How to make time to enjoy hobbies

One challenge that comes with raising a family and keeping a home is trying to find/make time for your own hobbies and interests. It can be hard to balance the necessary responsibilities and joys of parenting with getting some time to refresh by being creative. I want to share a few tips to help you be creative and enjoy your hobbies while still being productive and enjoying your family. These tips are for either making more time in your day, or incorporating your family into your hobbies/ including your hobbies in your day more effectively.

Include Your Family:

• Get your kids excited about your hobbies so that they really enjoy working alongside you or just enjoy watching you. This way you 1. have built in buddies to talk to about your hobby 2. can combine playtime with hobby time and 3. build productive skills in your children. For example, gardening as become such an exciting process for our kids that we made planting the first seeds of spring a big family event last Sunday. The kids got to help, we got some gardening done, they are learning new skills, and they are taking responsibility for our projects to so they will likely stay interested longer. Another example; though I don’t let Elsie use my sewing machine yet, she is so excited about sewing that she was worried I would use up the whole world’s supply of thread before she finally got big enough to learn on the machine!
• Incorporate your work into the children’s work/play. Or incorporate their play into your work. For example, I let the girls “pull” weedy groundcover in the garden beds then run up & down the hill to deliver the weeds to the ducks. This gave me time to garden, burned up some of their boundless energy, and they had a blast “working & helping mama.” A success all around. I also try to do chores in whichever room they are currently playing in or invite them into whichever room I am working in. For example, I wait to put their clothes away until we are all in their room playing (They learn to help too!) I’ll also scrub down the bathroom during bath time so I can be right there within arm’s reach to keep them safe. They also love when I dump all the clean clothes out on the sofa to fold rather than staying secluded in the laundry room. This multitasking isn’t anything groundbreaking, but I have found that actively thinking about ways to save time can add up.

Save Time with Work

• Use less brainpower up on the everyday responsibilities; make routines. Routines are great because they are not timed to a rigid schedule; they are tied to an activity. The goal is to connect housekeeping activities in your mind to activities you are already doing. For example, I always put away the clean dishes while I am keeping an eye on my oatmeal cooking in the morning. We always do our preschool in the morning before we leave the kitchen table. I generally make breakfasts & snacks the same each day unless it is a weekend. I wipe down the kid’s bathroom during a potty training visit. We always put our shoes & coats away in the exact same spot. Routines streamline your day, help to eliminate some decisions you have to make about when to squeeze work in, and teach your children responsibility as well.
• Limit your stuff so it doesn’t own you. I have found that keeping fewer things both motivates you to take care of them and makes it easier to clean up. I save time in my cooking by having a limited number of pots & pans. (you can only fit 4 things on the stove at any given time anyway.) This might seem counter-intuitive but quickly washing a pot out & reusing it is so much faster than dealing with a giant pile of dirty dishes after a meal. We also apply this principle to toys. I organized the kid’s toys into three large containers & pull out one at a time for them to play with for a few days until they want a new one. This limits how much of a disaster they can make and is more efficient to clean up, thus saving time so you can enjoy a few extra minutes how you choose.
• Maintain. Don’t wait for small things to grow into overwhelming projects. When you put off quick cleanups to maintain your house, you will start to get overwhelmed, decide to wait until you have enough time to tackle an organization project ‘properly’ then never get to it. This is a huge drain on your time, emotional energy, and mental energy. Make yourself & your family maintain a level of organization by putting things away as soon as you are finished with them (even if you might use them the next day like a carseat/diaper bag/pile of coats etc.) When your house is running efficiently enough that you only have to do a quick cleanup every night to wrap up the day’s projects & give yourself a fresh start for the next day, you have more time for what you enjoy.
  

  Enjoy your hobbies efficiently

• When working on projects, stop at a convenient place and always write yourself a note. I have worked on my hobbies both with and without incorporating this tip and I can tell you it makes a huge difference. Don’t expect yourself to remember what you were thinking when you set your hobby aside the last time! Stop at a convenient spot in between steps and write yourself notes/labels about what you accomplished. I dried and ground some herbs once without labeling them (thinking I would just remember what’s what) then was not able to use any of them because I was not 100% confident about what they were. Bad idea. In contrast, when cutting out my last quilt I pinned and labeled each square before I sewed anything so I could just jump in & work on a square as I had a minute of time. MUCH better!  Writing notes & stopping at a reasonable place will save you so much time trying to determine what to do and eliminate the mental block that comes of having to figure out your project all over again before you can restart.
• Prep for your hobbies in the odd minutes you would normally waste. Rather than wasting time on social media, get ready for the next stage of a project by researching the info you need as you have time. I keep a running list of things to learn in a notebook & look them up while I am cooking, nursing, even brushing my hair. For example, I learned which of my plants needed to be pruned ahead of time, then was ready to work once I had the chance. You can also learn by listening to podcasts while working on chores. Then, instead of wasting valuable hobby time looking up information , you will be all set & ready to enjoy yourself!

Everyone needs projects and activities that re-energize them. Leave a comment below and share how do you make time for your hobbies!