Organization

I am working on organizing my time and practice sessions in chess and most importantly guitar. I want to organize it so I'm working on new stuff and learning, especially on the guitar i.e. new songs getting solos to current songs down, without hitting a roadblock or getting bored. I would like any suggestions, especially from you guitarists out there, on how to do this.

I've started working with a metronome to help with my timing and boy do I hate it! Currently it throws me off most likely because I am paying to much attention to it than what I'm playing. I started with a rhythm passage that is only ten measures long. I usually get the timing right on the third run through. The first two run through I am either too fast or too slow. I started at 40bpms and the measure is a mixture of whole notes and half notes. I'm sure I could play it faster, but this exercise is about timing and staying clean while in time. I'll naturally move it up in speed, but need suggestions on how often. I'm thinking once a week I gradually increase it until I can't keep up or it isn't clean by the third run through. Once I hit that maximum bpm I knock it back a bit and practice there for a week and then rinse and repeat the speed test. I need to know when to change riffs and/or songs on this test as well.

My alternate picking is getting cleaner and faster. I attribute this partly to working on Blitzkreig Bop by the Ramones. The alternate power chord stumming is strenghtening my picking wrist quicker and getting it more familiar with the upstrokes. It has allowed me to add the upstrokes to Back n Black instead of always using downstrokes. It definitely feels like progress is being made on my guitar playing and I am quite happy about it.

So, to paraphrase, I'd like any organizational ideas that anyone has, especially when it comes to structuring my guitar practices without becoming to rigid. Fluidity is today's keyword. To not be tied down to a rigid schedule yet maintain a semblance of order so I don't become caught up in the complacency of familiarity.