I noticed something about myself. I tend to get very excited about things for a few days/weeks at a time, and then I completely lose interest. Blame it on smartphones, social feeds, and disposable content culture? Anyhow, when I was developing my goals and plotting out my life for 2023, I decided to lean into this.
Every month I would focus on a new hobby, topic, or interest. This project would keep life fresh, encourage rapid learning, and allow me to indulge in my limited attention span. Here’s how it went:
January - Bouldering
I joined a local climbing gym and dove head first into my monthly hobby project. I climbed 14 days in January, which was about as much as my body could handle (bouldering is hard on your hands, fingers, and arms—especially as a beginner).
Bouldering is a form of free climbing that is performed on small rock formations or artificial rock walls without the use of ropes or harnesses. While bouldering can be done without any equipment, most climbers use climbing shoes to help secure footholds, chalk to keep their hands dry and to provide a firmer grip, and bouldering mats to prevent injuries from falls.
I loved how bouldering was like solving a puzzle with your whole body. I was fascinated by all aspects of rock climbing and enjoyed learning about its history and recent growth in popularity. Also as a plus, it was fitness and social oriented. I was addicted to improvement and learning how to solve new problems on the wall.
Bouldering would go on to be one of the few hobbies that I continued after its month of focus… until May, anyway…
February - Ukulele
The extent of my musical instrument experience prior to trying ukulele was grade-school recorder classes and Guitar Hero. So right off the bat, it was a struggle. I watched some online classes, learned the scales, a few chords, and then tried to learn how to play a song.
I gotta be honest, February was a down month in terms of my hobby engagement. And this was a trend that would continue: I’d be really hyped about my monthly focus, put a lot of energy into it, and then the next month I would just be kind of burned out on whatever I was supposed to be doing.
I practiced ukulele a few more days until I quickly lost interest. It also had the drawback of annoying my wife, so there’s that.
March - Letterboxing
I was back with a vengeance in March, entering the wacky world of letterboxing.
Letterboxing is an outdoor hobby that combines elements of orienteering, art, and puzzle solving. Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly accessible places (like parks) and distribute clues to finding the box in printed catalogs, on one of several web sites, or by word of mouth. Individual letterboxes contain a notebook and a rubber stamp, preferably hand carved or custom made.
Finding letterboxes was a quirky rush. You trawl these ancient web boards for clues about boxes in your area, and then head off into the woods/park/roadway to see if you can find some dilapidated ziplock baggy or duct-tape envelope with a stamp and some paper inside. It’s a very curious niche that I was happy to have explored.
I bagged a bunch of stamps in my logbook and even created my own stamp that I left along a bikepath on my way to work. Letterboxing was a fun, cheap activity perfect for me as I’m interested in the outdoors and silly treasure hunts.
April - Cyanotype
Another dud. I bought everything I needed to make cyanotype prints, but there was one thing I was missing: sunlight. Springtime in the Pacific Northwest is typically cloudy and wet, and working full time meant that I only had a few chances on the weekends to secure some sunlight for developing these prints.
Cyanotype photography is a camera-less technique that involves laying an object or exposure on paper coated with a solution of iron salts before exposing it to UV light and washing with water to create stunning white and blue images.
I could have forked over the cash for a UV light, but by the end of the month I was already on to the next hobby. I returned all the materials to Amazon… defeated…
May - Meditation
As per the oscillating trend, I was fully committed during the month of May, practicing some form of meditation daily. I mainly used 2 apps, Headspace & Waking Up, to guide my sessions. I also delved into podcasts about consciousness, being, and life’s purpose. Heady stuff.
May was going well until the very end. I was still bouldering about once a week since January, and really enjoying it. One Sunday, I went for a huge dynamic movement and ended up pulling my lower back muscle real bad. This proceeded to get even worse when I injured it again during recovery with a bulged disc in my spine. That injury threw off my whole year, and so there had to be some amendments to the hobby schedule.
June - Zelda
June was supposed to be Bocce Ball, but I was laid up for the month of June with my broken back. I couldn’t do much besides standing up or laying down, so any activity beyond those parameters was off the table.
Luckily, a new Zelda game (Tears of the Kingdom) came out in May for the Nintendo Switch. I had played the prequel so I knew what to expect, and decided to play through the game. It definitely kept my mind off the back pain, and was a welcome distraction for the summer.
July - Golf
Much to my chagrin, back issues continued through July and all year long. I definitely wasn’t ready to learn how to golf. Heck, I still needed help putting on my socks. July was a total whiff.
August - Spanish Speaking
One of the big trips of our lifetime was coming up in September. We were going to visit Spain for 2 weeks. I wanted some kind of baseline knowledge of the language before heading over.
I downloaded a few apps and spent most of my time using Babel. It was fairly good at teaching the basics, with the lessons I took specifically focused on travel-like scenarios.
When we were over there, I couldn’t understand everything people were saying, but I could catch a word here and there that would help provide enough context to get by. I was also able to decipher most signs, which proved useful. The people over there were also very excited to hear you at least TRY to speak Spanish, even if the conversation eventually devolved into charades.
September - Kendama
When I was plotting out my year of hobbies I knew we’d be traveling in September, so I’d need something mobile and not too time intensive. I had marked Kendama as a “gimmick” category and expected to play with it for the month and move on. This one has been my favorite new hobby of the year and I’m totally obsessed even 4 months later.
Kendama is a traditional Japanese skill toy, a version of the classic cup-and-ball game. It consists of a handle (ken), a pair of cups (sarado), and a ball (tama) that are all connected together by a string.
There’s so much about Kendama to enjoy. First there’s the aspect of self-improvement. It seems silly, but a stick and ball toy is the perfect metaphor for inward focus, determination, perseverance, and personal growth. There are hundreds of tricks that you can perform with a Kendama. When you pick one to learn, at first it seems impossible. After some practice, it seems achievable. Then, within reach. That feeling when you finally nail it? It transcends. Soon enough you can whip it with ease, and you wonder how you struggled so much initially. I love that feeling of constantly leveling up and improving.
Kendama is also experiencing somewhat of a renaissance right now, with companies getting more creative with their kendamas, new tricks being invented constantly, and pros (yes, there are professional kendama players) pushing the boundaries of what’s possible.
There’s also the collectible nature. Each kendama varies with what wood it’s made of, what shape it has, the type of paint on the tama, etc. Endless design variations, customizations, and mods.
October - Security Devices
October was originally marked for Lock Picking. However, after 2 days of watching YouTube videos about the topic, I was completely underwhelmed. It just didn’t seem exciting or worth my time. So I pivoted and expanded the month’s focus to Security Devices of various sorts…
I had been eyeing a device called the Flipper Zero. It’s a portable multi-tool that’s kind of like a digital lockpick. It’s equipped with various sensors and remote capabilities for pentesters and amateur hackers.
I messed around with some infrared controllers around the house, scanned some pet microchips, and even imitated Amiibos. It was a fun thing to experiment with and learn what was possible; as well as what vulnerabilities exist for various systems.
November - N/A
November was a rough month, and was a complete wash hobby-wise. This was supposed to be Badminton, but life got in the way. I didn’t make it out to play even once. Other events transpired that put hobbies on the back burner.
December - Calligraphy
Rounding out the year of new hobbies was (supposed to be) calligraphy. Unfortunately, it was a busy month and I didn’t give the proper dedication to this craft either. I did a bit of research about its history but never got the chance to try it out for myself.
Takeaways
I learned to embrace my gut feeling, and go with the flow. Really into something? Why not go full bore and pour yourself into it until the well runs dry? Enjoy it while it’s exciting. Brains work in mysterious ways.
Towards the end of the year, the monthly hobbies were really more of a chore than a fun activity. You can’t force interest and engagement. It has to bubble up from the nether.
I might follow up on some of the hobbies I missed out on, but assigning a different focus every single month is a bit much. Nevertheless, it was a fun experiment that has yielded a few longer-term interests, and I definitely learned a lot about things I wouldn’t have otherwise.