Idealism is a different thing, and curiosity in service to changing the world is probably doomed. It took a while until I was comfortable that the world was going to be what the world was going to be, and that change was very much slower to happen than I could envision it happening.
For curiosity I read a lot to expose myself to new ideas, and follow up on things through journal articles, the occasional lab visit, and personal experimentation. It also helps to surround yourself with people who are curious, I identified that as one of the things that made college more "fun" than the office, everyone of my social group was excited to learn new things in college.
And a small note on "hectic". I find when I'm trying to do too many things at the same time my life is "hectic" because every activity is taking away from some other important activity and I don't feel good about the one thing I am getting done, I feel bad about the 9 things I am not making progress on. My wife helped me recognize this pattern in me and to combat it I put longer schedules on things to allow each week to have its "thematic" goal, and all progress against that goal is "good" and any non-progress against other goals is "expected" so not bad. I find I get the same amount of stuff done I just feel much better about the progress. And while I totally acknowledge it could be a "pop psych trick", it keeps my level of happiness up.