Tip #3 for my Guitar Tips of 2026 is simple: stay focused. Don’t go down the YouTube rabbit hole where you learn a little bit of this, a little bit of that, and call it progress. Watching videos isn’t practicing. If you want to get better, whatever you’re working on needs to be studied and it needs to be right in front of you—on the stand, on the guitar, in your hands. I always come back to planning your practice, and I divide guitar playing into three buckets: theory, technique, and repertoire. Theory is how you label sound—and it’s also the prerequisite for ear training. If you can’t name it, you can’t really organize it, and anybody telling you “you don’t need theory” can forget it. Technique is your ability to play the instrument—single notes, chords, whatever. Repertoire is what you actually play on a gig; nobody goes to a gig and plays a scale, you go to a gig and create melody within the scale. It’s easy to drift today, so you’ve got to be strict with your time. Pick a direction and stick to it—if you want to be a jazz player, spending hours dialing in a distortion pedal probably isn’t your best use of time. Set a goal, protect your focus, and stay on schedule.