I sat awake staring at the ceiling, picturing everything I had to do the next day. It was almost past midnight, and I was full of energy in mind, while being physically tired in body. It had been a long day. Work was good, my lift was fine, I read a book, played some piano, watched a video on a topic I was trying to learn, and took some time to plan content for The Coin.
By all means I had done a great deal. I had a packed day and achieved more than most people do in a couple of days, but my time management wasn’t always that good. I wasn’t always happily achieving all my daily tasks. I remember a time when I would lie down at night wondering how it was possible to achieve all the things I dreamed of doing.
Most people have one or two hobbies; a sport they play on the side, art they draw on the weekends, skills they practice a couple times a week, or simply reading a book. Hobbies come in all shapes and sizes and are contrived by an enjoyment of an activity. Some people, like myself, are what I called “bored ambitious people.”
Bored ambitious people have so many hobbies that it’s hard for them to keep track of them. Bored ambitious people, like the name says, set out on a new hobby only to get proficient, get bored, sometimes maintain, and move on. I find myself in this place often and I realized that maybe others struggle with the same thing.
Why Hobbies are Important
Hobbies are important for many reasons, one reason is that they give enjoyment to our lives. Picture this, you wake up, you go to work, you come home, watch tv, and go to bed. That’s quite boring and unless you love your job, but a love of a job can only take you so far. This is why hobbies are so important.
Hobbies bring meaningfulness to our lives outside of work. Some hobbies help us connect with others like sports, book clubs, travel, etc., but hobbies can also give us necessary alone time. Fishing can be an escape from the concrete jungles, video games can allow you to unwind, and painting can bring out your creative side.
Hobbies help give us unique life experiences. Hobbies help make us who we are.
How to Manage Multiple Hobbies
If you’ve ever faced the challenge of deciding whether to read a book, go for a run, or practice your musical instrument you have probably wondered how to manage multiple hobbies.
“There’s not enough time in the day to get everything done…”
We have all said it or heard someone say that. It never feels like 24 hours is enough. After all, I break my back for a job 9 hours a day, I’m lucky if I get 7 hours of sleep, and I am tired by the time I finish work. Believe me, I hear you. It’s tough. Maybe you are like me, entering your last year of school feeling like there is so much to get done and not enough time to get it done. We’ve all been there.
I wish there was a magic cure, a line of code that added an extra 2 hours to my day, a button that paused time, or a 3rd weekend day every week. All of those would solve the problem, right? Not exactly. There are three ways to maximize your time and manage all of your hobbies.
- Prioritize the most important things
- Make a schedule and stick to it
- Learn what to say yes and no to
With these three different strategies you’ll find yourself getting more done and enjoying the hobbies you care about the most. However, they take time to implement and take discipline to stick with.
Prioritize What Matters
Have you ever thought to yourself, why does this even matter? Whether it was at work, school, or during a required speaker’s event. People that manage their hobbies think this often.
Managing your hobbies starts by prioritizing what’s important. For example, I value productivity, achieving goals, and improving myself in general. This leads me to prioritize sports and physical activity over other hobbies. When you prioritize your hobbies, you can make sure that you get to enjoy the hobbies that are most important to you.
For me, I am happy if a get a lift in, some piano played, and if I’ve read 15 pages of a book. Prioritize gives you an order of operations to follow. As you can see, my order of operations is physical activity, music, and then reading. This allows me to, nearly, automatically get home from work, lift, play some piano, and then read before I go to bed, and if I fall behind, lifting still is my priority before other activities.
Everyone’s priorities will be different and everyone’s situation unique. Use your own judgment to decide what is most important to you. Often times you will find that certain hobbies are far more important to you, and some hobbies can be relegated to once-a-month activities, instead of weekly (hold this thought).
Make a Schedule
I know, I know. Making a schedule sounds like work. Did you really think that doing everything you wanted to do was easy?
I can hear the free flow-ers screaming at me. “No schedule is the only way to enjoy your time.” I disagree with that statement, but I do understand it. The best feeling in the world is getting lost in a hobby or spending time with someone where you look at the clock and realize hours have gone by. While I wish I could live in that feeling forever, it’s simply unrealistic if your goal is to pack so many hobbies into your day/week/life.
Scheduling time for hobbies is important. Trying to set variable time to enjoy your hobbies. What is variable time scheduling? Well, it’s the practice of having loose starting and ending times for your hobbies. Instead of perfectly scheduling your music time as 6 PM-7 PM, have more loose times. You don’t need to perfectly stop around 7, especially if you are having a great time, and if you are busy beforehand, then you don’t have to start perfectly at 6. You could maybe start at 6:15 or 6:30.
Scheduling is not to create a strict timeline for you to follow, it is to give you a reminder outside of yourself that tells you what you’ve promised to spend your time doing. Schedules are accountability partners that remind you of the promises you made to yourself.
Frequency Scheduling (Daily/Weekly/Bi-Weekly/Monthly/Yearly)
“What if I enjoy a less ridged schedule. I mean after all; I just want to enjoy my hobby.”
That’s a great point, and this is where frequency scheduling takes place. Frequency scheduling, similar to how we made our priorities, is a system that pools hobbies into different occurrence frequencies.
If that doesn’t make sense, I will give you an example of my frequency scheduling. There are certain things that I try to do daily. I read 15 pages of a book every day, I get 9,000 steps in, and I play piano for at least 15 minutes. As you can see, the frequency of these hobbies/activities is daily, but I also have weekly hobbies. I try to lift 4 times a week (the days can vary depending on my schedule), I try to learn coding 3-4 times a week, and sit down and watch shows with my family 4-5 times a week. I play volleyball at least once every other week and I make sure to do something spontaneous with friends once a month.
As you can see, frequency scheduling allows you to measure your activity, in regard to hobbies, but doesn’t restrict yourself to a set time or day. This type of scheduling takes a bit of discipline to master but can yield satisfying results.
There are certainly hobbies that you would enjoy every week, but maybe you only need one weekend a year of fishing or camping. There is no shame in that. You know yourself. Set the frequencies accordingly.
Learn How to Say Yes or No
This step is often times the hardest for people, but it’s essential that you have established your priorities before considering yes or no as your options.
Every hour of every day is a choice. The choice? The choice is yes or no. Yes, I will lift for an hour. No, I won’t go out drinking. Yes, I will sit down and learn a new coding language. No, I won’t just watch YouTube.
Learning to say yes and no is a matter of knowing what’s important to you. If you value a hobby, then it makes sense to plan your time accordingly. What you say yes to and what you say no to ultimately decides how you spend your time. The interesting part of learning to say yes or no is that whenever you say yes to something, you say no to something else, and vice versa. Every yes, and every no has an opportunity cost.
You are the only person that decides yes or no. Don’t be a slave to social pressures, but also remember not to be selfish. As in many things, a balance is often better than an extreme.
What are You Waiting Around For?
Now you’ve seen how important hobbies are for a well-balanced life, you’ve seen how setting priorities is the foundation of creating a schedule that keeps you accountable to your promises, and how, ultimately, all of these things are caused by what you say yes to and what you say no to.
I hope you found this article useful. I wish you the best of luck managing your time accordingly, or you can be like most people and never implement what they read (*harsh).
That’s all I have for you today.
Until the next article, and here is my previous article!
