Congratulations to everyone on successfully completing PACT 2024!
I signed up for this challenge and then couldn’t keep up with the thread, but I wanted to check in and share my report.
Because I started a new job (which also involved an interstate move) in 2023, I had a really hard time getting consistent practice, especially in the second half of 2023. So in January of 2024, I decided to start writing on the calendar every day that I practiced (very simple, just write a P on the calendar every time I practiced). Yesterday, I counted up all the days and recorded my monthly totals at the end of my piano notebook. (Before closing out the notebook and stating my 2025 notebook 🙂
Anyway, I practiced piano 271 days in 2024. That might not sound like a lot, but it’s an average of slightly more than 5 days a week across the whole year. More importantly, imo, looking at just the second half of the year (PACT started in June), my practice consistency increased and I averaged 6.75 days of practice per week for the last six months of 2024. Yay!
Knowing I had committed to PACT definitely helped me, especially on days when I got home from work late and didn’t have a minute to catch my breath until after 9:30pm. Some days like that, I would only play for 15 minutes, but even on those late-start days, once I got started, I would usually play for at least 30 minutes. And of course on other days, when I could get to the piano earlier, I practiced longer and really got a lot done.
So thank you, @Sophia and all the PACT people! Even though I wasn’t posting in this thread, the commitment really helped me!
I plan to do the daily practice challenge again this year. I have several work trips coming up, and there are bound to be days when I just can’t get to the piano, but my goal is to average at least 5 days a week, if not more, so that I end up with at least as many practice-days in 2025 as I had in 2024.