Q:

Become interested in what you're doing very much

I'm trying to express the following idea:
Imagine that I started working on a project and the project turned out to be so interesting that I spent almost all my free time to work on it. How can I express it in a way that is shorter?

When I started working on the project I _____

A:

A nice poetic word for this is 'absorbed.' I would use it like so:

When I started this project, I quickly became so absorbed in it that I lost track of all my free time. 

Other good words that come to mind: obsessed (you couldn't think about anything else), intrigued (unexpectedly interested, especially for the purpose of gaining knowledge), devoted (caring about it more than anything else, emotional attachment).

