Every time you choose to watch instead of do, somebody else gets your reps.

Watching someone skilled is pleasant and feels close to learning, because your brain follows along and understands what is happening. Understanding and being able to do are different systems, and only one of them improves by repetition. The hours are real either way. They just accumulate in somebody else’s hands.

Set a simple ratio for the thing you care about: some minutes of watching, then the same minutes of trying it badly. Even ten of each is enough to keep the two connected. The trying is the part that transfers.