By the time I’ve finished work, travelled home via the overwhelming bus, found something to eat and stared quietly into the distance for a respectable amount of time, the evening suddenly feels very small. A tiny window for whimsy during a mundane, 9-5 life. Somehow, the creative version of me is then expected to clock in for a second shift, unfortunately, she is not always available.
Creative hobbies are often the first things to disappear when life becomes busy. Not because we no longer care about them, but because they feel less urgent than work, washing, appointments and all the other things adulthood keeps adding to the list. The answer is not necessarily finding several empty hours every week, most of us have already checked and there aren’t any. Instead, it’s about making creativity easier to begin, and allowing smaller amounts of it to count.
Stop waiting for a completely free evening
I used to think I needed a whole free evening to work on something creative. Then, when I finally had one, I was often too tired to begin, and just watch a movie on Netflix. I had built the hobby into such a big event that starting it felt like another task, like everything needed to be perfect. I needed to tell myself that I don’t need to complete an entire project in one sitting.
Ten minutes of cross stitch counts (after threading a needle of course), drawing one tiny doodle counts, even choosing colours for a future project counts, taking a photograph because the light looked lovely counts. A hobby doesn’t become more meaningful based on how long you spend doing it.
Instead of asking, “When do I have several hours free?”, ask: “What is the smallest version of this hobby I could do today?” That question is much easier to answer.
Match the hobby to your energy
Having time and having energy are not the same thing. You might technically have two free hours after work, but if your brain has spent the day making decisions, speaking to people and pretending to understand emails that are passive aggressive, or tolerating meetings that should definitely have been emails, you may not have much creativity left. Try having different versions of your hobby for different energy levels.
On a low-energy evening, you could:
Complete a few stitches
Colour a small section of a page
Sort through photographs
Choose materials for your next project
Add a few lines to something you are writing
When you have more energy, you might begin a new design, learn a technique or work on something that requires more concentration. You don’t have to approach your hobby in exactly the same way every time.
Make starting as easy as possible
Sometimes the hobby itself is enjoyable, it’s the preparation that defeats us. If starting requires emptying a cupboard, finding three missing items and clearing an entire table, the sofa suddenly becomes extremely persuasive.
Keep your current project somewhere accessible if you can. I’ve found that putting everything you need into one bag, box or basket can help, and my latest project all fits into a zipped bag that I can see the moment I get home. You could even prepare your materials one evening and return to the actual project another day.
It sounds small, but removing five minutes of faffing can make the difference between beginning and deciding you will “definitely do it tomorrow”, we both know how that can go.
Give creativity an appointment, not a deadline
You don’t need to create a strict timetable that makes your hobby feel suspiciously like work. Try reserving one small period each week instead. That might be:
Twenty minutes after dinner on Tuesday
Half an hour on Sunday morning
One quiet lunch break
Part of an evening when you would usually scroll on your phone
Treat it as an invitation rather than another obligation. If the time arrives and you are exhausted, you can move it or skip it. You don’t need to “catch up” on your hobby, nobody is keeping attendance. The purpose is simply to stop creativity being pushed into a mythical future when life is calmer.
Don’t turn every spare minute into productivity
There are small parts of the day you can use creatively. You might read on the bus (doesn’t count if you get motion sick, learnt that the hard way), photograph something on a walk or write an idea in your phone while waiting for an appointment. But that doesn’t mean, you don’t need to optimise every second of your life, sometimes your commute needs to be spent looking out of the window listening to music, and creating scenarios in your head… just me? Then other times your evening needs to involve doing absolutely nothing useful.
Rest is not time stolen from your hobbies, it’s often what gives you enough energy to enjoy them again. Which is something I also have to remind myself from time to time.
Choose one current project
This advice is aimed directly at fellow hobby collectors. You can own several hobbies without trying to actively pursue all of them at once. Unbelievable knowledge I know, but it can be done, I’ve heard anyway. Try choosing one current project and keep that one easy to reach, everything else can wait without being abandoned forever.
I like the idea of hobbies moving in seasons, you might spend several weeks cross-stitching, then suddenly want to make jewellery, take photographs or return to a half-finished piece of writing. Well, that was my experience, on repeat. That isn’t failure, and your interests are allowed to rotate.
If you are still working out what you enjoy, start with my guide to finding a hobby you actually enjoy as an adult.
Try this realistic weekly plan
If you want somewhere simple to begin, try:
One active project
One planned 20-minute session
One optional longer session at the weekend
That is all. If you do more, lovely, if you only complete the twenty minutes, you still made time for something that belongs to you, a creative hobby should add something to your life, not become another standard you feel you are failing to meet.
Small pockets of creativity still matter
Making time for hobbies while working full-time does not always mean discovering a hidden free afternoon, if you do, let me know how. Sometimes it means doing twelve stitches before bed, or drawing something wonky while your dinner cooks or spending Sunday morning making a project that nobody else will ever see. Those small moments count.
You spend so much of your week doing things that NEED to be done, so, you are allowed to protect a little time for something you simply want to do, even if it is only twenty minutes and you leave it unfinished.
What creative hobby are you trying to make more room for?
