I'm convinced that the only way to get better at something is to practice. I'm also convinced that in order for practice to be effective, you have to roll it into your day to day life. If I'm not doing something every day, or almsot every day, I've got no hope of getting better at it.
Case in point: I went camping last weekend with Rachael, Mike, and Liz. I wanted to take advantage of how things look and sound different in the forest, so I brought along my photo equipment and audio gear. I only managed to record a few minutes of sound before my batteries died (newbie mistake), but it was plenty of time to capture the near-studio silence of the forest, plus the sounds of beer, tents, sleeping pads, fire starting, and Rachael, Mike, and Liz making fun of me for carrying around a microphone and recorder in the forest. You can listen to my little audio postcard below, and I uploaded some photos to Flickr.
[audio:http://www.alexmontjohn.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/Finalcamping2.mp3|titles=Camping sounds]