Lots of people with extra time on their hands, or who aren’t able to go ‘out’ and do the things they are used to doing, have taken up new hobbies during the lockdown.
Some might be as simple as walking; I live on a street that has always had its fair share of walkers, but the volume has definitely increased this year. Bike sales are through the roof, in fact the other day I was at Target and they were completely sold out. Birdwatching/feeding has become more popular, and while I usually have a feeder or two I’ll admit that I added another and am more diligent about keeping them maintained than I have been in the past. Heck, I might even try to remember which bird is which now
Of course that’s not a complete list, of course, there’s gardening, fishing, hiking, cooking, baking and so on. And of course some people are just using the time to do the same things they always did, whether that’s watch TV, play video games, or what have you.
How many of the people who took up or expanded new hobbies during this will stick with to a decent extent? I’d like to think many will; it seems like a lot of the hobbies are productive and/or constructive. I’d love to know that more people are planting gardens, cycling, hiking in the woods, etc.
I am cooking a lot more, and expect it to stick, because I don’t plan on going back to the office full-time ever. The current situation demonstrated that I can in fact work from home effectively. Most likely, I will eventually head to the office two days a week, which means cooking those remaining days. Normally I would eat lunch and dinner at the office.
There’s a non-linear effect here, since although I would sometimes cook on the weekends, it was hard to stock vegetables and other components without them going bad week to week. Even just adding a few days of cooking mean I can actually make real meals without it feeling like a waste. I can also cook larger batches of meals and expect to eat them.
I already had many other hobbies like electronics, 3D printing, and general puttering around in my shop, but I find I have a bit more time to spend on them now. Things like 3D printing especially benefit since I can start a job while at home. Normally I’d have 24 hr turnaround, but now I can plop down a new job as soon as the old one is finished.
While I have been growing (unusual) plants (no not pot!) for many years, supplies that are normally available are no longer on the shelves.
Apparently gardening has become the thing to do during our social isolation. This is not only based on my personal supply problems, but one of my friends owns a nursery, and his business is better than before the pandemic.
Just today I got my smartphone tripod so I started making stop-motion animations. I’m still just playing around with the app but I can imagine this is something that will hold my interest for a while.
Just this afternoon during my telework downtime I produced a 20-second silent movie starring a LEGO Homer Simpson walking up to and climbing up my work laptop.
It was amazing! And the app makes it really easy. It gives you a “ghost” overlay of the last shot so you can match up and move exactly as needed, and the tripod came with a bluetooth remote so you don’t have to touch the phone to take a shot. The tripod and app cost me under $20 total. I am certainly going to spend much of the weekend and beyond experimenting and making stupid, but hopefully entertaining, little movies as I figure it out.
While sheltering in place, I’ve been doing a lot of scanning of old photos, postcards, and travel ephemera. That’s definitely going taper off once interstate road trips become practical. It’s nice to go back over old vacations and stuff but scanning is BORING!
I don’t doubt that a lot of people have discovered a new love of the smell of fresh baked bread and will continue with that hobby.
Heck. My favorite routes on my motorcycle take me past a bread factory. I’m always going under the speed limit there for some reason. Unlike later down the road where I’m going by the tire factory.
My Wife and I have always been early risers. But now it’s kinda crazy. She gets up at 3:30am, I start work from home around 5am which is great. I work till 10am or so, take a break and get back in in the afternoon so see what is going on and plan my next day. I hope to not go back to the office. Like Dr. Strangelove, we have shown that our team (IS) are effectively taking care of business. I’m 59 years old, and feel like this is semi-retirement I guess. I’ve been wanting to work from home for years. I don’t know how this will play out though.
My Wife and I used to play chess on a Friday or Saturday night. Now we alternate between chess or gin rummy nearly every night. I hope we keep up that routine. We have a few other games like mancala and am trying to interest my wife in backgammon. I’ve been meaning to order a cribbage set and some better quality playing cards.
I’ve never be much at hobbies, but continue to hope to learn the guitar. Summer is when I go out on our deck and noodle around on it. I hope to get back into that, but frankly am failing pretty bad. I just can’t manage finger positions on many chords. My fingers just don’t work that way. Odd as I’m a tall guy and have long fingers.
The drawback to hobbies taken up in this time is that they’ll always be associated with the fear and isolation we’re feeling now. We’ll want to pack them away as soon as we can.
The only thing that I did for a while that was different from my usual activities was jigsaw puzzles. I am way over them. I started to get bored with the second one. I set up a card table (in a room that we don’t use a lot) in front of a tv so I could just kind of watch and listen. I completed a couple of puzzles. The last one didn’t get finished and was swept back into the box. THAT felt good.
I replaced the overflow drains on an aquarium as I’ve wanted to for some time. I set up a tank I’ve had for a while, cleaned a lot of aquariums, and I’m at home to accept the delivery of live fish.
I consider it my patriotic duty to spend my $1,200.00 and support the aquarium industry.
Re OP, I’ve accelerated my hobby, and unfortunately won’t be able to keep up at this rate when I stop working from home.
After the weather gets better, we normally take a train ride and go for a hike. Since public transportation is considered high-risk, we’ve been avoiding it, so we’ve been walking around our neighborhood. So it’s basically adapting our normal hobby to previous restrictions.
Since Saturday we’re almost at normal, except social distancing is still in place, restaurants still cannot be full, and no groups > 300. We’ll be carrying masks (we only wear them in areas where we are in close quarters) for many months to come. But we might get up into the mountains. Now we’re back waiting for the weather to cooperate.
