I am a serial hobby starter. I’ve done it all: swim team, knitting, boutique workout classes, calligraphy, etc. Unfortunately, I’m also a serial hobby half-ass-er. This has been an ongoing theme since I was a kid. I’d pick up hobbies and intensely apply myself for a few months, after which my motivation would dwindle to the point where I’d spend time on them every single day, but only for a few minutes.
There are two current glaring examples of this: chess and Spanish. I have a 50+ day streak on the chess.com app and a 250+ day streak in Duolingo. Part of me thinks this is impressive (I committed myself to these things for so many days! I am so dedicated!), but another part of me wonders if it’s even worth it. After all, solving chess puzzles for a few minutes a day isn’t the same as playing a game of chess. A quick Duolingo lesson is no substitute for focused language learning. What have I really learned besides seeing my streak count go up?
And then of course I’m doing this while also reading and writing and doing a million other things. Am I giving any of them the time they deserve? What if instead of spending 15 minutes each on a plethora of things, I dedicated a single hour to just one of them? My daily to-do lists are usually very long, but when everything’s crossed off at the end of the day, I still feel like I haven’t accomplished anything. Maybe that would change if I spent more time doing deep work, and less crossing small items off checklists.
Deep work isn’t a new concept. Cal Newport has a whole book on it. There are so many blogs and podcasts and YouTube videos about it. The tldr is that focusing on one thing for extended periods of time without distraction helps get big things done and is more efficient than breaking time up into short bursts. It prevents having to deal with the drag from context switching.
But in a world where we’re always only a few clicks away from any dopamine hit we’d like, it’s hard to work up the willpower to dedicate a large chunk of time to a single thing. Instagram, TikTok, and Youtube all offer quick bursts of media in a matter of seconds, making it scarily easy to end up doomscrolling for hours. There’s the dreaded email inbox, where bills and other adult things endlessly pile up. On top of all this, I definitely struggle to muster the mental energy for deep work after spending 9 hours doing work for my actual job. The one that, you know, pays me. The one that allows me the luxury of spending time on hobbies.
This is one thing I do actually like about having a hobby streak. No matter how busy life gets, having a streak to keep alive forces me to do something, and gives me the satisfaction of having made that bit of effort. Any effort is better than no effort. But if I want to be serious about it; if I want to master any of my hobbies, 15 minutes a day won’t cut it.
To be honest, before writing this, I was convinced I’d get to my streak goals and then drop them entirely. But now I’m not so sure. These daily tasks keep me going. They keep me making progress when I wouldn’t otherwise. What I previously thought didn’t have much value now seems valuable.
I’ll likely try to incorporate more deep work into my life, like spending several hours reading a book instead of just finishing a chapter a day. And if I get into the zone while working on something, I’ll try to be better about following through with it rather than switching tasks just to check something else off my list. Like this post for example. I sat down to make a few notes. Which turned into an outline. Which turned into an almost complete first draft. All far quicker than I’ve ever written one of these before. I’ll save any edits and rewrites for later though. I have other things to cross off my to-do list today.
