You Can Learn a Hundred Skills This Year. Start With Six.

Changing a flat tire takes about twelve minutes the first time you do it by yourself, and most of that's hunting for where the jack lives. Doing it doesn't make you impressive. Standing next to the car at nineteen, in the rain, with your mom in the passenger seat, googling "where is the jack" is the part you want to skip.

That's the whole idea behind a list like this. None of these hundred things are hard. They're just unlearned, and they stay unlearned until somebody needs them at the worst possible moment.

The bar is lower than you think

You don't have to master anything on this list. The bar is: you can do it once, alone, without anybody watching, and the result isn't embarrassing. That's it. A guy who can cook four meals is a guy who can cook. A guy who can tie four knots knows knots.

Most of these take twenty to forty minutes to learn badly and maybe an hour to learn properly. Two a week gets you through a hundred in a year with time off for Christmas and finals.

Two things wreck this. The first is watching instead of doing. Ten videos about sharpening a knife equals zero sharp knives. Watch the video once, then go stand at the counter with the stone in your hand and the video paused.

The second is doing it the day you need it. Learn to jump a car on a Saturday afternoon in your own driveway with a parent standing there, not at 11 p.m. in a parking lot with your phone at four percent.

Ask a person before you ask a screen

The fastest route to any of this is the adult who already does it. Your dad, your grandpa, the neighbor who fixes his own truck, the shop teacher, the guy at church who does HVAC. Ask them to show you once and then let you do it while they watch.

Almost none of them will say no. Men who are good at something have usually been waiting years for somebody to ask.

Some of the items below need supervision and I've flagged them. Electrical work, anything with a firearm, and anything medical aren't "figure it out from a video" categories. Take the class. Get the certification. Do it with your parents.

Around the house (15)

• Find a stud by knocking and counting 16 inches, then confirm it
• Hang a shelf that's level and stays up
• Shut off the water to the whole house, and to one toilet
• Replace a toilet flapper
• Plunge a toilet without flooding the bathroom
• Clear a sink trap
• Reset a tripped breaker and work out what tripped it
• Swap a light switch with the breaker off, with an adult who's done it
• Caulk a tub edge so it looks like a straight line
• Patch a doorknob-sized hole in drywall
• Paint a wall with a clean cut-in at the ceiling
• Change the furnace filter and know the size from memory
• Sharpen a kitchen knife
• Use a fire extinguisher: pull, aim, squeeze, sweep
• Shut off the gas at the meter

The kitchen (12)

• Scramble eggs on low heat, slowly, the way that actually tastes good
• Cook a steak in cast iron and let it rest
• Roast a whole chicken
• Make rice on the stove without a machine
• Build a pot of chili that feeds six
• Pancakes from scratch, no box
• Grill burgers without pressing them flat
• Chop an onion with your knuckles curled back
• Read the whole recipe before you start anything
• Pack a lunch you'd be glad to open
• Clean and re-oil a cast iron pan
• Load a dishwasher so everything comes out clean

Car and bike (10)

• Change a flat in the dark
• Check oil, coolant and washer fluid
• Check tire pressure and fill to the number on the door jamb
• Jump-start a car in the right order
• Change wiper blades
• Replace a headlight bulb
• Parallel park in three movements
• Back a trailer down a driveway, with a licensed adult
• Patch a bike tube
• Adjust bike brakes and index the gears

Money and paperwork (10)

• Open a checking account and read the statement line by line
• Write a check and fill out a deposit slip
• Read a pay stub and know what came out and why
• Fill out a W-4 with your parents or the employer's HR, not by guessing
• Track every dollar you spend for thirty days
• Save a $500 buffer and don't touch it
• Compare two products by unit price, not sticker price
• Ask your boss for more hours, out loud, in person
• Buy something used in person with a parent along
• Cancel the subscription you forgot you had

Body and outdoors (12)

• Swim 100 yards without stopping
• Tread water for five minutes
• Run a mile without walking
• Do one strict pull-up
• Hinge at the hip properly, taught by a coach
• Start a fire with one match when the wood's damp
• Pitch a tent in the dark
• Read a paper map and take a compass bearing
• Tie a bowline, a taut-line hitch, a trucker's hitch and two half hitches
• Sharpen a hatchet and split wood without putting it through your shin
• Treat water in the backcountry
• Handle a firearm safely, through a hunter safety course or a certified instructor, with your parents and your state's law

People (12)

• Shake a hand and say your name so it's heard the first time
• Hold eye contact for the length of one sentence
• Introduce two people who don't know each other
• Apologize with no "but" attached
• Ask a question and stay quiet for the entire answer
• Leave a voicemail in under twenty seconds
• Call a business and make an appointment
• Write a thank-you note by hand and mail it
• Stand up and say sixty coherent seconds at a family dinner
• Say no without three paragraphs of excuses
• Disagree with an adult respectfully and hold your position
• Remember a name and use it

Work and screens (12)

• Type 60 words a minute without looking down
• Write an email with a subject line that says what you want
• Get a one-page resume onto paper
• Use a spreadsheet: sort, filter, sum, one formula
• Learn ten keyboard shortcuts and stop reaching for the mouse
• Back up your files in two places
• Set up a password manager and turn on two-factor
• Spot a phishing text before you tap it
• Take a clean, plain photo for a job application using a window for light
• Iron a shirt, collar first
• Tie a four-in-hand, a half Windsor and a bow tie
• Polish leather shoes properly

When it goes wrong (9)

• Hands-only CPR, from a certified class
• Put someone unconscious into the recovery position
• Stop heavy bleeding with direct pressure
• Treat a burn correctly in the first two minutes
• Recognize a concussion and tell an adult even when your friend says not to
• Call 911 and give an address plus the nearest cross street
• Know where your home's breaker box and gas shutoff are without looking
• Build a car kit: blanket, cables, water, flashlight, work gloves
• Water rescue: reach or throw, don't go

Home and family (8)

• Do your laundry start to finish, including getting a stain out
• Sew on a button and fix a fallen hem
• Make a bed with square corners
• Mow straight lines and edge the border
• Hold a baby without panicking, and change a diaper
• Watch younger siblings for three hours with the TV off
• Plan, shop for and cook one family dinner a month by yourself
• Memorize something worth carrying around: a poem, a psalm, the Preamble

Pick six, right now

Don't try to schedule all hundred. Pick six for the next month and write them somewhere you'll see them. Make one of them something for your family, one something with your hands, and one thing that scares you a little, like making a phone call to a stranger.

The honest trade-off: you'll get maybe seventy of these done, not a hundred, and some you'll learn badly enough that you'll have to relearn them at twenty-five. Fine. Seventy is a lot. Seventy is more than most grown men.

Sometime this year somebody's going to look around a room and say "does anyone know how to..." and everybody will get very interested in their shoes.

Be the one who already has his hand out for the wrench.