Can someone have too many hobbies or side projects?

That is the question I have been pondering over the whole month of February.  Also, yes I know it is ironic since this is the same month I took a Blogging 101 course as well as having this crazy idea of creating a site called the Bloggers Meetup.

I look back at the month and I have still continued to do things that I have wanted to do, like running, reading (or listening to book tapes), keeping up-to-date with some podcasts, and trying to spend more time with my family on the weekends instead of being buried in work or side projects.

Juggling puzzle pieces small

However, I do sometimes wonder if I have taken on too much.  It is unfortunately in my nature to keep volunteering at events, helping non-profits, starting side projects, or just trying new hobbies.  I am thankful that most of the things I do have different cycles of when they are busy and when they aren’t so it normally doesn’t create too big of a conflict.  However, then there are the times when my hobbies start to become more of a burden and it overlaps with other projects/hobbies or just my family time and that is when it really makes me think.

I really starting thinking about this a couple of weeks back and even though I love all of the projects I have been doing/created, I believe I would like to take the next step and get more focused on a couple of them.  It is not that I couldn’t continue what I am doing today but at some point when the next side project comes along that seems interesting I won’t have any resources to devote to it.  Or I will not be as devoted to another project and at that time, it might be one I would like to be devoted to.

So this year in my year of changes, I am going to try to make sure I keep tweaking my focus on things.  That is not to say I will drop everything tomorrow or even next month or within the next year.  I am going to start by looking at what projects/hobbies I carried forward from 2015 and make a list of why I am doing each and what I hope to continue to gain by doing them.  Some are very obvious to me right now but others are not.  As I am not sure what my longer term vision of doing it is.

How about you?  Do you have any hobbies or side projects that you have been doing for a while that you need to take a closer look at the why?  I would love to hear your thoughts.