I am, by my own admission, awful at spending time on hobbies.

What I’m very good at is the prep that comes before doing the hobby, and I firmly believe that it’s a hobby of its own.
As the saying goes, “It’s the journey, not the destination”. What I mean is, it’s just as fun to get yourself prepared to do a hobby you’re excited about as it is to actually DO the hobby!
Read on for the specifics:

Reading

This is a classic. The concept of a TBR is commonplace amongst readers – in full, a ‘To Be Read’. The stack of books you have at home that are patiently waiting in the wings for their turn with your bookmark, begging you not to buy any more books until they’ve had their chance to be your next book of choice.

You say you won’t buy another book until you’ve taken a chunk out of your TBR. “I’ll read at least four on the shelf before I can have that gorgeous new hardback I like,” you say, and you actually believe yourself at first.

But we’re all guilty of it… the bookshop calls, and we answer.
I will absolutely die on the hill that buying books and reading books are entirely separate hobbies.

Gaming

Another big one for me personally here – the joy of searching for new games (when you still have untouched games in your library: see TBR), shopping for new tech like funky keyboards and headsets… it’s bliss.

One of my biggest weaknesses when it comes to just prepping and not actually playing the game is The Sims 4.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine how many hours I’ve spent in character creation and building houses, just to complete it all and lose any interest in actually playing with said freshly-created characters and their newly-built houses.
While you could argue that doing all that is playing the game, and I’d be inclined to agree, it gets worse.
Two words… Custom Content.
I have genuinely lost entire evenings scrolling through CC websites looking for additions to my mods folder, whether it be clothing, furniture, user interface alterations or scripting changes.
Sometimes I don’t even open the game in the end! Prep for a game is equally as enjoyable as the game itself.

Crafting

This covers knitting, papercraft, journaling, painting, and so much more. I’m incredibly guilty of this, and some of my loved ones are even more so. My mum had an entire room built in her garden dedicated to crafting, and she’d agree that she probably spends a lot more time shopping for the craft than actually doing it!
Personally I’ve bought so much stationery, materials, notebooks and stickers for journaling in recent years that I could open a shop with the amount of stuff I have.
Have I actually spent any time journaling? …No, no I haven’t.

Another huge weakness of mine is spending ages on Pinterest adding photos to my journaling board, which is full of other people’s journals that are lovely and full, while mine are yet to be started. That doesn’t mean I’m having any less fun, which is why I stand by the fact that journal-prepping is just as enjoyable as the journaling itself.

Going to the Gym

Where to even start on this one… This may well be more of a motivation problem, at least for me, but I’m safe in the knowledge that I’m not alone in this.
Shopping for new gym clothes, water bottles and running trainers is an entirely different concept to actually getting a workout done. (Maybe it’s because you can do all of that stuff while sitting down…?)
Research by the gym network Hussle found that 27% of people in the UK have over £180 worth of unused gym equipment in their homes (Neil Harmsworth, 2023), which goes to show that it’s quite common to be inspired to start working out, buy all the gear, and then lose all hope of stepping on that treadmill – which will eventually be used as a hanging rail in the garage.

Even if you do hype yourself up enough to put the new vest and shorts on, pack your new gym bag and get yourself there, you still have to co-ordinate a playlist for your workout, and that’s a whole new process. Do you want a dance playlist to get you energised, throwback songs that make you remember the days when you were in better shape, or power ballads so you can pretend you’re the main character in their before-and-after movie montage?
(… I’m hoping that last option isn’t just me.)

Overall, I’m pretty comfortable in saying that planning for the gym is much more fun than going to the gym.

Food & Drink

Whether it’s cooking, baking, cocktail making, and especially hosting with food and drinks involved, a lot of effort goes into prepping beforehand. Researching recipes, buying the ingredients, curating menus… don’t even get me started on shopping for kitchenware and fun serving dishes (TK Maxx trip, anyone?)
Yes, the crucial bit is definitely the physical part of baking/mixology/hosting, but there’s so much fun to be had an planning and cultivating ideas in beautifully organised notebooks and Pinterest boards – you could plan a party and then not actually go through with it and you’d still have a great time!

I think I’ve argued my point enough by now, but I could go on and on about this theory. If you have other examples of hobbies you do that are more fun to prepare for, leave a comment below – I’d love to know!

From the best at being bad at hobbies,

Wildflower x

[Source: https://www.hussle.com/blog/how-much-home-gym-equipment-is-unused-in-the-uk/]