Three tips for people who do too much

When I moved to London, I was bowled over by the bustle of activity on offer. “I know,” my friend said. “The important thing is not to try to do it all at once.”

Something in my brain went: challenge accepted! Six months later, I was doing trapeze on Mondays, juggling on Tuesdays, more trapeze on Wednesdays, flute lessons on Thursdays, going out on Fridays, and attempting to be in a band on Sundays. Saturday was laundry day. I also had a boyfriend an hour across town. Did I mention that I had a full-time journalism job? I have always been the kind of person to do too much.

Needless to say, I was no zen mistress at this point. In fact, I was desperately unhappy much of the time.

I know I’m not the only one. It probably has something to do with the number of outrageous over-achievers in my friendship group, but the world is full of people who are fascinated by absolutely everything. Whose list of hobbies is longer than the KGB’s list of enemies of mother Russia. Whose diaries are more packed than the Central line at 8:40am. You get the picture.

While this is no fun, there’s a sense of real hurt at the idea of giving any one of these things up. The joy of doing these things may have long since faded into a bloody-minded battle against your own need for sleep and clean bedsheets, but quitting any one of them doesn’t bear thinking about.

Interests are infinite, but time is finite. What do you do?

I’ve developed three strategies to deal with my hobby addiction.

1. Put your priorities in order. A year ago, I decided I was going to move to Bolivia to become a freelance development journalist. Aware that this was not something to approach unprepared, I started to make lists of my priorities. Top of the list was writing. A close second was finding some volunteering, in order to have some experience under my belt when I arrived.

This list was based on what I considered necessary, important, of long-term value. Music and circus were, it pained me to realise, below the first two. At the bottom was knitting. Once I’d agreed this order, I thought about everything in terms of this list. Is this a writing opportunity? Seize it! Is this a pretty pair of winter socks? It can probably wait. But the idea of putting something off forever didn’t bear thinking about. Which brings me onto…

2. Do things a project at a time. Don’t do a tiny bit of all of them simultaneously. Days after I decided to pack up and go the way of Butch Cassidy, a friend asked me if I would like to do an hour-long solo flute recital. I said yes, because things are more interesting when you do. I knew it would take over my evenings solidly for the next three months and then be over, but I was OK with that. It would be a last hurrah for classical music before disappearing to a town where, my research indicated, I would be lucky to have water and internet, let alone a Bohemian classical music scene.

I left my flute at home. This felt like breaking up with someone to save their feelings. I could hear the voices of my muso friends in my ears, telling me how sick and wrong this was. But flying across continents and living in a hostel indefinitely didn’t seem like a good situation for my dear flute. I miss my musical instruments every day here, but I know with absolute certainty that as soon as I can, I will get back to them. Meanwhile, the circus skills are back with a vengeance – but more on that later.

3. Ask your friends in the field. When you’re starting out as a freelance journalist, it’s hard to know in advance which ideas you’ll turn into big features and which, like pink furry yogurt and Christmas jumpers, should really have been left in the dark corners where you found them and only brought to light in situations of utmost desperation. The same is true for other activities: a fellow musician might be able to tell you which gigs will be more effort than they’re worth, a book buddy which thousand-page sci-fi epics are best used for bonfire kindling. That’s why it’s invaluable to have a network of friends and mentors to run your ideas past.

After four years of trying to do everything, I’m in Bolivia. All those pie-eyed evenings of rope climbs and sonatas paid off: I’m now volunteering full-time in a charity which teaches circus arts and, soon, music to children in low-income areas, and as of Friday, I’m being paid for my writing.

The next project, hopefully, will be two weeks in the remote community of Independencia, where a group of Quechua ladies and teens have a stunning traditional weaving and textile centre. Looks like I’ll be getting those knitting needles out after all.

Errands, Bolivian style

Today, we needed to do four things:

1. Eat a sandwich
2. Print out a waistcoat pattern
3. Go to Interpol
4. Buy some fabric

It was not a wildly successful trip.

The sandwich

One interesting fact about Bolivia is that there are very few international fast food chains. In Cochabamba, there are no McDonald’s outlets, no Starbucks, and no Subway, although it does have a Burger King.

Instead, there is a little sandwich shop whose clientele, captive in the lack of Subways, pays prices that wouldn’t be out of place in London for baguettes with a nasty tendency to dribble water and diluted mayo. Their main selling point is that the vegetables are “clean”.

It is precisely this shop that my partner has developed cravings for. So, I sat and watched him much on a foot-long pork sandwich for 38 Bs; approximately £3.80. A handsomely-sized “personal” pizza, presumably for a rather large person, at a well-to-do restaurant down the road costs 35 Bs.

The waistcoat pattern

At the first shop I visited, I explained that I needed this pattern in either A0 or lots of bits of A4. The woman’s face went blank at this. She asked a colleague, who had no idea. Helpfully, I took a piece of A4 paper from my rucksack to demonstrate. “Oh, that’s a special size,” she said. “We could do it for you, but it would be 600 Bs.”

At shop number two, the woman explained to me the impossibility of printing just one document. I made a mental note to return if I needed 300 waistcoats patterns.

At shop the third, the man’s face darkened. “Those sizes aren’t standard around here,” he said, adding ominously that it was perhaps common in the US. I sensed that I had crossed some kind of line with my arrogant paper dimension requests. He launched with grim satisfaction into a monologue about how if I wanted to print this funny size, I could go and buy my own paper and find a printer that would take it, but his machines wouldn’t.

My wicked paper imperialism and I gave up at this point.

Interpol

To verify that we aren’t some kind of DAESH sleeper cell or El Chapo, Bolivia would like Interpol certificates from us before we can have a visa. Interpol, we were assured, is on the north side of Plaza Principal – you know, the one that is completely closed and in utter disarray while they refurbish everything from the paving to the pigeons.

We tried to walk along the north side, but a gun-toting policeman told us, while we ducked a falling cable from the works above, that we needed to go round the other side, and also that Interpol was on the other side of town.

On the other side of the work, a dutiful workman informed us that there was no entry. I asked him how, in this case, we were meant to get to Interpol. He seemed to consider, decide that he didn’t know, and then casually ignore the question, but while these expressions were playing out on his face, a stream of people walked past him, so we joined them.

We reached the end of the path, asked another policeman where Interpol was, and he, too, told us it was on the other side of town. At this point, out of time, we decided to postpone it for tomorrow.

The fabric

On closer inspection, the shop on Avenida Ayacucho turned out to be catering for a specific audience, so we decided to look in the market tomorrow. But if you see photos of Andy in a waistcoat made of lacy, floral bridal wear, you’ll know we went back.