I am not in a position to advise anyone else of course, but I have received very good advising from my Confessor and my SF.
Is it possible your prayer rule is too long? If it's too long to pray and so you often miss doing it, that can be a problem and it may need to be shortened, at least during the period you develop it as a discipline.
It is very important to develop the disciple. I'm not that far down the path myself, but what I do know is that one reaches a point where it's like breathing in becoming necessary. It's no longer a matter of dragging yourself to perform a discipline but something one feels very necessary for oneself and will fight to stay awake until there has been a time of meeting with God, in at least a small way. (You might need to stand to pray if you are very tired, so you don't fall asleep in the middle of them.)
So if it is a matter of not yet having discipline of a prayer rule, then it is necessary to "just do it" until it becomes a part of you.
You should also ask your priest or whoever is advising you about formal vs. personal prayers. These each have a place. The formal ones are more important to teach you many things and establish discipline, but depending on each person, you might need a certain balance.
How you pray matters too. You should always of course attempt to make the formal prayers from your heart, not just recitations, otherwise they can do more damage than good. (Though my SF acknowledges that under difficult times when one is just beginning, it may happen sometimes, but it should not be the norm.)
"Just beginning" can probably span a great range of time. Maybe some people can spend a very short time there, maybe some take a number of years. And "progress" is not really linear. Some things are learned, improved, other challenges come in, it may seem harder or worse for a while, then a different kind of progress can happen, and so on. It's fairly personal so a guide is helpful.
I feel I can be less helpful about Confession, though I go more than most Greeks, less than most Russians. I've listened to some very good teaching. Fr. Seraphim Aldea has a good several part series that is more in depth (and maybe less applicable to everyone, but very worth listening to) on
Through a Monk's Eyes (jan 2016), and iirc it was in
Acquiring the Mind of the Church (sept 2015) that I heard a good basic one.
Generally most priests advise not to make a "laundry list" of particular sins for confession, but that has always been somewhat of a guide for my own practice. I find now there are certain things I am (sadly) almost sure to do between confessions. Someone, somewhere, sometime is going to cut me off in traffic, say a very mean thing to me, be rude or thoughtless, and while I have worked hard on this and might get through most of them not reacting at all ... I won't manage all and someone is going to irritate me, which is a sign on pride welling up inside. I confess that every single time. I have several such faults. And if anything happens that is not usual, I try to remember to confess that too. But my SF has given me a checklist based on the Beatitudes and from them I will always be convicted that I have not loved enough, etc. I confess those too.
For what all that is worth. That's just my experience, and I have more questions than answers. People don't talk much about Confession, and when I try to ask general questions about how to approach confession, I always give examples (sometimes made-up ones) and they nearly always give advice for dealing with my shortcomings and focus on ME rather than on the Sacrament, so I've not learned much except those few podcasts I mentioned, from experience, and from my Confessor and my SF. Just offering what little I have there. I'd love to see you get better answers - I'd be interested too.
