Two drumming practice strategies:

1. Rise at 9 am even though your head is clearest in the evening. Believe so fervently in willpower as a blanket strategy that you walk a mile to your dirty, freezing, rat-infested practice space (in February in Boston) instead of spending a dollar on the bus. See your dry, cracked, bleeding hands as evidence of your commitment. Adhere fiercely to the vocabulary and techniques laid out in the books you are using -- don't take away the best parts of this soft technology and mix it with your own practice strategies. You need to compete with everyone for the same resources in the same way, dummy! Do exactly three hours per day before going to a crappy job for eight hours. Obviously time spent is the most accurate gauge of progress made. Oh, and have fun!

2. Your drums are downstairs in the cozy, Spartan basement. Visit them when you feel like it -- you don't have a job or any other commitments or responsibilities. Play or practice for as long as you like. You probably have a loose idea of where you want to go, so improvise a curriculum along the way. Adhere to it as long as it produces results and isn't overly difficult or discouraging. Recognize that practice should be for something.

(Strategy 1 lasted five grueling, miserable months. Strategy 2 was utterly absorbing and massively productive and joyful and lasted just under a year before I recognized I was ready to switch to output mode -- time to make things instead of just preparing to make things.)