Adding To My Repertoire

I suppose this is my New Year's Resolution - to start writing in some sort of long form again.  Why not?  I've been able to compile a pretty active schedule of hobbies, and this is just another logical extension, considering I already like to write.

So, where are we today?  Well, here's my typical schedule:

• 15 minutes a day learning French, Spanish, and Chinese
• 15 minutes a day reading
• 15 minutes a day listening to an audio book
• 15 minutes a day playing guitar
• 5 minutes a day drawing
• 15 minutes a day for exercise
• 15 minutes to explore new software ideas or write new programs 3 times per week.

There are two questions that people are likely to ask - why not just concentrate on one or two things OR how do you ever expect to become an expert?  I'll answer those in reverse.  I don't intend to become an expert.  It's amazing how much enjoyment and knowledge you can pick up simply being an amateur. 

The reason I'm concentrating on all of these things is simply because these are all things that I've wanted to accomplish.  By freeing myself from the tyranny of needing to be an expert, I'm actually able to explore all of these hobbies without succumbing to the stress of needing to perfect any one of them.  Paradoxically, because I don't set stringent expectations for myself, I tend to spend more time on at least one of these hobbies per day and gain more expertise than I would if I focused on one and then told myself that I need to do 'X' an hour a day or 3 days a week or whatever.

The nice thing too is that the 1st 3 items can be incorporated in to my daily commute, so I really only need 1 hour of free time per day to get through the latter 4 activities. 

Given that I'm lucky that I have that kind of time, I can now add a new activity - blogging!  I'll have it follow the same rules as the coding activity: write 3 times per week for 15 minutes.  The additional stipulation is that I'm not going to require myself to edit my posts, so there may be typos, missed words, and stranded thoughts.  But, I'm hoping the vast majority of by posts will be coherent.