Have you got time for your Hobby?

Published by Ryan Aschroft on 21 March 2024

Maximise the time on your hobby

What impacts the time we have for Hobbies?

The first place I like to start is opening up to looking at their Hobby from another angle, instead of trying to shift things around, make more time and reduce time spent elsewhere let’s have a look at defining what impacts the time spent on our Hobby and overanalyse everything. What may impact our Hobby indirectly in that we may have to do things prior to doing our Hobby that takes away time from the Hobby, then look at why we need to do those things and are their alternatives. Let me give you some examples to get you thinking about it.

Prep Work

Is there equipment you need for your Hobby
Are you travelling
Are you the carpool vehicle
Is there actions (e.g. paperwork, vaccines etc) prior to taking part?

Multiplayer Hobbies

Does your Hobby include other people
Do you need to work around everybody else’s schedule
Does more people add more tasks prior or after the Hobby?

Day or Night?

Does your Hobby require a specific time of day or night?
If it doesn’t do you have a preference and would this change the time needed
Time of day can impact wait times, travel and scheduling.

When and Where?

Is your Hobby in a specific location
Do you need to travel, if so would stopping over benefit you?
Is there specific time for your hobby?
Is the Hobby restrictive or flexible in it's location and timings?

So an impact on your time spent on a Hobby could be because of the quantity of prep-work that has to go into preparing to even take part in a Hobby, this could be down to Equipment, Travel and transportation or other factors but every Hobby has prep-work now some of it has to be done, there’s no escaping it but is some preference and or something that is needed to be done?

For example if your Hobby required equipment, protective gear and alternative footwear then you’re going to need to get this ready and in a transportable means prior to taking part in your Hobby, how you go about this has an impact on the time spent.

Some Hobbies are done with more than one person, now although they may be dealing with their prep-work and other matters there could be things such as travel and carpooling that may impact the time spent on the Hobby, is their schedule different from yours and do they engage in the Hobby less than you?

You might be the carpool driver, this means you’ve got to use your time to pick everybody else up from the agreed location to take them to the place where you take part in your Hobby.

Are there specifics on if the Hobby has to be done in the day or nighttime? Or do you have a choice when to do so; there can be many impacts of the time of day you do your Hobby as it could impact the travel time, the weight time and how long you can actually engage in your Hobby.

Over Analysed, Now Change the Impact

Now we’re more self-aware of what can impact the time we can spend on our Hobby we can either look at reducing the impact, removing it or balancing it around other things in an effort to provide the correct amount of time we need for our Hobby.

Making small changes, over periods of time can make big difference in the long run as such take one impact at a time, refine it and make sure it is sustainable and works for you before moving on to the next thing. Let’s have a look at few things mentioned and see if we can start to work on their impact together.

(Fun) (Box) (Affinity) a person is buried under a mountain of mo

Plan Ahead

Make sure to store as much hobby based equipment in one location, I like to store in labelled boxes but you what works for you.
Get yourself a go-bag if your hobby requires you to be on the move, you can store equipment, clothes, footwear and any nutrition & drinks in one bag that you can easily get ready beforehand and then pick up and go.
If you’re traveling or carpooling make sure you know the way and organise pickup times so people stick to a schedule and can you can keep things moving and motivate others.

(Finances) (Affinity) a piggy bank standing next to soime buildi

Cost & Finances

Sometimes the cost of our hobby has an impact on how much time we can spend enjoying the hobby as such look if there are cheaper locations or alternatives; saving that money could mean have more time to spend on the hobby.
If planning to go away for tournaments, gatherings and other long events make sure to plan ahead of time, this cuts down on cost and time wasting when comes to travelling to your destination.
We will have future blog video content devoted to finances so stayed tuned.

(Places) (Affinity) Long corridor what appears to be an outside

Shorter vs Longer

The solution is increasing the joy you get from your hobby isn’t always about taking part in it for as long as possible. Sometimes taking part in your hobby too much has a negative impact on your enjoyment, this can be due to fatigue, injury or the hobby you take part in can be rather intense meaning small doses are more enjoyable.
If you do have a rather intense Hobby then you can look at other ways you can manage your time to increase the quantity of periods you spend on your hobby rather than their duration.
Don’t forget recovery days, prep days and time to relax in-between hobbies; certain hobbies such as hiking, cycling and sports might be great fun but they also have an impact on your body. Give yourself time to recover otherwise injury.

(People) (Affinity) woman holding up sokme balancing scales, has

Balance

Balance, moderation and consistency these are key to enjoyment so make sure all aspect of your hobby are balanced so they have a less of an impact on you.
If an aspect of your hobby is having more of a negative impact than others n you at least know where to put your attention first.

Routine & Organisation for Maintaining Time

Although you can adjust decrease the impact on your hobby, give yourself more appropriate time to enjoy the hobby and ensure less to worry about; all these changes require you to analyse, implement and stay consistent or they don’t reduce the impact. So, ensuring consistency in your changes in just as important as making the changes as such I tend to create routines and structure around the changes I implement but what works for me might not for you but make sure whichever method you use allows you to maintain the hard work you’ve put into your hobby.

Let’s have a look at how I implement this for one of my many hobbies, cycling. Now there is a lot of kit, gear and clothing for cycling as such when I know I’m going to cycle the next day I always get a go-bag with all my kit in it and ensure any clothing is stored closed to the bike and all equipment is already stored on the mic or simply on it so I can pick it up and use it. This way when I want to cycle, I get changed, put on my cycling gear, pick up my bike and go-bag and I’m off. Last thing I want is worry and delays when I want n early morning cycle this little routine if not a little overboard saves me so much time and worry in the morning for very little effort. Try planning a night before routine prepping some of your hobby needs see how it works for you.

Knowing yourself, knowing your Hobby

You know yourself better than any one else does, so you will know how you function and how your brain works if so then you will also know what things your good at upholding time wise and your shortcomings to as such you can identify areas you need to work on. The same can be said for your Hobby, if there are aspects you’ve identified about your own time-management you can see where that is applied to your Hobby too.

Having a self-awareness of how your time is used, where you struggle to manage your time and where you need and want to put more time gives you an idea of what needs to be worked on or which areas you would like to focus on more.

For example, I’m so narrow focused it’s scary this has some very strong positive and negative issues when it comes to how I go about things; on one hand if I’m focused on a task, I’m able to accomplish it with overwhelming precision and tenacity but I become rather oblivious to myself and my surroundings so I can forget to tidy up around me, eat or realise the room is on fire but it’s give and take right? So how would I apply this to managing my time? I do so by setting myself tasks/challenges/routines that ensure I pre-empt by planning, packing and ensuring minimal effort is required or distractions are available when it comes to spending time on my Hobby. Know yourself and you will be able to manage your time better too.

Need Vs Want

Want

One of my greatest pieces of advice I could ever offer somebody who is wanting to sort out their time management but is struggling with how to go about it as everything seems to necessary, is to find out with regards to the things that affect your time with your Hobby in a negative way and are they a ‘Want’ or a ‘Need’.

So a ‘Want’ is something within your life that you want to do but isn’t essential to the participation of the Hobby, these are preferences, customisations or simply comforts. Although these are things that could be things make you enjoy your Hobby more they’re not essential and therefore if spending more time on your Hobby is the overall goal and would provide more enjoyment by having more time than having these non-essential wants within your Life, Hobby and or routine then it’s a good place to start.

Need

So a ‘Need’ is something that is essential to the Hobby, if you Cycle as a Hobby then having a bike is essential whereas that customised cyclist jersey maybe a ‘Want’ but isn’t essential to get you cycling. When you’re struggling with getting time back, I strip my Hobby down to the minimum to only what I ‘Need’ in order to take part in the Hobby, this might fill up some time for me to try new things such as taking part in my Hobby even earlier or spending more time on the Hobby itself. During this experimentation make sure to note the things that work and the things that don’t everybody is different but you’re the one who needs to figure yourself out and what means the most to you.

You can always rebalance Need vs Want, not to self-promote but the more topics you read on this website or our other content you will start to become more self-aware of your wants, needs and how to get more out of your Hobby for you. The journey doesn’t stop there because it’s not right that we give up the things we want just to maximise the essentials, over time we will find a balance with our time, finances and our sanity to ensure we get the most out of our Hobbies this could just mean one month you try this and the next you switch it up keeping it fresh.

Too Much or Loo Little?

Now I think the common consensus would be that the more free time we have to spend on the Hobbies the better but I think this is very subjective and down to the individual not to mention the Hobby they take part in. As with everything we discuss here it’s about discussing a concept, thinking about the subject matter and finding things out about ourselves and our Hobbies that helps us. For me this discovery is about realising if more time on the Hobby is going to help you?

Duration, Short vs Long

Depending on your Hobby having more time no matter where and when is almost always better, most of the time work, life and other commitments cut our Hobby time short and we realise if I had more time, it would be so much better. For example, if you’re out with friends, having food, drink and some Magic the Gathering; you’re already out, you’ve seen to a basic need of feeding one self now it’s time to take part in Hobby with friends. Having more time here goes a long way because you’ve already gone through the effort of travelling, eating and socialising just to get to the card game so every bit of time spent is rewarding for such a time commitment to get going.

Let’s look at another Hobby you might have, cycling; this is a very physical demanding Hobby and can be very time consuming depending on your fitness levels and commitment to the Hobby. Yet every cyclist will have a target route that is based on the desired distance and distribution of inclines (can’t believe some people like the hills) this forms their cycling route but this is calculated on many things that will eventually limit the time they can spend on it due to requirements, fitness and if they push themselves further even if having fun may injure themselves. So, in this instance knowing the ideal duration allows the person to know how they will get the most out of the time they have. Don’t forget with time you will improve fitness; endurance and your route / speed will change but that’s part of the Hobby; is it a part of yours or could it be?

Frequency

With the limitation we’ve discussed above we could opt for the frequency in which we take part in our Hobbies, so instead of putting all our time to doing our Hobby into a specific day, time and duration we can opt to split this time up and spread it over more days; this could be helpful for those who’s time in one go can impact recovery / injury or there might be a cost / limit to the time you can spend on a given day (e.g. hiring out facilities).

Why not ponder this idea within your own Hobby but keep in mind increasing the frequency of you take part in your Hobby also leads to the potential of increasing the frequency of time-consuming tasks previously discussed such as Prep Work etc. It’s about finding the balance and forgive my nerdy brain but sometimes doing a little math can help, if your prep work takes short period of time and multiplying that by quantity of days you take part in your Hobby do you still end up with more time spent on your Hobby overall? Could this work for your Hobby, let me know.

Events

This next one might not be for everyone but if you and your Hobby are able to take part and enjoy events? These could be big social gatherings, tournaments or a specific location providing something to your Hobby you couldn’t get anywhere else? What if your Hobby is based around History and that specifically to do with the ‘World Wars’ then a trip to some of the greatest museums and exhibits could offer you insights and experiences you wouldn’t get other places (like an amateur blog on the internet).

Now there are a lot of impacts with big events and travelling (e.g. cost, time and scheduling) but as with most things we can turn this into something provides for more than just our Hobby and just for us. This trip could help other people with the same Hobby if you go together, you could turn it into a family holiday, once done with the events could spend the remaining days exploring the locations with your family. That family holiday made your Hobby trip possible but also means might not need future family holidays so that time could be reallocated to your Hobby.

It's all connected…

Isn’t this blog post a waste of time?

Not sure where my mindset was when I put this heading down but it’s an interesting point, if we’re talking about time and the impact certain things have on the quantity of time, we have then surely reading this blog post would consume our time? That is correct yet what we get out of it could be a valid, helpful and less impactful use of a persons time depending on what they’re hoping to get out of this material.

For me, this is one of my many Hobbies so by sharing a subject matter that’s important to me fulfils my need regarding my Hobby but it has the added benefit of being able to help others. I’m no expert so what you get out of my content is subjective yet doesn’t hinder my want to supply this information, engage with like minded individuals and maybe along the way I learn some new skills I can be proud of.

The blogs, content and other media are very generalised but that’s the point of this project and community, I’m not telling you what to do, I’m not trying to sell you something or act upon every word the point is we discuss the subject matter, I note things around said matter, note what I would do and then ask people what they do and/or how they adapt into their Hobby life etc.

Something brought you to this blog post in the first place, be it curiosity or that you are actually struggling with the time you spend on your Hobby and you thought this Blog could help you. You took a chance and gave it a good read (is it illegible?) what you get out of it and the value you assign it to your time and experience is up to you but if my creating these topics of discussion within the community helps more than just me then in my eye’s it’s already been worth it.

The Dreaded Signing Off…

The early days of our content and blog will be focused on around general subject matters, something we can all relate to, such as time, money and organising / routines then branching out to more diverse and sometimes wacky subject matters all to get you thinking about your Hobby in different ways but also for you to pay it forward and teach us about your Hobbies.

I thank you for making it to the end, there are and should be other blogs for you to read; if you like diversity in your content you can w0atch our video-based content on YouTube, our reels and photos on Instagram or you can swing by our live streaming on Twitch to engage with us in real time, no matter your content of choice I can’t wait to hear from you.

*Please note any funding or donations towards the Hobbyist Community goes into helping fund the creation of the content here and I thank everyone for their time in visiting our website and other media.

Have a lovely day and happy Hobbying.