We live in a time where everyone has a side-hustle that’s also their hobby. So we don’t actually have hobbies that aren’t making us any money. With social media making it easy to make a profit, I can’t really blame the logic. Intrinsic rewards still matter y’all. Hobbies just for the sake of hobbying is important for your work-life balance. Here are a couple of tips to balance a hobby while working on your business-baby.
Choose something outside of your business pursuits
Some folks will say that if you love what you do you won’t work a day in your life. However, building a business from scratch takes work! And you may not enjoy all of the tasks necessary to make it run smoothly. You may need to hire someone to take on tasks that drain you, that aren’t your strength, or those that aren’t in your field of knowledge. That’s work. You still need to have an outlet for stress that builds up over time or else you’ll burn out quicker than you think. Every job has tedious tasks that you don’t necessarily want to do. Choose a hobby that isn’t part of your daily life so that you can recharge properly. For example, if your primary business is running a blog, then blogging is no longer a hobby. To treat your business like a business, you need to have the proper boundaries in place.
Look into hobbies that don’t take much time upfront
For example, I fell into the deep, black hole that is YouTube and stumbled into the crocheting world. One video showed how to hand crochet wool pillows in 15 minutes. Something like that is enough time to do 1-3 times a day or a few times a week without taking too much time from your primary source of income. Quarantine has some folks considering hobbies that weren’t really an option before. Gardening doesn’t require much time upfront since most of the time you’re just waiting for them to grow. It requires a little maintenance here and there but nothing you should need to do every day (unless your plants require that kind of work). Little time every week but large gains once harvest time comes.
Try a hobby that’ll improve your entrepreneurial productive
A hobby will give you an ROI that has nothing to do with making money. A hobby can improve your life through analogy and translation into your business life. Example. If you want running to be your hobby, you’ll learn tenacity and how to push through mental blocks. Solopreneurship calls for plain grit and discipline when you’re building from scratch. Learning an instrument or taking music and singing lessons will help you have a creative outlet and build self-confidence. When singing or playing an instrument in public, there is no backtracking or editing or ruminating. You have to be in the moment and with full confidence to properly express yourself. With singing, your voice control literally depends on your mind-body connection. Confidence in your abilities gives you more stage presence. If you want to learn a Martial Art, you’ll learn philosophies that you can apply to your daily life. You’ll learn how to understand your competition and patience with yourself and others while moving up the ranks. With any option you choose, you’ll likely build valuable social connections that have nothing to do with entrepreneurship. Anything outside of your structured business time will sharpen some area of your mindset.
Make the hobby a non-negotiable.
Do you know how you save money? Pay yourself first. Treat your schedule and work-life balance the same way. Create your list of non-negotiables. Do you want to get a certain amount of sleep every night? Do you want to have a morning and an evening routine in place? Decide what they’ll look like and how long they’ll take. Do you want to spend time with family or friends? Block time off in your schedule for those things before scheduling for your business activities. Put yourself first. Build your schedule around your non-negotiables to create boundaries between you and your entrepreneurial pursuits. This way, you won’t burn out as quickly and you’ll be able to recharge and be more present for your business.
That’s it. That’s how you fit a hobby into your busy schedule while working on your business.
What hobby are you eyeing for your schedule or already have added?