"A hobby a day keeps the doldrums away" by Phyllis McGinley
As a child, I loved to explore new hobbies, whether it was drawing, reading, or pretending to be a chemist in my parents' kitchen. Over time, I lost sight of most of these fun activities, using studies as a pretext.
During the pandemic, like most people I imagine, I started rethinking my priorities and realizing the importance of having a balanced life. Therefore, I decided to take a set of actions to remedy the problem at hand. One of these actions is to reintroduce hobbies into my routine. The rough plan was to try things I enjoyed previously but also try new fun activities and see for myself if I like them.
For those of you who are also looking for new hobbies and inspiration, here is a list of my current hobbies and how I roughly integrate them into my schedule.
What I do when I am not working or with friends
When selecting my hobbies, I like to diversify. The target is to try different activities, then spot the ones I enjoy in multiple categories. Here we go!
Physical Activity: I must confess; I hate the gym, but I like sport. To solve this dilemma, I started looking for hobbies that are both fun and physical. Initially, I thought of joining a team sport such as football, rugby, and or karate (as a kid and a freshman student, I used to practice and very much enjoy both Rugby and Karate); however, these activities have a strict schedule and require some level of commitment that I currently can't carry out. I started exploring both longboarding and bouldering based on friends' suggestions. In the beginning, I used my friend's longboard for cruising. After a couple of trials, I realized that it could be something I would enjoy and bought my first longboard. To try bouldering, I went to the Boulder World Munich East couple of times, and I very much enjoyed it. So I decided to buy my first pair of climbing shoes to get started. The thing I like about these activities, other than the fact that I enjoy them, is that they don't require a lot of commitment or expensive equipment to get started. Additionally, it is something you can either do by yourself or with friends.
Entertainment: This category is by far the easiest since I have a natural inclination and love for movies, music, and games. Regarding music, like most people I enjoy listening to music; however, I try listening to different genres and artists. So, I ask friends about their favourite artists, or I follow them on Spotify to see what they are listening to. Well for movies, I like to do extensive research about the movie's inspiration, behind the scenes, and the overall artistry involved. I like both big productions and indie movies. One of my favourite movie review channels is by Chris Stuckmann. I also watch football games, TV series, and anime (Naruto being the old-time favourite). After a lot of hustling, I managed to get my hand on the PS5 console. My default game is FIFA online, but I also play open world and co-op games.
“In a wicked world, relying upon experience from a single domain is not only limiting, it can be disastrous.” David Epstein, Range
Art and Crafts: painting, drawing, and DIYs have always been some of my favourite things to do in my spare time. As a kid, I enjoyed the process of creating and building things, so my parents took me to a drawing class to learn the basics. 4 years ago, I started getting back to it. I started with pencil drawing since it requires the least equipment, then I moved to water painting on canvas. The issue I faced is that the equipment takes space and is a bit costly which made it restrictive. Because of that, I moved to aquarelle, and I would highly recommend it. I use Pinterest to pin drawings and paintings I like and reproduce them to get practice. I also like to see what other amazing artists are doing, so I try to go to as many museums and galleries as I can, but I also follow some of my favourites on social media, for example, I follow on TikTok artedguru who is an artist, teacher, gallery owner, and author. He also duets and comments on other artists' work. Besides drawing I like DIY projects which can range from renovating a space (I follow the Youtube channel Alexandra Gater) to building a smart mirror.
Research: I simply love learning and researching about topics I find interesting. Some of these topics are relevant to my work, most are absolutely random and some people may consider it useless. In this category, I include reading books mainly non-fiction books; my favourite writer is Malcolm Gladwell (more about this in the next blog). I also like listening to podcasts, watching Youtube videos, and documentaries. As I mentioned, the topics vary; however, I am especially interested in psychology and technology. Therefore, I follow Dave2D and Marques Brownlee aka mkbhd YouTube channels for the latest tech gadgets, Kurzgesagt and TEDx Talks for general scientific topics, and finally techCrunch to know about the latest tech start-ups. Another way to explore other topics is documentaries. Netflix has many excellent documentaries such as "My Octopus Teacher", "Struggle: The Life and Lost Art of Szukalski", and "Crip Camp".
Planning hobbies for busy/lazy people like myself
Yes, I know; we are all busy with our lives, but finding some time to have fun and play is as important as doing work and being productive. The key, in my opinion, resides in allocating time for play. I personally don't do all the hobbies every day and every week because I don't want to be necessarily good at it but rather to have fun. Therefore, I try to plan them in my monthly schedule to build habits around them without necessarily forcing them. I keep a bullet journal where I schedule and keep track of these hobbies; however, I don't obsess or feel guilty if I don't follow the plan. I also believe that unless you allocate time to do a thing other than work you will use up all your time on work, Parkinson's law.
I use longboarding as a means of transportation to shopping, for instance. I try to do bouldering twice a month, which I think is reasonable. I read or listen to a book during my commute. Painting and DIY projects are mainly scheduled for the weekends while the preparation (selecting the project or painting to do and buying required supplies) is done during the week. Entertainment activities such as movies and gaming are scheduled after dinner.
I found that scheduling activities both after a workday and during the weekend help disconnect from my work which in turn helps me stay fresh and interested and reduce the chances of burnout, as suggested by numerous research (1).