SOFA - Start Often Finish rArely

It took me 40 years to realize that this is a really bad idea. Each project or hobby takes time. Each new skill takes a lot of time and focus to master.

Half-finished projects clutter your space and your mind. The biggest satisfaction is what I get from a project that is done-done. Not finishing anything will rob the satisfaction of a project.

Doing some Marie Kondo (deciding which things bring joy and getting rid of the rest) for your hobbies has been immensely liberating. Saying no to myself and not starting something new leaves space in my mind to enjoy other things much more.

So I would say, be picky about which hobby to take on and once you do it, be ready to invest some serious time into it. The joy you get out of a nice coffee table you built yourself from scratch is immeasurably greater than some tools, lumber and dust blocking your garage for years.

I don't know that that's in conflict with what this is saying.

Often, when I take on something that I don't have the knowledge or experience to complete, I don't know precisely what I'm lacking in advance. By doing, I discover my limitations and can explore them - starting often, but not randomly. Eventually, I can approach the original project with additional insight and do more, having brought up a pillar of a fundamental to a requisite height to build on.

If I only leaned into my strengths, I might not feel the need to grow. That doesn't mean I leave things undone, but I recognize that if I only work towards goals that are immediately attainable, I won't ever develop the capacity to do more.

Put another way, the "time to first coffee table" is a function of SOFA for tooling acquisition. From there, the time investment required to build subsequent coffee tables is reduced by prior knowledge.