Welcome to Change, Logged, a weekly newsletter offering 5-minutes of honest thoughts about life, design, and everything in between.
… a city dweller travelling through the desert will be completely dependent on a nomad to keep him alive, so long as they remain in the desert, the nomad is a genius.
- David Epstein, Range
“You have no hobbies, you just love work,” my boyfriend used to joke all the time until last spring (he’s not wrong). As a designer, it was easy for my hobbies to blur into work. My past hobbies like typography experiments, microsite projects were were fun, but still within the same lane — it is work.
However, in the last few years, something shifted. Three years ago, I took up Ashtanga yoga. Last spring, I started horse riding lessons and weekly French classes. And in February, I set myself the challenge of reading 100 books this year. What began as a gentle 15 minutes a day has snowballed into a serious habit. These days, I have too many hobbies, and most of them have nothing to do with my job, not directly anyway.
A few weeks ago, I was chatting with my manager about how fewer and fewer designers seem to write. Yet during my Master’s degree at the Glasgow School of Art, I recall writing being an essential part of the creative process to generate ideas.
In Range, David Epstein shares similar views where he talks about the importance of being a generalist in a world that is increasingly demanding hyperspecialisation. As he puts it, “our greatest strength is not narrow specialisation but being able to integrate broadly”. Like a Swiss Army knife, we want to be able to handle whatever situation comes our way, no matter how unfamiliar or challenging. But how do we do that?
Embrace diversity and variety.
Think about rainforests for a second. They are rich, adaptable, and resilient, thriving on a variety of plants, animals, and microclimates coming together in interconnected systems. Rainforests endure storms and seasonal changes, but keep growing.
Explore widely. David Epstein argues that humans benefit from this same kind of breadth, starting from childhood. Whether it’s an instrument, a sport, or a creative pursuit, we should try a range of things. Instead of putting all your energy into tennis, there’s no reason you can’t also try running, yoga, or snowboarding.
Don’t narrow too soon. By overspecialising in something to soon, we risk cognitive entrenchment. This happens when someone becomes so deeply specialised and skilled in a particular way of thinking or problem-solving that they become rigid and struggle to adapt to new challenges.
Take a chance. One Sunday, I randomly decided to go to an Ashtanga yoga class on Sunday. I had done yoga before, but had no idea about this specific style of yoga. Three years later, I now practice in the studio five days a week. Variety is valuable because it exposes you to experiences that expand your mind. Sometimes, it may lead to unexpected surprises where you discover something you truly love. For me, that’s been yoga and horse riding.
Try things for the sake of curiosity.
There’s a reason children pick up new skills so quickly: they aren’t weighed down by the fears or pressures adults feel. They don’t worry about how things look. They simply explore with innocent curiosity.
Embrace the struggle. Exploring the unknown often comes with frustrating struggles. Don’t give up so easily and don’t ask for answers right away. Give yourself some time to struggle first. My yoga teacher’s famous saying is to “give it three good attempts before moving on”.
Do it yourself, learn it yourself. When you teach yourself, you experiment more and figure out how to solve problems independently. The generation effect shows that struggling to find an answer, even a wrong one, enhances your learning. All of this produces deeper, longer-lasting knowledge than being handed answers without thinking.
Slow is still progress. In short, short-term struggles fuel deep learning by making stronger connections in your brain. Slow progress is not a bad thing. It is part of mastering complexity. As David Epstein says, “the slowest growth occurs for the most complex skills”. Embrace your inner child and take the time to explore, experiment, and follow your curiosity.
Notice connections.
Picture this: everyone is digging their own trench, so focused that no one bothers to look into the next trench, even if the solution to their problem may be there. That’s what David Epstein calls the parallel trenches problem.
Connect the dots. When you have diverse experiences and try different things, your brain naturally begins to notice connections, whether it is subconsciously or consciously. It’s not just about practicing a skill repeatedly, but also about finding ways to notice patterns and assimilate lessons, even when they don’t perfectly match your current experience. This is known as interleaving, where learning under varied conditions makes your knowledge more flexible and adaptable. It means you can adjust more easily to new challenges, even ones you’ve never encountered before.
Collect new lenses. Take languages as an example. Gloves in German are literally called “hand shoes” (Handschuhe). Rendre in French means “to give back”, but also “to vomit,” which my French teacher jokingly calls a very literal form of giving back. Learning different languages has shown me concepts I never noticed in English. You could think of knowing multiple languages as having multiple lenses in your bag, each one revealing a different perspective on the same thing, but together forming a richer and holistic picture.
Have interests outside of your job.
Steve Jobs famously credited his calligraphy class with influencing Apple’s design aesthetic. Exploring hobbies and pursuits outside my immediate field exposed me to ideas and concepts I would never have encountered otherwise.
Seek out new concepts from places beyond your comfort zone or daily routines. Often, the best inspiration comes from the most unexpected corners. To build a Swiss Army mind, be curious and explore widely, even things that may not seem enticing at first. Remember, short-term struggle leads to long-term gain.
For the curious reader
Books that inspired the thoughts on this page — and are worth a look:
Your childhood hobbies:
Singapore - calligraphy (remember the TV interview?), mental arithmetic/abacus, taekwondo, piano, art (Tare panda drawings)
Shanghai - learning Korean, piano
Hong Kong - piano
So yes, since your hobbies waned as you grew older, do re-discover it.