One of the major problems in practicing things by yourself is that you are not aware of the disciplines required and consequently finish up wasting your time and money. Hour building is a clasic example, its mainly hour wasting and is better replaced by doing disciplined training such as the IR.
Your best bet is to fly with an instructor who can make sure you can fly accurately, navigate in a logical manner, both visually and using radio aids, operate the radio correctly, and have some basic instrument skills. If these are not up to speed you will finish up doing revision on your CPL course.