I’ve talked before about managing your time as a nerd, but I want to take a more in-depth look at a trick that helps me maximize my free time, set goals for the things I want to tackle next, and even get a better sense for which of my many hobbies I most value and want to devote more time to. While your mileage may vary with this tool, I’ve certainly found it useful enough to want to pitch it to other nerds who might find themselves having the same difficulty I do.

I call it…the Hobby Calendar!

Lackluster name aside, I’m of the opinion that it’s one of the better ideas I’ve had in a while. The concept is simple, but I’ve found it really helps me stay focused and keep from being paralyzed with indecision every time I have a moment’s free time. I find myself thinking, “I could do anything…anything at all! But what will I choose?” and then end up waffling endlessly over it and consequently wasting a sizable chunk of that precious free time, without making progress on anything whatsoever.

Last year, I decided I’d had enough, and that it was time to take charge. So I sat down, opened up a new spreadsheet, and made a list of my main hobbies in one column. In another, I listed the months of the year, and then proceeded to arrange the hobbies by month in a way that I felt made sense. Here’s what I ended up with:

As you can see, there aren’t many moving parts, and there’s nothing to regularly record (yet, anyway); it mainly serves as a reminder for what’s coming up next. Unsurprisingly, choosing what to put where was the hardest part. Some of the choices were arbitrary, but there was a method to my madness for others — for example, November is National Novel Writing Month, so naturally, that one had to be writing. And I know February is always the month that I end up feeling apathetic and really bogged down by winter, so I picked video games for that month since it’s low-key, doesn’t require much work, and allows me to hibernate.

You’ll also see that some months are doubled up — instead of breaking my hobbies down into twelve different activities, I chose to keep things more broad so that, while the calendar removes the “blank canvas” effect, I still have some freedom to decide what “crafting” or “writing” means to me on a given day. However, this is another spot where you can change things up to work for you. Maybe you work better when things are parsed out in more detail, or maybe you like the freedom that comes with broader categories — either method can be useful; it just depends your preference.

I’ve been using my calendar since June, so I won’t come full circle until May, but so far, this method has been really helpful — and even eye-opening — for me. One thing I’ve realized is that the thing I most often wish I were doing when I’m doing something else is crafting. This tells me that when push comes to shove, if I really had to narrow it down, making stuff would be my top priority. Knowing this, I can proceed with planning future months accordingly (whether that means setting aside more time for crafty activities, or keeping more variety on the list so that I’m more likely to branch out and learn new stuff).

As I more or less expected, some months have gone better than others — for example, reading month was easy, since I can pick up a book for just a few minutes and still make a little progress, which isn’t something I can do with, say, a story I’m working on or a show I want to watch. And sometimes months just end up being really full and I don’t end up with much free time at all (Artwork month just wrapped up, and, well…let’s just say there are a lot of ideas in my head that haven’t made it to paper yet).

But regardless of what I accomplish in a particular month, the sense of focus I get from the calendar means that I still get more done than I would have otherwise. And beyond getting rid of some decision fatigue, the calendar helps me put aside the guilt I’d normally have while working on something, wondering if my time would have been better spent in another way. Say in February I spend an afternoon playing Legend of Zelda, and the thought strikes me that maybe I should be getting more done on the craft languishing on my shelf instead. But when that thought comes, I can just remind myself that it’s video game month, and regardless of what else I could be doing, this is what I’ve chosen to do, and therefore, I have permission to not feel bad about it. In fact, I can enjoy it even more because of that!

So, what do you think, friends? Would you give the hobby calendar a try? What are some other tricks you’ve found helpful in your quest to do All The Things?

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In 2016, we:

• Made it to episode 50 on Dungeons & Flagons
• Started doing book and TV show reviews
• Started the “Have You Heard Of…” series
• Went to CONvergence together for the second year in a row and did our most epic cosplay to date
• Had our first AcadeCon experience
• Tried NaNoWriMo again (and didn’t win…maybe next time!)
• Tried out TONS of new board games

And even more! I’ll let Peder talk more about some of the things he started up this year, but as you can see, we’ve been a busy couple of nerds. And we have even more in the pipeline for this year! Beyond the new movies and games coming out this year that we’re already stoked to write about (Star Wars and Marvel and Netflix, oh my!), we’ve both started some new things recently that we’re looking forward to diving into even more in 2017.

And along with these new things comes a bunch of nerdy new years’ resolutions (the best kind, obvs, and probably the easiest to stick with). Here are a few of mine

• Hone my newly acquired amigurumi (crocheted plushie) skills
• Try my hand at selling my crafts and artwork at a convention, at a craft show, and/or online
• Make more stuff!
• Finally finish Skyward Sword and start playing Dragon Age
• Try out more low-key (Loki? Nah, not this time) cosplay this year
• Read through more of the books I’ve been meaning to get to for a long time
• Go to more movies
• Step outside my comfort zone and GM a Cold Steel Wardens session (even if it’s just a one-shot)
• Have a couple of movie and/or TV show marathons
• Play another legacy board game after we’re through with Pandemic (and more new board games in general!)
• Continue our biweekly game nights at Insight Brewery

So there you have it! Like I said, we’ve got a busy year ahead of us, but I can’t wait to get going. These are just a few of the things I hope to do in the new year (and now that they’re documented, I guess I’m going to have to stick to them!) — what are you hoping to accomplish in 2017? Do you have your own list of nerdy resolutions? We hope you’ll tell us about them in the comments!

And we especially hope you’ll stick around and join us for our nerdy shenanigans this year. Best wishes to you all for a fantastic and geeky 2017!

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Share questions, ideas for articles, or comments with us!

Email us at nerdologists@gmail.com
Follow us on Twitter at @NerdologistCast
Message me directly on Twitter at @Kefka73
Visit us on Facebook here.