1. Plan your time: one of the most important ways to see consistent satisfying progress is well-planned practice sessions. Since learning piano is both a physical and mental process, regularity is crucial. Compare piano practicing to a physical workout. You would not see very good results if you spend one day a month in the gym.
2. Prepare you mental and physical state: to get the most of our your practicing, it is important to have a focused awareness of sound, touch and movement. At the start of each practice session, take a few deep breaths and find a balanced posture with relaxed shoulders and heavy arms.
3. Analyze and mark up: When beginning a new piece, sit down away from the piano and analyze the piece. Pencil in all important details like fingering, patterns, translations of foreign words and work out difficult rhythms and harmonic progressions.
4. Repeat correctly: repeat everything you practice four times correctly. Make no mistakes during your first practice. Practice slowly with a good mental focus. Always shape every phrase and bring out all the musical details right away and even with slow practice.
5. Practice the difficulties: When working through your pieces, mark difficult sections in pencil and spend most of your practice time on these parts.
6. Practice performing under pressure: Once a week or so, and most importantly of all a few days before a lesson or performance, make a video or audio recording of yourself performing your pieces at home. This is a great way to practice under pressure.
7. Be your own teacher: When you have made the recording leave it for a day or so and then listen to it again with untainted ears. Listen for the overall musical performance. Are you getting your musical ideas across? What can be improved? Listen for wrong notes and rhythms, missed dynamics and articulation etc... and mark them with a pencil on your score.
(these steps were adapted from pianostreet.com)
Happy practicing!!!
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