[sk1pper]

Man, yeah, I feel that; I just don’t have enough time to do everything I want to do.

- me, laying on my couch and mindlessly browsing HN

There are things I want to do that I legitimately don’t have time for, even though I have time to browse HN. Or at least, I won’t make time for them, because they’re quite time consuming. I want to learn Japanese, make my own top-down RPG, get a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu. Build some cool woodworking projects. Start a blog. Photography. Get better at golf. I’m interested in everything, I could rattle off tons more things that I would love to spend time on.

But these must compete with other things I love to do, as well as things I must do.

I’ve been doing some game programming recently and have gotten really excited because I finally have grokked Godot. But, I’m not sure I have the time to actually make my own game of any quality.

Actually just giving up on that project might be freeing. Like when I gave up on Advent of Code on Day 17 due to problems taking me too long, I was more relieved than anything. I think this is what’s behind giving up on the idea of being able to do all of the stuff you want to do.

The problem is that this is fairly soul-crushing. When I have a side project going that I’m really interested in, it’s quite fun and energizing.

But I can be obsessive, so all of this extra energy goes towards the project. I think I end up netting negative, because I’m spending so much time and energy on the project. I will also start to abandon other responsibilities and fall behind in other areas of life. Exercise, chores, other but less sexy projects I care about (meditation is always the first to get discarded).

Eventually I hit a point where I realize I need to get my act together, and by then, letting go of the big project is relieving, but sad.

I guess the problem here is more with the obsessiveness than topics in the article, but they might be related. Like, I‘m constantly chasing novelty. This is probably common nowadays due to the internet. I’m a true geek who loves learning stuff, and I like doing it in a hands on fashion. Having an effectively infinite stream of novel things I can teach myself (minus BJJ and such) to do is just plain addicting.

I’m not quite sure what to do about this. This habit has made me a much better programmer. And I’m always doing something I love doing. But there’s collateral damage to other things I care about. And eventually I start feeling like I have no time to do what I need to do, and also what I want to do.

[matwood]

I don't know if you currently do BJJ or are only thinking about it, but I started when I was older, and may never get a black belt. But, I have moved up over the years and know that my belt color changing or getting a stripe on an existing belt doesn't suddenly make me a different person. After chasing goals for so long, BJJ is an amazing reminder that it really is the journey that matters. It's shaped me to be a better person regardless of an arbitrary belt color.

[stevev]

I’m also in this dilemma. I feel that as time passes, slowly more and more things fall into my plate of ‘want to dos’.

How does one manage time with so many hobbies!

My attempt is to move the goal post back down, so as to not be overwhelmed.

Like learning Japanese for an example. Rather than me saying, I want to learn Japanese, I’ll set a goal for myself to, pick up the basics if hiragana and katakana.

I think this approach will help reinforce motivation for me to be short-term goal minded.

The reading did open my eyes to the thought that not everything on our list will be completed. You might be young, but at my I age have some things to eliminate from this list; or more specifically, move them down further in terms of priority. My reasoning is a personal one, at my age, things tend not to stick as well as when I was younger.

We’ll see.

[darekkay]

> I'm not quite sure what to do about this.

I suggest you inform yourself about (adult) ADHD. Your behavior matches mine exactly. It was only after I learned about ADHD when everything finally made sense.

[sk1pper]

My fiancee has ADHD and sends me memes and videos and such about it. And I'm always like, these videos are dumb, doesn't everyone do those things? I've been wondering about this for a while, but I've tended to write it off due to me having pretty different symptoms/behaviors from her - but I guess it can manifest in different ways.

What intervention(s) have you found the most helpful? Or are there any resources you can point me to? Thanks.