<p>So being employed part time has allowed me to pursue some of the other interests I have, which I would categorize as hobbies, but now I find that I have a lot of other interests and don’t seem to have an organized way of pursuing or advancing my interests in them. Sometimes I feel overwhelmed not only by the housework, work, kids, and H, but by the plethora of hobbies as well! This is ridiculous! </p>
<p>How do you narrow down your hobby activity, or manage to keep up with many at once? </p>
<p>I only have two main interests, ( well three- & I have actually cut back on some)</p>
<p>Restoration horticulture/urban agriculture/local wildlife, all that overlaps with my work/ volunteer activities.</p>
<p>Pearl Jam/local music, my husband and I plan most of our travel around their tours, & our weekly dates often are at local venues to hear music that we learned about through their connection with someone in PJ( usually the lead guitarist)</p>
<p>Book group. It is a convenient way to keep up with some of my friends, even though I don’t always finish the book, but it is always fun and relaxing and we have been meeting monthly for at least 15 years!</p>
<p>What are your interests? Perhaps they can be consolidated?</p>
<p>Or don’t look at them as hobbies, look at them as “projects”. </p>
<p>Let’s say your hobbies are knitting, furniture refinishing and skiing. If you start a knitting project, finish that before you start refinishing a dresser. Skiing takes a chunk of time so reserve a day just for that without the other hobbies that day.</p>
<p>Or, put a cap on the amount of time you can devote to hobbies. Do you work during the day? Maybe you knit at night, and refinish on the weekends. </p>
<p>I don’t do well if I have lots of “projects”/interests going on at one time. Better to set my mind on completing something or two things instead of having too many scattered things going on at once.</p>
<p>I would say my primary hobby is reading (fiction mostly). I usually have 2 or 3 books in progress at the same time, so I can choose whatever suits my mood when I feel like reading. I have also been reading the books chosen by the cc Book Club. </p>
<p>I have also started trying to teach myself french. That needs daily attention, so I try to spend 20-30 minutes every day, even if it’s just listening to Pimsleur disks in my car.</p>
<p>I also like to play the piano, but find it very difficult to work that in every day (can’t do that on the road :)). When I’m not doing those things, I love working on the family genealogy where I have a program to keep track of people and belong to ancestry. Of course I also love to cook, although that’s bad for the diet! On top of that I have a math theorem that I occasionally spend time on with little hope for success, but it has been in the background for over 20 years.</p>
<p>When the weather is nicer, I like to work on the garden. And, of course, there are plenty of projects about the house (filing, photo albums, etc.) that have gone unattended for years while I was too busy with the kids and work. Which I still am.</p>
<p>I get to play piano infrequently because it takes bits of time over days to find something new in my head or to understand where my hands want to go and then to align my head and hands so it flows. I can barely draw because nothing, absolutely nothing sucks mental energy like making pictures. Cezanne said something like “I paint until my eyes bleed” and that kind of summarizes the feeling of absolute exhaustion. </p>
<p>I have a list of topics I need to analyze. I don’t have the energy to learn all the material needed to do that well. </p>
<p>And so on.</p>
<p>I find myself concentrating on hobbies where I can set easy metrics of accomplishment and improvement. Get x done, repeat, get x+ done. This involves me in a repeating cycle and we’ve known as a species that this grabs us since humans looked at the world and decided that since they needed to rest that God had rested too. The repeating Sabbath cycle is not only one of the first examples of associative conclusion but also demonstrates the allure of iteration.</p>
<p>My main hobby is motorcycles and cars. I spend a ton of time working on them, and buy/sell way too often (though I’ve never lost money since I fix them up).</p>
<p>I also listen to a lot of music and I’m really into movies. I have over a 1000 hours of music on my computer that I listen to every day, as well as ~250 movies that I enjoy watching when I get the chance. All different types of genres.</p>
<p>I play video games. RPGs mostly, like Final Fantasy and The Elder Scrolls. Not that often though, just a couple hours a week.</p>
<p>And then I really enjoy cooking and exercising.</p>
<p>So I have quite a few activities I enjoy. Music doesn’t really take up my time, since I can listen while I do other things. Movies are something I can turn on while going to sleep or eating, so it fits in pretty well with everything else. Cooking too, I just make faster meals when I don’t have time for extravagant ones.</p>
<p>Sometimes exercise gets neglected, but I can always spare a few minutes on the weight bench to do the major lifts if not a full routine, and also time to stretch before sleeping. Video games I do to waste time, so I only do them when I don’t have other pressing matters.</p>
<p>Cars/bikes are what get me in trouble. I’ve been known to put hours into something, and I don’t like leaving things unfinished. That’s why most of the time I start projects on the weekend or over vacation time so I have a lot of time to finish.</p>