I think a lot about how I should be approaching my poker learning. It's very easily to get lost in paralysis by analysis in poker. There is so much to learn! I have recently transitioned to the wild world of Las Vegas Live Full Ring poker after playing online 6max. Due to the nature of live poker (commuting, waiting to get in games, needing to play when the games run, etc), I'm left with less time to study. I view this as a great opportunity to take a serious look at how I study and how I track improvement in order to get more value from my study time. I'm hoping to lay out how I approach my playing and learning cycle in hopes to get some feedback and advice on what I could improve, as well as just get a discussion going on the topic.

Current weekly plan:

Monday - OFF DAY. Time to get away from poker. I make sure to get a good workout in, see friends, , run errands, grocery shop,read, and still end up thinking a lot about poker, however not much structure (maybe this is a bad thing? Maybe I should not waste any time reading forums, listening to a poker podcast, watching a video if it's not going to be done with high focus - which my gut says after playing all week I should just stay completely away from poker for today....maybe I just answered my own question here, funny what writing can do :)

Tuesday - OFF DAY. Again I'm trying to get some non-poker stuff done, but today would probably be a good day to block out the first 2-3 hours of my day when I'm most alert for some dedicated poker study time?

Wednesday - Wake up, Meditate, do some affirmations, visualization, exercise, read a little, write a little. Have a little bit of time before going to play for the night. Planning on putting in a long session.

Thursday - Same morning routine, playing today is 50/50 (maybe I should plan on studying first thing and playing a short session?)

Friday - Same morning routine, big grind day.

Saturday - Same morning routine, big grind day.

Sunday - Same morning routine, grinding, but probably not as much as Fri/Sat, depends how I feel/if I have momentum

So it's tough to spend time studying on grind days, because I'm playing 8-10 hours and I don't necessarily think it's best to use up mental energy before I go play for that long. I'd rather focus on playing only to keep my mind more clear, rather than trying to learn something new the day of. So that leaves study time for Tuesday for 2-3 hours, and Thursday probably.

Throughout the week I keep a performance analysis log that I write in post session, it includes things like: What did I learn today? What did I accomplish today, How were results? Recording some facts. Then I try to write down solutions for things that went wrong or just "I'm looking for a solution to..." I hope that this section will help me see what mistakes I make, learn from them faster so that I'm less likely to make them in the future. Then I write what I did well, focusing on positive things only. Lastly, I finish with some goal stuff.

So this leaves me with let's say 2-3 hours Tuesday and 2-3 hours Thursday to study, so I have to be very efficient with what I'm spending time on.

Should I work on mental game stuff and technical stuff at the same time? Or do we think it's better to focus on mental game only for a period of time, set a goal for what I'm trying to accomplish with it, try to get there within a couple weeks, and then move on to something new. My gut says that it's best to work on ONE THING at a time. Does this make sense? If I know I have some mental game stuff to work on, some poker math stuff, technical stuff (i.e. working specifically on 3bet pots IP or playing multiway pots as the PFR), should I do one of those at a time and then move onto something new?

Sorry for the long ramble, but any thoughts on the process would be greatly appreciated.

I'm also have been thinking about trying to find a coach to help me better figure out what areas of my game I should focus on. Any thoughts on who might be a good candidate for this?

Thanks again, looking forward to a discussion on this stuff. Please share anything that works well for you or questions that you have and hopefully we can all work through this stuff together.