Different incomes require different amounts of activity to make them work. Information products create time and effort to build and then ongoing marketing efforts, which can be quite active. Stock dividends require some research and then some loose monitoring, so can be quite passive. Owning real estate with a manager is fairly passive, but owning real estate through a syndication is totally passive. You just have to think through what you are working on to understand if it will be passive or not. Most people work on side hustles that will never be passive (like writing on Medium). One goal could be actively doing what you love for money, another could be actively doing what you love with no need to worry about money because you have enough passive income.