Ask HN: How do you manage all your interests, hopes, dreams?

Why do you feel a sickening dread that you won’t have time to explore them all?

You won’t. That’s a fact.

We are all limited beings. You can do anything, but you can’t do everything.

Bill gates didn’t choose polio eradication because it was the most intellectually interesting, or the most profitable, or the most trendy - he chose it because he assessed all the options and found a goal that was challenging but achievable.

You need to do the same. It’s ok to be interested and open minded about other areas, and it’s ok to spend time on them, but don’t let analysis paralyse you, pick a few challenging stretch goals and go for it

One thing I regret is not taking a year off before kids to explore such things or one thing in depth. Without kids its quite affordable you can move anywhere in the world and live frugally. Have all day and all mental energy to explore with time to balance this with fitness/socializing/ meditation etc.

Hardest thing is the social taboo. You'd be spending a year working away for no income and no recognition. Or at least nothing guaranteed. That would be seen as madness (or baaaaa-d) by the masses.

I did it with kids. It's not so bad. I only regret not doing it properly when I was in school.

I considered taking six months off and renting a cheap apartment somewhere in Spain. It's still a possibility, but the social taboo is definitely a strong force. Met with questions like, 'but what about your career?', 'what will you do for income?', 'health insurance?', etc., all seem to have the effect of putting me back in my dutiful, rule-abiding place. Sigh.

What I have found helpful when feeling paralyzed by options is to create more easily digestible goals. Sure you may be not be able to do everything, but what can you do now? Even if you don't have much free time, if you're able to hit your bite-sized goals, the feeling of progress is what can help you feel motivated.

Let's say you're a developer interested in design, and you have a goal of creating the best-in-class application for whatever, but you're not too knowledgable about the design process. Instead of diving into the deep end of UX patterns, usability studies, tests, validation, platform-specific do's and don'ts etc. — start by picking apart your favorite app, and really dig into what makes the UX great, or what doesn't, think really deeply about the problems they're trying to solve and why. Take lots of notes.

Don't have time for that? Let's break the goal down further, and start by thinking about what your top 5 best-in-class apps are and why you think they're great. This can be as high-level or as deep as you want, so long as you're hitting an achievable self-made goal on a regular basis to keep you going.

There's a few broad interests/hopes/dreams that I tend to juggle, as is the case for most people.

I also have this note in my phone called "pipe dreams", in which, whenever I fantasize or think about something that's plausible while simultaneously kinda crazy/life-changing, I write it down. I occasionally visit it when I'm feeling uninspired or bored, and this usually results in me working on something that incrementally reaches towards one of those "pipe dreams".

Reminds me of this practice of Derek Sivers - creating a "Possible Futures" folder on his desktop [0]. I have started to do the same, I think just the practice of writing them down helps with the anxieties of never being able to tend to them all.

https://sivers.org/futures

I went through something similar. I started keeping a journal. Also start a personal wiki, I use vimwiki and it's the best habit I ever developed -- it really helps to organize your thinking, you will also understand yourself better. Don't take a sabbatical unless you have an interest that consumes you, given the state your in you won't get anything done -- at best it will let you wander into something you decide on and at worst it will be a temporary escape.

I've journaled off and on but haven't been able to keep up the habit. I am going to give the personal wiki a shot, I think it's a great idea. I feel overwhelmed with input, like I have no way to control or systematize it, this may be a solution. Thank you!

You use a wiki in a different way than a journal -- journal entries you write once and maybe read again. You can iteratively prune and refine a wiki over time.