I’ve been thinking lately is it possible to have too many hobbies? It feels like I’m juggling all kinds of things I want to do with the stuff I have to do then I feel stressed out because it seems like nothing gets done. Now that summer is coming and I have more work outside to do it seems even worse. For example now I have to mow my yard and to help my elderly in-laws I mow for them as well. So that’s 2-3 hours of time I’ve lost a week once the grass started to grow.
I have a lot of hobbies
I have a lot of interest and I tend to bounce around on what I’m focused on. Then eventually circling back around to the beginning. Some of them overlap but each one of these “hobbies” could be a full time thing on its own. On top of that I have other ideas of things I want to try that I’ve not got around to yet.
Here are some examples in no particular order and I’m sure I’m forgetting some.
- IT work, computers and servers
- Building electronics
- Programming useful tools
- Game development
- Gaming with my son
- Websites and blogging
- Drawing
- Reading
- Growing plants and gardening
- Martial arts
- Ham Radio
- Wood carving
- Fishing
- Metalworking
It feels like I have no time
With all these hobbies I want to do plus having a full time job, family obligations, and doing household chores I have started to feel a bit overwhelmed and stressed out. I think that’s because I’m not happy half doing something and I want to see improvement in my skills. That’s hard to do when your stretched so thin.
You can’t really cut out your job, house work or family to make more time. So I started thinking maybe I have too many hobbies and I need to narrow down my focus?
Deciding to put some hobbies on the shelf
I guess the number of hobbies you can support depends how much time each one takes and the amount of time you have free to devote to them. This is a hard problem for me to solve because I don’t like the idea of giving up on any of my projects and interest.
Scheduling time
Another option is to somehow systematically schedule what to focus on. But the thought of that sounds too rigid to me. I kind of feel like hobbies should be fun and relaxing. By putting time limits on it I’m not sure that helps. But until now I’ve just picked what I wanted to do based on what I felt like. So maybe more structure would not be a bad thing.
My idea for a solution
The answer to the original question I had at the beginning of the post is yes you can have too many hobbies. I think what I’m going to try to do is rank everything I want to do by how much I love it or want to do it. Then maybe pick the top 3 or 4 to focus on and the others I’ll put on pause. Then in some set amount of time later on I’ll redo the ranking and focus on the new top 3-4 and put everything else on hold.
This kind of feels like it gives the best of scheduling and shelving hobbies. I can still be flexible within the top 3-4 options and I’m also not throwing anything away permanently.
What do you think?
I wrote this post on the fly as a way to help me think and I only came to that solution at the very end. But I think I like it. Do you have any thoughts or suggestions? Let me know in the comments below! Maybe you’ll have a tip to make things even better.
