Prayer can be divided into two categories: personal and corporate. Both are necessary and complement one another in our relationship with God. While prayer might be considered a natural act, is also something that must be learned. This means that it requires effort, attention, and should be practiced with regularity.
Personal prayer is far more flexible than corporate prayer and can be practiced virtually anywhere and at any time. It can have a very structured form that is often dependent upon using prayers found in a Prayer Book, or it can simply be a spontaneous dialogue between you and God and in your own words. However, since the prayers found in our prayer books are indeed “time-tested” and have been utilized for centuries with great success, using them does help to create a firm foundation upon which we might build our spiritual life.
My advice, therefore, would be this: Every morning and every evening before bedtime, simply stand before your icon corner and recite the Trisagion Prayers. If you can maintain this for a month, add the Creed. If you can maintain this rule, add Psalm 51. If this rule can be maintained for yet another month, add one of the Morning Prayers from your prayer book (such as the Prayer of the Optina Elders) and also one from the Evening Prayers. This is how a solid rule of prayers comes to be built: prayer upon prayer just as a bricklayer lays brick upon brick.
In addition, make sure to pray before your meals!
