I am a web developer, and usually, have for 3 - 4 hours free when back from the office. I always want to learn or make something. Can you show me something?
I’ve been learning about Bonsai from Nigel Saunders on YouTube for a few years now. This spring I finally started trying to do some propagation.
Love it, great fun. The first year is tough though, there’s a lot of days where you’re just watering, no “fun stuff” to do, and everything looks basically the same as last week.
I expect after 12 months or so I’ll have enough plants in vigor to keep busy every week. Until then it’s a bit sporadic.
One of the best pieces of life advice I've seen was from Nigel. In the context of bonsai he said to grow a lot of trees. You prune the bonsai maybe once or twice a year and re-pot every 3 years or so. So maybe an hour of work a year for one tree: that's not a hobby :-)
I've realised this is true for a lot of things. I used to worry that my home made cheese wouldn't turn out. But if it doesn't turn out well, I will need to make it again.... and cheese making is my hobby! What wondrous luck ;-)
WRT the original question, it doesn't matter what you do. If you want it to be your hobby, then do a lot of it and have fun :-)
For sure. I have 150+ plants after six months. I expect to lose half of them by next summer. If I am lucky I will have pruning/repotting work every weekend by then!
Cuttings are great in that respect because you only have to pay for soil! And I stay busy building cheap training boxes from scrap wood.
I keep a stack of things to read on a table, usually a mix of popular press, new scientific papers, a text book or two, and the occasional novel. Ideally I spend 2 - 8 hours a week reading things from the stack. I say that is 'ideally' because if I read less than that the stack accumulates :-).
If you enjoy learning and creating, get into art. Pick an instrument and join a group of like minded people, or take on visual arts classes like painting, sculpting or photography. The road to mastery is endless so you will have learning opportunities to last you a lifetime. Bonus: you can also meet new people through art!
Also, reading is pretty great to calm your mind after a stressful day at the office.
I've picked up learning Portuguese and it's really fun. Choose a language you're interested in and start on Duolingo (sometimes doing the reverse tree can be an interesting challenge as well when you're done with the standard one). Create a Google doc with words and phrases and then automatically make flashcards with them on Quizlet, and then you can learn while on public transport or otherwise need to kill time. When you feel ready, hire some native speakers on Italki to converse with you and help with your conversational skills (or use HelloTalk for free as a language exchange). Download podcasts in that language, consume videos on YouTube, and watch the occasional Netflix show if it's available in the language you chose. Visit the country as often as you can/want!
In an ideal world, I'd work on one of the (excessively many) books or ebooks that I've queued up. In reality, I pick up my phone and refresh HN, play some Tetris, or maybe a training exercise on lichess.
I wish I had an answer for you. The closest I have is this: reading on a stationary recumbent bike at a gym seems to work decently for me, as long as the material isn't anything that requires serious focus, or taking notes.
Last week I bought a KaiOS device (Nokia 2720 Flip [0]). I'm currently trying to build a simple app for that platform that will hopefully be added to the App Store. The App Store provided on Nokia phones is quite limited, so plenty of opportunities there.
I also advice a friend of mine on building a mobile app with Xamarin for iOS and Android (he's only worked on Python web apps in the past, so for him it's a big change).
Finally I like to play World of Warcraft Classic. I did write an add-on for WoW to teach myself the Lua basics, but will not be continuing work on that. It was a fun learning experience though.
Im relearning math. Everything. I went into it earlier in life with a “when am I gonna need this?” attitude. Turns out all the time. Even what Ive refreshed myself on in the last few months has made my job easier and more intuitive. The subject isnt important though. Just learn anything!
Learn to make money.
There will be a time when you are sick of your co-workers and your boss. Or you just want to spend time with your wife and kids.
And you will need money to say "fuck it! I'll take a vacation for the next two years."
Maybe you should switch to a job where your coworkers are your best friends. Then if you're lucky you'll love both your work life and your non-work life.
My jobs in the 90s all involved best friends. Either they became best friends at work or they were best friends before we started. Going to work was mostly a pleasure. It was like hanging out with best friends and building things with them. Sure not everything was flowers and unicorns but even that, doing it together was great.
In the 2000s I haven't had best friends at work and while I've worked on some cool projects it's been a slog.
I'm learning about systems. I take kind of a humanities approach to it but that makes it fun (at least for me). I write about it here: https://unintendedconsequenc.es/blog/
To keep sane, I need to keep out from a screen, either playing guitar, going sailing (or work on it which is a massive time sink), freediving or anything fun like kayaking, surfing, ...
I have a few things that I have been doing lately in my free time.
I am currently working in the cyber security domain but my dream is to be a scientist (Marine Biologist). I have started my degree in Molecular biology as a start. This takes up most of my free time
In addition, I am obsessed with building side projects so I have multiple projects I maintain/work on.
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[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 151 ms ] threadhttps://news.ycombinator.com/show
(which can be accessed via the "show" link at the top of the page)
Love it, great fun. The first year is tough though, there’s a lot of days where you’re just watering, no “fun stuff” to do, and everything looks basically the same as last week.
I expect after 12 months or so I’ll have enough plants in vigor to keep busy every week. Until then it’s a bit sporadic.
I've realised this is true for a lot of things. I used to worry that my home made cheese wouldn't turn out. But if it doesn't turn out well, I will need to make it again.... and cheese making is my hobby! What wondrous luck ;-)
WRT the original question, it doesn't matter what you do. If you want it to be your hobby, then do a lot of it and have fun :-)
Cuttings are great in that respect because you only have to pay for soil! And I stay busy building cheap training boxes from scrap wood.
Also, reading is pretty great to calm your mind after a stressful day at the office.
I also advice a friend of mine on building a mobile app with Xamarin for iOS and Android (he's only worked on Python web apps in the past, so for him it's a big change).
Finally I like to play World of Warcraft Classic. I did write an add-on for WoW to teach myself the Lua basics, but will not be continuing work on that. It was a fun learning experience though.
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[0]: https://www.nokia.com/phones/en_int/nokia-2720-flip
My jobs in the 90s all involved best friends. Either they became best friends at work or they were best friends before we started. Going to work was mostly a pleasure. It was like hanging out with best friends and building things with them. Sure not everything was flowers and unicorns but even that, doing it together was great.
In the 2000s I haven't had best friends at work and while I've worked on some cool projects it's been a slog.
Are you just taking on part-time contracts, writing ebooks/courses, stock-trading, or something else?
I've been at it a year and a half so far. Designing something like this is actually very challenging!
And the kicker is that this technology is only a stepping stone towards what I actually want to build :P
In addition, I am obsessed with building side projects so I have multiple projects I maintain/work on.
I luckily dodged a burnout just in time. Symptoms were insomnia, thinking I wasn’t good enough and bursts of anger.
My problem was thinking about work and getting better at my craft all the time. I didn’t take time for myself, didn’t exercise and had a bad diet.
But it’s hard to convince someone to take care of themselves. Sometimes you have to hit the ground.
1. web app in elixir/phoenix
2. trade system for stock & time series analysis
3. finance (stocks, bonds, options)
I like having multiple projects because my passion end up drying up for one and I just jump on to another existing project.