Introduction
If you’ve ever considered whether having too many hobbies is beneficial or not, then you may have also posed the questions to yourself asking how many hobbies you should have or whether there’s a magic number.
This might be because you’ve been finding it a struggle to concentrate on more than a couple of hobbies at a time, or perhaps, you may be finding it hard to balance your work life with your passions.
There are often a few reasons why you might ask this type of question but today we’re going to dig deep and see if we can give a satisfactory answer regarding how many hobbies you should have.
In truth, most people have several hobbies, most of them being non-productive ones such as watching Netflix, scrolling through YouTube, and stalking people on social media.
We can say in most cases, it’s easy to discount these activities from what we class as real passions or something we dedicate our time towards to get better at.
However, don’t think we’re bashing people who choose to do these either, maybe you just haven’t found a hobby you enjoy yet, in which case you can check out our lists of different hobbies.
First of all though, let’s ask some important questions to understand the topic at hand and we’ll also try to expand on that with some further questions to hopefully glean some additional value.
So, how many hobbies should you have?
Truthfully, you can have as many hobbies as you want but it’s generally agreed upon that you should at least one hobby from each category e.g. leisure, creative, and productive (we’ll explain them in a moment).
This means it’s good to start as a basis with having at least three hobbies that you can fully flesh out and balance between your working life or time spent with family.
Once you’ve established that you can manage these three hobbies, you may want to expand your hobby repertoire if there are other desires you wish to pursue.
In general, we believe that no true hobby can be perfected completely. Meaning you should always be able to get better, collect more, and implement your own unique touch on whatever it is you’ve chosen.
Even if you do think you’ve hit all the milestones you’ve wanted to within a hobby, you can then move onto sharing this knowledge with other people who are enthusiastic to give it a try and start teaching them.
And what were the three categories again?
As we mentioned above, the three hobby archetypes are leisure, creative and productive hobbies.
Leisure
For example, leisure hobbies cover things that are generally the least productive but can often provide the most stimulation or excitement in your day to day life.
This includes things like watching a Netflix series, browsing YouTube, playing video games and eating out.
Generally, you should do these hobbies sparingly as they can easily spiral out of control into an addictive feedback loop which leads to ditching all your important responsibilities or tasks.
Creative
Creative hobbies can also be productive but generally fall under their own archetype as you’ll be engaging your brain in a different way.
Some hobbies that are generally considered creative are things like painting, woodworking, building, solving puzzles, and performing music.
It’s true that you can do woodworking for function, and building for that matter, however, when it’s done out of leisure to see what you can come up with then this is where we would draw the line between productive and creative.
Creative hobbies are a great way to flex the abstract part of the mind but also a great way to unwind at the end of a long day.
It’s very easy to find ourselves in a rut of performing productive or leisurely tasks but rarely do we find the time for ourselves to really express what’s within our soul.
Productive
Productive hobbies are generally thought of as being the best to keep yourself physically fit, or perhaps, the most financially well off i.e. running a business as a side hustle and/or training at the gym.
These types of hobbies are all about making the most of the time you have on planet earth.
Do you want to be rich, fit, and ahead of the curve? Then getting to grips with a productive hobby or task is the key to understanding this process and will allow you to do just that provided you put in the time and work.
Generally, it’s important to have a solid schedule to manage your own time and to spot any areas that you can scale back in favor of producing the best result in your productive hobby.
This doesn’t mean abandon your creative or leisure time but most productive hobbies require the largest time investments if you ever want to get to that tipping point of exponential growth.
In case this sounds like your cup of tea, then make sure to check out our article on how to focus on one hobby as it will give you some useful tips about maximizing your effectiveness.
So does this mean you can you have too many hobbies?
The answer to this question mostly depends on the type of person you are, however, it’s generally agreed upon that you’ll eventually hit a limit of effectiveness to the number of hobbies you take on potentially making them a waste of time.
We all have the same amount of hours in the day so it’s important to make sure you get good at one thing first before you try to become superman and take on multiple tasks.
As mentioned above, using a schedule can help you break apart your day better and can make you more effective at meeting each hobby goal.
If you find it hard to stay focused on multiple things or coming up with a schedule to balance your day out then you should usually stick to three hobbies within the three category types for a good balance.
Can I change my hobbies?
Remember that the recommendation of three hobbies within the three category types are basically just guidelines.
Sometimes you may have more hobbies, sometimes you may have less, and sometimes you may want to change your hobbies altogether.
Some people might be more logical rather than creative so may want to opt for multiple productive tasks rather than doing something creative like painting a picture or learning an instrument.
It’s all about finding the right balance which is not just important within hobbies but also your life in general.
As long as you’re happy and not overstretching yourself then you should feel free to change your hobbies whenever you want.
Conclusion
In conclusion, we recommend having three hobbies from the three main category archetypes e.g. leisure, creative, and productive as this will give the best balance for you to achieve a varied lifestyle.
Not everyone will fall under these guidelines, and some people may be more inclined towards logical tasks rather than creative, however, the majority will usually want to experiment with all of these areas for their hobbies.
Hopefully we’ve provided enough information to satisfy your answer and that you now have a better understanding of how many hobbies you should have.
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