Do you take inventory of your hobbies and projects?
Most of my time in any given day is spent sleeping (eight hours), working (nine hours, plus another one or two for commuting), chores (maintaining the home, personal hygiene, etc.), and spending time with my wife (and occasionally with friends and family).
This means that I don’t have a lot of “spare time”. I maybe get one or two hours a day, and a few more on Saturdays and Sundays.
I often feel anxious and depressed about this inescapable reality. I have a lot of projects and hobbies that I would like to fill my spare time with, but not enough for all of them.
Years ago, I began to try to reframe the circumstances of my life in my mind in order to prevent a complete mental collapse. I tell myself that this life is finite, that I will never be able to have all the experiences that I would like to, and that’s OK. I can live with that reality. And I should instead, focus my energy on dedicating myself to the projects and hobbies that I absolutely do not want to miss out on.
I still struggle to stick to just a few of those, because there are so many (especially creative) activities that I enjoy. I regularly go through cycles of taking on too many of these, then becoming overwhelmed because I don’t have enough time for each, then cutting out most of them to focus on the ones that I want to prioritize, and repeating the cycle.
Today, I have reached the part of that cycle where I will cut some of them out.
Whenever I do that, it really helps me to take inventory of what those activities are, so that I can stay focused, and delay taking on more or new ones until I am satisfied with where I got with my current ones.
So, here are the projects and hobbies that I want to spend my spare time on, starting today:
- Reading one hour every morning (been diligently doing that since January 1). Two books I am reading through the year. A third book I read as much as I have time left (have read more than ten this year already). I also occasionally read some blogs on Bear Blog.
- Writing on two blogs (one daily, one occasionally), as well as writing my book.
- Occasionally chatting on a forum, Tildes, and four Discord guilds.
- Taking one daily walk while listening to a podcast.
- Occasionally watching YouTube videos (I am—coincidentally—subscribed to exactly 50 channels, almost all of which have an upload schedule of one video every other week or slower).
What are your activities?
Side notes: The list above is a summary. My list is a lot more precise, to help me focus. Also, I’m currently unemployed, but before I quit my last job, I had actually been working almost without interruption for several years. My day-to-day routine back then was exactly as I described it in the beginning of this post.
My way of taking inventory is an attempt to pick more healthy hobbies rather than dopamine trap hobbies.
I work from home on a computer all day and I found that not even getting up from my chair when I switch from work to gaming was seriously impacting all aspects of my health.
So, now, instead of going straight to gaming after work, I do one of these things:
If I do one of those things, then I find afterwards I can go back to gaming and feel more satisfied with my life. Some days the small task turns into a whole thing, and I get to spend all of my free time that day doing a healthy task instead of gaming, and thats fine.
oof I had this exact experience a while ago, and I seriously got depressed.
Right haha and in my infinite wisdom I was like, I know, I’ll wind down with a glass of wine!
Which of course made it worse.
Life is easier now, with the better hobbies, haha
I have a commitment with myself to read from fiction or nonfiction books before I go to sleep. Not articles, books. This is part of my struggle to fight the quick dopamine from reddit etc or even Tildes and to continue in continuity with who I have been for most of my life.
I would like to prioritize time for music. I love it, but I don't always spend my time that way. The same goes for film and theater.
I started watching documentaries for the same reason. No more phone in bed!
I also struggle terribly with this complete lack of 'free time'. Having to work even a normal 40 hours a week leaves one with very little free time and hugely limits what one can accomplish outside of their career. I chose 1 thing that is the most important to me and I'm nearly religious about it. I read for 1-1.5 hours a day right after dinner. But between sleeping/working/commuting/making a home cooked meal every night/reading, I get maybe 2 more hours to chill with my partner and read Tildes/Reddit/HN and listen to some music. I need that time to wind down and keep my sleep patterns regular.
Weekends are mostly eaten up by a day of errands (not all day obviously, but between random errands, meal planning, groceries, maybe a meal out most of Saturday is gone). Sunday is a day for house chores and lunch meal prepping, some exercise. So when do I get to take on some big projects for myself? When do I have time for adventures, local or abroad? It's frustrating sometimes, and I don't even have any children, how do people with children find any time for themselves at all?
My goal is to try and retire as early as possible by moving somewhere with a significantly lower cost of living just so I can do what I want to do. None of the stuff I want to do is going to cost that much money, just time.
Does playing with my cat count?
I also play Spelling bee to relax.
But I do have several projects going at once. I do them after work if I can.
I usually have very little energy after work and do literally nothing. I don't even scroll through social media. I just lie there. It helps that the cat comes to snuggle sometimes.
But I've been trying to get myself to do a small amount of any of my projects after work. So it's a struggle but sometimes I manage to do it.
I unfortunately am not out of the hopeless inescapable loop part. My only hobby that I get time for is vidya games. Only an hour or two each night. Other than that I’m doing the same stuff every day as you described 🙃
I meant to respond to this when you first posted, but got sidetracked - ironically, by one of my growing hobbies. I kind of keep a small list of things I do in the back of my mind, partially as a response to something interesting I read recently. When we are asked to introduce ourselves, when people ask what we do, we usually respond with our jobs as if those are what define us. That made me start thinking about what I do for my own fulfillment, which is a much more interesting list (even if some is job-adjacent).
So far, here's what I have for my hobbies/activities:
I have other activities - cooking, DIY repairs, light programming - that I do as well, but not to the point that I consider them to define me. Some of my hobbies are weekend-only things (blacksmithing) while others are kept moving via half-hour snippets every day or so (reading, homelab). Some things have taken more or less time of my day, but I feel like I've struck a good balance overall.