It helped Jared so I don’t think it’s a huge deal. What Jared was trying to say is that you need people who will hold you accountable.

http://www.ted.com/talks/derek_sivers_keep_your_goals_to_yourself?language=en

Maybe I’m a rarity, but I only know one person who could really evaluate whether I’ve reached a drumming goal (my mentor). In terms of making goals social, I would say it’s better to have your teacher/mentor set one for you, something they’ll remember and easily be able to track your progress. Even better is to find something on the net (like on this wonderful site) and just show up one day and say, “Look what I’ve learned.”

What really helped me was developing an understanding of how to break down what I wanted to do into its components (the essential rudiments for the thing I wanted to do, maybe identifying some pieces I could learn which employed those techniques but in a more accessible way); this gives me milestones in between what I can do now and what I want to be able to do in future, which keeps me developing and achieving goals, without overly-focusing on a narrow objective which is currently so far off I feel like I’m never going to reach it.

Also, good practice involves managing your progress on a number of fronts important for good drumming: timing, feel, hearing the music well, confidence and comfort at the kit, interindependence and control, all of which combine into being able to play a single lick really well. I find that so long as I spread my time rationally between each of these aspects of drumming, I end up being able to pick up hard stuff more quickly than if I narrowly focused on it from the beginning.

A case in point being Steve Gadd’s groove on “50 ways to leave your lover”. Six months ago I’d have had no chance of playing it; now I’m in a casual band with a few guys who want to play it and I looked at it a week ago and was like “oh crap”; but actually, it’s coming together OK. Much to my surprise – but I know it’s because I’ve been working hard on getting a consistent syncopated feel and getting the control on that right, plus singles and doubles as rudiments, and practicing a lot with a metronome to get my timing right. And a lot of footwork as well to get the bass drum controlled.

I play for about an hour a day. I do about 30 minutes rudiments and patterns and 30 minutes song practice. I work out what I need to learn by picking songs I want to play, chosen to stretch me rather than stress me, and I plan what to do on a week-by-week basis determined by where I struggle with the songs I am learning. To make things manageable, I usually concentrate on a particular genre in 2-month periods or so, though I mix things up depending on what I need to learn for the various people I play with.

Nice essay, maybe I should go do some work today.

I would focus on one at each time, creating a goal for them individually. So you can work on your single paradiddle, but specify the goal. ie. Play my single paradiddle at 150 bpm (16th notes)