus lane (i.e., where might you want to pay more attention)? And how is your speed progressing (latest vs. Earliest tempo move metric) on the same material. This updates immediately with new additions and removals.

The Seven-day Ink Map is the heat grid below, which shows where you’ve been practicing. It’s a heat map of your practice distribution, each square = one day + one focus lane. Darker squares means more minutes logged there. Click on any square to zoom out to just that day and focus, darkening everything else so that you can drill down into that particular block of time. Click back on that square to bring up the whole week at once. Quickly identify holes in your routine.

Use the Weekly Target Compass to keep your goals in mind. Slide the target number of minutes to establish a reasonable goal for this week. Log your sessions and watch progress bar fill up. It shows your current position and how much time you have left until you reach your goal.

When you’re not sure which lanes to work next, tap Draft to create suggested session for your lightest lane. It will fill in the form with suggestions for you to edit, or stamp as-is.

Other handy controls include the How to Play button for quick tips, a Fullscreen button to expand your workspace, and the Walk the Seven-day Pulse button to animate through your week with audio cues. The How to Play button brings up the help window where it has a few brief tips on how to interact with the widget. The Fullscreen button takes the interface into full screen mode (helpful on smaller devices). And the Walk the Seven-day Pulse button steps through each day of the week, playing a soft sound cue as it highlights that day.

Anytime you wish, you can reset sample data and put the demo week back into place. If you don’t like using the mouse, you can log faster with keyboard shortcuts. Tab through fields on the form and use the number keys 1-5 to immediately select an energy level while the tracker is focused. Pressing G will draft a session for your lowest fed lane and W will start the seven day pulse animation. Use arrow keys to navigate the heat map grid and Enter/Space to filter the view.

Once you stamp them it’s easy to go back and edit or delete entries. To edit, just hit the Reopen entry button on each of your cards in the ledger. This will fill the form with what is already there so you can correct it as needed. If you want to delete it altogether hit the Lift from ledger button. Editing an entry overwrites the old one and does not create a duplicate. This helps keep your ledger neat and clean.

Adding another sensory element to your practice review, audio includes a range of options. A small piece of music will play at the chosen tempo, using the information entered through the Sound four clean-tempo ticks button. It also has a slider in the footer where you can control how loud those ticks are. That way you know if your sense of speed was correct or can compare it to actual number. The sound connects all those abstract numbers back down into real-time.

I recommend that you log each practice session, no matter how brief. It’s amazing how much it adds up and helps you visualize your habits. When entering the diagnostic note, avoid simply entering piece name. Be detailed about what you are working on. In a few days, you’ll begin to notice patterns in your focus level and the best times for you to work. Those observations can help direct your next practices.

First, get a feel for the ledger and record one honest session. Set your weekly objective to an attainable level, and then begin filling out blank spots on your heat map. If you’re stumped as to what you should of working on, use the draft function. Your aim here is to convert fuzzy recall into tangible proof of improvement. Happy practicing.