Hey Reader

As someone who genuinely loves planning, productivity and personal development, I may have a tendency to accidentally apply that mindset to everything...

Including rest 🤦‍♀️

Instead of just enjoying my downtime, all too often I find myself wondering:

• How can I make my rest time the as restful as possible?
• How can I make my leisure time more productive?
• Am I using this free time in the best way? 🫨

Not me out here trying to optimise my relaxation 😝 Please do let me know if you can relate though!

Thankfully(?) all the algorithms seem to know what's up, so I've started seeing a bunch of hobby-related content.

Seeing people excited to do things just because they enjoy them has certainly helped me ease up on the need to have the most-restfully-productive-downtime-ever.

Plus, it's also relevant for my Quarter 3 goal of being more intentional with my leisure time.

Basically, I want to make sure I'm doing things that are genuinely enjoyable and restorative, rather than accidentally spending three hours scrolling on my phone because I haven't decided what else to do.

I started letting go of the idea of making my rest time more productive...

But then I saw several posts about the 3-5 different types of hobbies we should have 😛

The posts suggested that hobbies fall into different categories based on their type or purpose.

I love purpose-first thinking, so let's have a look at the hobbies we (in theory) should have 👀

Pssst...

Before we jump into the hobbies, I wanted to invite you to the free virtual conference I'm part of 😄 This one is called Get Organized HQ Virtual 2026, and the official kick-off is next week.

My session is about planning a reset week to get you cool, calm, and collected for the period ahead, but there are over 100 other speakers who are giving awesome tips and advice about everything organisation-related, including:

• Home organisation
• Decluttering
• Meal planning
• Money management
• Digital organisation

And more! 🥳

The event runs from September 14 - 19, and you can check out the full speaker lineup (and grab your free ticket) by hitting the button below 👇

The sessions are available for 24 hours after airing, but if you can't make the event, or want lifetime replays, worksheets, and session notes, there’s an optional All Access Pass available at a discounted rate too (time-limited though!)

I've got my All Access Pass and started watching the sessions; so many practical tips! I hope you get value out of it too 😄

The idea - Have hobbies that fulfil your needs

Literally by definition, a hobby is something that we do for fun. From that, whether we've picked the "right" hobby is pretty easy to identify.

Having fun?

• Yes ✅ Right hobby.
• No ❌ Wrong hobby.

But if we go beyond the basic definition, hobbies can and do serve us in different ways.

A few posts I saw encouraged thinking about having at least one hobby in each of 5 types, those being:

• Active hobbies: things that get you moving or support your health
• Cosy or peaceful hobbies: things that help you relax and recharge
• Social hobbies: things that bring connection with other people
• Learning or personal growth hobbies: things that help you learn or develop
• Creative hobbies: things where you're making, crafting or creating something

I thought this one was helpful, less because of any requirement to have something in each category, but just because actually encouraged me to consider the hobby types available to us.

All too often I'll get enticed by a new possible hobby that is really similar or related to something I already do.

While this does mean I'll likely have a lot of the materials needed for the new hobby, I may also end up unknowingly avoiding other hobby types that could fulfil me differently.

A lot of my hobbies or dabblings end up in the space of creation, and I know I'm more inclined to avoid the "active hobbies" category 😂

While I do like this type-based breakdown, it was the other one that really appealed to me.

Creation, consumption, connection

Instead of looking at the type of activity, another post suggested thinking about hobbies in terms of the purpose behind them.

The ones they presented were:

• Creation hobbies: making things, physically or intellectually
  Painting, baking, gardening, writing, knitting, photography...
• Consumption hobbies: enjoying things made by other people.
  Reading, watching films, listening to music, playing games, going to museums...
• Connection hobbies: communing either with other people or nature
  Clubs, sports teams, volunteering, hiking, camping...

We definitely have to shoutout that this one has alliteration so I'm already biased to like it more 😝

But what they also encouraged was, instead of thinking about the categories as very separate and distinct, think about which hobbies can fulfil you in more than one way.

In theory, this means you could have one "ultimate hobby" that does everything, but I'm also the type to enjoy variety.

What I really appreciated about this system though was that it didn't encourage having a specific number of hobbies to span all the types.

Rather, it helps us consider whether the hobbies we have are giving us what we need.

An important note

There's definitely someone reading this who is thinking "Jess... it's not that deep" (it may well be you 😛 hi, haha)

But! As someone who often ends up questioning whether they're spending their downtime in the best way possible, having a framework like this to tie my specific hobbies to helps make them feel that much more important to me.

If I can say, "this hobby fills my need for creation and connection", I'm much less likely to write it off in favour of something that's more traditionally productive.

Let's take action

Write out a list of the hobbies you engage with, whether that be often or just once in a while.

Using your list, do a "hobby audit" to see if your set fulfils you in the ways that hobbies can. Tie each hobby to any relevant category in either of the breakdowns we looked at:

• Active vs cosy vs social vs learning vs creative, or
• Creation vs consumption vs connection

Of course, those two category sets are just suggestions, so feel free to use a different list of possible hobby purposes 😄

If you notice a category that isn't being served though, it might be time to try something new...

Until next time!

- Jess