ShiroKuro I'm lucky my schedule/commute aren't too bad. In terms of absolute hours that I can be back at home, I should be able to practice a good amount if I'm decisive.
I decided to free up time on chores. No more cooking/mealprepping or only once or twice a month. The mental damage of feeling I lost a whole evening to cooking isn't worth it anymore.
I'm going to focus on 1-or-2 pieces per day, no more than that. I found trying to push progress on a lot of pieces, even when I managed to play 2 hours a day, dilutes the progress across too much material.
When switching pieces and going to different/unfamiliar harmony/textures, I think it takes a lot of mental work/adjustment. You have to respect the body and mind. It's often not comfortable/pleasing to go work on something knowing there's very little muscle memory there, the physical feeling of playing may not be rewarding at that point.
And, your brain is aware of what you're planning on doing for the session and if it is averse to it, it's going to manipulate and increase the unwillingness to sit down and practice. It'll increase feelings of tiredness and anxiety and make it harder to practice.
So even if I'm tired, I can still focus on a really tricky 3-4 bars. Those parts will ultimately require hours of work and ingraining anyway so this is actually a very good agreement I think, to make the subconscious go along with what your conscious mind wants (which is to allow you to practice more).
Sophia I certainly wish every time I opted not to practice, that I had sat down for those 5 or 15 minutes.
Let's do it gang!