metronome

With a metronome, you practice keeping time; you also improve your speed and accuracy on scales and licks.  Start out alternate picking with the metronome on a REALLY slow speed (say 40 clicks per minute), and do whatever you're working on at one pick for every two clicks on the metronome.  When you can do it 3 times in a row without mistakes, change to one pick per click, then move up to 60 clicks per minute, then 80, then 100.  Go back to to 60, and do two picks per click (eighth notes), and work your way back up to 100 clicks per minute.  go back to 60, and do four picks per click (sixteenth notes). 

The above exercise really helps with scales and such.  When you're working on particular licks, you will need to look at the music and figure out what the timing is for each note, and work the piece one bar at a time starting at the END, and working toward the beginning.  If the piece is in eighths, count it as 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &, set your metronome really slow to start (so slowly that you don't make ANY mistakes), and work on slowly getting up to tempo.  If you teach yourself to do with no mistakes from the beginning, you'll find that once you get up to tempo, you won't make mistakes there either; your fingers will just DO it.

So, start SLOW, don't speed up until you can do it flawlessly, and work backwards from the end of the piece.

Good luck.

To internalize tempo, you can also set the metronome to click only once per 4 beats or once per 8 beats, for instance only on beat 1 or every other beat 1. (Or beat 2 if you are practicing jazz.)

The idea is that as you play along with it your internal tempo gets better.

Lawlz!  And it's only funny because it's true. 

Playing with a metronome or click track is hard.  Regardless of how good you think your rhythm is, that little $!#*ing box is going to expose just exactly how good it ain't.

Pete, I think  you need to update your signature now   That IS a good one!