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Ask HN: Why does a busy man build a shed?

163 points by p0d ↗ HN
This is the time of year for pondering and learning. I am pondering why during 10 years of helping grow/maintain a busy Saas infrastructure I spent a great deal of my free time building two sheds in my garden. They have been a place to deal with stress, an office, and now a place to hangout. So why does someone create work for themself when they are already busy and is this wise?

137 comments

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sigmaprimus
I am unsure of the original source but is has been said that "If You want something done ask a busy person." Some say it was Benjamin Franklin.

I think there is truth in this statement and believe that asking my next door neighbor that has built two sheds in their back yard to help me with a job would work out far better than asking my next door neighbor on the other side that is always lounging on their deck with a drink in their hand.

p0d
Very true. I have heard and seen this truth at work down through the years
DoreenMichele
Many years ago, I read a book from a library whose title is lost to the mists of time.

It posited that we each have x amount of capacity for different things and success in life hinges on figuring out how to hit x consistently across all categories.

Someone whose capacity for reading is 5000 pages per week who has a job that requires 4000 pages of reading will come up with hobbies that provide another 1000 pages of reading. If crunch time requires 5000 pages per week temporarily, the hobby will disappear. If he gets a job requiring 5500 pages of reading, the hobby will disappear and he will start to burn out.

Building the shed filled a different bucket. It required different skills and activities that met some unmet need. Kind of like still having room for dessert after you are too full for more of the main course.

p0d
I find that so helpful, thank you. I think you scratched the itch in my head. I think my real concern is, "was the shed building time well spent?" I think it served it's purpose and helped me de-stress.

I am 50 now and need a new focus. As you mention, we have x capacity. I am hoping that my "this time 5 years ago photos" in 2027 are not pictures of sheds :-)

lifeisstillgood
Also hitting that big milestone I am wondering what you have in your mind for those 2027 photos?
p0d
I think this is the true root of my pondering. I don't know quite yet what direction to point myself in.
abakker
Maybe the answer shouldn’t be “one big thing” but an exploration of a variety of endeavors?
matt_s
I dabble in woodworking, have built some picture frames, coat hook thingies, a cheese slicer but mostly have built shop furniture. I came to the realization that if I want to build a workbench, for like the 4th time, it’s because I enjoy just building stuff. Watching professionals on YouTube and just society in general fills my head with thoughts about needing to have goals and maybe build stuff to sell as a side hustle or whatever.

I enjoy building stuff and I’m just going to build stuff for myself and if the end result is I enjoyed shop time then that is a success and time well spent.

abakker
I would never degrade the effort spent on shop fixtures or tools. Often the highest Echelon of any craft is toolmakers. It is certainly true in machining.

I know very little about software engineering as a trade, but it seems that half the stuff on HN is tooling used for making software. It is obviously valuable.

saalweachter
At the same time, it's important to remember the maker's conundrum: "Wait, wasn't I making these tools for a reason?"

If what you intend to be working on is tools, more power to you, but it's very easy to get caught up in building a new workbench, or adjusting the settings on your window manager, or writing a new programming language, and forget the thing you actually intended to make at the beginning using the tool you stopped to make.

At some point you have to stop making tools and start making other things.

(Unless you're the GP, who is just consciously making tools for fun.)

sgtnoodle
I got a 3D printer years ago to use on a specific hobby project, and I ended up not touching the hobby project again until about 6 months ago. I've rebuilt my 3D printer numerous times though!
matt_s
Maybe a better way to say it is that I enjoy the process of building something with wood. If I suck at it and the end result isn't great, at least I still enjoyed the process and tinkering.

Its funny that I'm very pragmatic with software work though. I don't spend any time looking into new/upcoming languages or tinkering with compilers or whatnot unless I have a work project. It seems like a waste of time since the software world turns very quickly.

thanatos519
That is a great explanation! Did the book explain what happens when we go beyond our capacity?

OP: Admit it, you want your friends to call you 'two sheds': https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA8xTGP_M8g

p0d
I do enjoy that, yes and have never seen that video ;-)
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aswanson
I need that book. I will fulfill myself in finding it.
DoreenMichele
I probably read it at least thirty years ago and it may have been old when I read it. From what I gather, that general concept -- about doing rather than thinking or feeling -- was a more common view before modern psychology, so works from the 1800s may touch on it more than more recent works.

I think there was a term for that general framing but I have no idea what it was.

Good luck in your search. Let us know if you succeed.

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drdunce
I've heard of a couple of CEOs, and a few freelancers now doing hands on things in their downtime.

IMHO, software development is a rollercoaster of exciting highs and lows. While woodwork, creating something tangible with your hands... it's something else. It's a perfectly balanced sweet continuous feeling of pure zen that you don't want to stop.

I believe it can make you more productive when you return to your main work.

p0d
There are many parallels with dev when shed making. Creating something new, planning, tooling and problem solving. The advantage is getting to move around in the doing.
notreallyserio
You also get to own and use the result forever, even after leaving the group of people you're currently working with (ie switching jobs).
bluGill
You get results you can see and explain. It's might be very important to revamp some library in your build system, but at the end of the day it doesn't do anything you can see, nor is it easy to explain to others.
lemonberry
I needed a distraction this holiday season so I built a basic wood shop in my basement.

I'm not a woodworker, craftsman, artisan, artist, etc. but tinkering in that shop has brought me more joy and peace than I've had in years.

As happy as I've been with some of the work I've produced on a computer it just isn't the same (to me).

tehwebguy
Well for me, probably because I wanted to and it feels productive enough to break away from the other work that keeps me busy.

It’s also nice to have a low stakes hobby, I haven’t made a shed before but spent the last year getting into fixing things (automotive & household items) as well as home improvement.

(Highly recommend getting the basics of car repair, just being able to diagnose a problem will save you so much frustration)

robocat
> car repair, just being able to diagnose a problem will save you so much frustration

So many times I have had faults with cars, it has turned into long debugging sessions trying to work out what the fault is. Be very careful with intermittent faults: they can drive you mad for months even if your root cause skills are good. It certainly isn’t a relaxing diversion from my normal job.

igetspam
Because it's important to do something different. Using my hands to create, instead of just my mind, helps me clear my head and revisit other problems fresh. If all I ever use my mental energy on is my day job, my performance declines because I never stop thinking about my work and it's difficult to see other paths.

Also, it's fun?

mjklin
“I’ve got to get out of bed, get a hammer and a nail

Learn how to use my hands

Not just my head, I’ll think myself into jail

Now I know a refuge never grows

From a chin in a hand in a thoughtful pose

Got to till the earth if you want a rose“

— Hammer and a Nail, Indigo Girls

pjmorris
I just want to say 'Thank You' for the reminder. Great song I haven't thought about in a long time and perfect response here.
onetimemanytime
24 hours a day. Anyone telling you that you could work 24/7 building a startup or working for someone is lying to you. We are not robots. People need a break, something different to do.
wayoutthere
Because you’re not supposed to engage in bikeshedding at work.

I’ll see myself out.

samwillis
I imagine the same reason I spent 6 weeks this summer remodelling and fitting my own kitchen. The need to stand up, and do something creative with your hands. Learn new skills, and have something to admire and be proud of at the end. Something you created truly yourself that is tangible and understood by the people around you.
hagbard_c
Some call it Yin and Yang, others call it "Mens sana in corpore sano" [1], yet others see it as part of a striving towards becoming "Homo universalis" [2] but in the end it all comes down to the realisation that those hands and feet are just as essential as your head in making your way through this mortal coil. Feeding the one while atrophying the others is a sure-fire way to create problems along the line so pick up that axe and saw and get building. I bought a 17th century farm so I'm set for life in that respect, especially given that the place is heated using wood and I cook on wood as well.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_sana_in_corpore_sano

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polymath

k4ch0w
I've been spending my time wiring my house for ethernet. Sure, I could pay someone it would save me time and money but I've learnt a lot about my house and how to fix dry wall :-p. I've had to make 5 different Home Depot runs in the last two weeks cause I always discover something new.

I think a lot of us are type A, we can't sit still but also know our brains need to recoup and do something else. I tried to write some code but honestly I'd rather finish my ethernet project. Life is a marathon not a sprint. You gotta recharge sometimes and honestly you may learn something different that shapes how you think. Steve Jobs always said Calligraphy was the reason he thought about fonts on a GUI. Why the hell was he taking that class instead of hustling? :-p

It's completely wise. We aren't designed to just do one thing over and over. Life is so much more than building a SaaS or making money. You know we could go tomorrow right? Anything could happen and the future isn't guaranteed. Obviously, stay motivated and keep driving but sometimes you gotta replenish your gas tank and take care of your physical/mental health.

p0d
Done the ethernet wiring at home thing and more recently expanded to external wifi points :-)
sgtnoodle
I did two runs of cat6 myself as part of my final boss home WiFi reliability battle. The crawl space under my 118 year old house is gnarly, like 99th percentile for tight, dirty places to work in. 6 months later, Monoprice recalled the cable I used due to a bad UL label. They had to pay a contractor to redo the runs. I emailed them details of the crawlspace, and suggested sending at least two people with full PPE. A guy came out, and decided he would need to come back with a helper and protective equipment. For some reason he came out again alone and empty handed again a few days later. He finally came out a third time with another guy, and full body coveralls and whatnot. The first guy was saying that I saved a lot of money doing it myself initially, because it was the sort of job that was so dirty that no contractor would even offer an overpriced quote for.

I suspect they probably billed Monoprice like $5k, and there wasn't even any drywall work because I had put in proper junction boxes. They probably botched it too, at least compared to my standard. At least the new cable seems to work at full speed.

randomopining
Wait so why was monoprice on the hook to pay for reinstalling it?
sgtnoodle
They sold a product with a UL stamp on it claiming the cable had a certain fire safety rating that's required by building code for multi-story runs. For whatever reason, they learned the cable didn't actually conform to that rating. They therefore had to recall the cable (and replace any installed runs) to presumably avoid getting sued for any buildings that burn down that happen to have their mislabeled cable in the walls.

In my particular usage it was all single story and so the lack of the claimed UL rating didn't seem to materially matter. I mentioned that to the various points of contact that I had, but it was 2 or three layers deep of subcontractors, and they just trudged ahead with their directive.

The funny thing is that Monoprice sent me another 500' spool of properly rated cable, and the contractors didn't bother to take the 400' or so left of unused faulty cable. So, I have a bunch of "free" high quality but unusable for construction cat6.

bell-cot
People need more variety in their daily activities than most modern jobs provide. Does your life otherwise provide "planning & decision-making exercise"? (Playing football or hockey would count, running or swimming laps would not.)
geocrasher
Some men deal with stress by playing with model trains, aircraft, cars, boats etc. Some men play with amateur radio (such as myself). Some men build sheds. Welcome to your new hobby!
fergonco
I alternate very busy and sabbatical periods. When I am busy, I discipline myself to do relatively boring things. Then I have a lot of ideas of very cool things to do. Then I stop being busy and I am not interested in those anymore.

Why do I find those interesting only when I am busy? My hypothesis is that some unconscious part of me is trying to escape the discipline.

Gustomaximus
First caveat, I'm writing at the end of a boozy night so hope this isn't all rambling.

I think there is a confusion with working and relaxation in today's world.

We look at the world as work as the necessity and relaxing as the goal.

I think the Jordon Peterson line of 'purpose' is key.

'Work' is doing for someone else for a living. Purpose is doing for self. And building Saas infrastructure sounds like helping someone's else company, but that shed is for you.

For me I moved to a small farm a few years back and working from home. I'm always busy, like non-stop something to do between work and farm. I've had one proper holiday in 5 years as the farm consumes life outside work but the farm work is my purpose. While it's not 'relaxing' it's fulfilling and the moments I pause and take in the view while sweating away it completes you.

Now this next opinion I'm less confident in, but I think this ties in to above and there are certain personality types that need to do stuff vs relax. For me I don't do nothing well. It seems the dream but whenever I've tried it doesnt suit me. I need projects to be fulfilled. Sometimes when tired and stressed I wonder why I keep adding tasks to my life, but I'm more happy that way than going the other.

Anyway I feel I'm starting to ramble a little but I think it boils down to is adding work is not a negative, and more work is a positive within reasonable bounds and something you can feel achievement. The task is balancing between work for others purpose and your own is what matters.

p0d
I resonate with what you are saying. May I add that people like us can acquire too many projects. I am in a season of cutting back and having fewer projects. Not necessarily less time spent but maybe more focus. Your life sounds very interesting by the way. Hard work but purposeful as you say.
ehnto
I am guilty of this, and I recognized it happening this Christmas break so I tuned in to one project more passionately, by trying to do it well I gave myself more to think about and so it was a bit more encompassing.

But I think another part of the solution was a certain level of mediation. Aspiring to a project is a kind of indulgence in itself, and deciding to relax my aspirations a bit gave me room enough to actually complete one of those projects.

jasode
>why does someone create work for themself

Your question only looks like a puzzle or paradox because the word "work" is overloaded with many meanings and it includes simultaneous connotations of negative "unpleasant chores" and positive "fulfilling efforts". (related concept: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation)

If those multiple meanings are not understood, one can twist themselves into rhetorical puzzles such as:

- If marriage is work, why do people get married? I thought people hated work?!?

- If raising kids is work, why do people have kids?

It's because the type of "work" above are activities where many people desire to expend the effort. There's a higher goal than any so-called "work" above.

Same idea as a home sewer that "works" for weeks on their own dresses and jackets while the factory sewer only thinks of needlework as "working at a job". If one asks the home sewer if making that jacket "took a lot of work", the hobbyist will answer "yes" without any irony at all.

So asking, "why did the home sewer create extra work for themselves to create dresses?" ... would be another variation of your question about you building sheds.

p0d
Interesting. I discovered that hobbying should finish within a certain timeframe or it becomes a burden. For me stopping at 4pm keeps a sense of hobby over work.
sabhiram
Super interesting. Been reading some Alan Watts lately, and he points out that while you go to "work", you "play" the piano, you don't "work" the piano. You don't "work" basketball, while still expending effort and incurring risk!
serenloss
Life is like a musical piece. If it were all about getting to the destination, then the best composers would be those with the fastest songs. Play is about the journey, rather than the result.

In this sense, shed-building is somewhere between work and play. The act is enjoyed roughly as much as the product.

sabhiram
One of those, "play a little and then use it to play other things".

Now I want to build a shed.

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techsin101
To have an agency, this would be something I did because I wanted to. Most of us lack sufficient agency in our day to day job. We don't wanna be in standups, meetings, or most work activities that are at least to us pointless and maybe are.
oxymoran
Because I like to build shit and need more space for tools.
alexellisuk
Your job is probably triggering a fight/flight response constantly.

https://www.health.harvard.edu/staying-healthy/understanding...

Working with your hands and retreating to your shed allows you to sooth / calm rather than getting deeper into those stress hormones.

For me, it also gives time for reflection.

From the BBC: Men's Sheds: 'It's about so much more than making things' -> https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/uk-northern-ireland-49615371

Have you read Daniel Pink's When?

He talks about rhythms with most people being morning people - alert in the morning and ready for analytical work, entering a trough in the afternoon, then recovering in the evening. Are you mainly doing your shed work in the afternoon/evening, after work?

p0d
I haven't read that, will look into. For me it's a Saturday, around 10-4. I think it's more about the calm you mention rather than rhythm of day.
peteradio
My personality somehow ends up with so many irons in the fire that I am always buried in some sort of work. I also builds sheds. You need sheds to store all the tools to do all the shit you're doing. Seems wise to me otherwise your tools will get rusty.
saalweachter
Building a shed is a finite process with known steps that produces a tangible result. If you spend time on it, you will make forward progress and be able to see it.

If you are a knowledge worker, this is frequently lacking. You might spend months or years working on something without knowing of you'll succeed. You might get stuck (eg, debugging) and not be able to see any progress for long periods of time. You might be blocked from making forward progress because you are waiting on other people. And at the end of the day, what you accomplish might not be very visible or might end up being finished but useless.

So it's nice to do something where you feel like you actually did something.

discardable_dan
This is why I cook. At the end of a day where I make no discernable progress, spending time on a tangible product that is done in a finite amount of time helps unwind a great deal.
savorypiano
I often look at the trash can full of vegetable scraps and feel proud of the work I did.

In the end, I built something I wanted.

p0d
Very true. You can achieve quite a bit in one day working with wood.
sho
“Of course I don’t have to do this,” one middle aged man said, carefully cleaning the table with a damp cloth. He put the cloth in a little pouch, sat down beside him. “But look, this table’s clean.” He agreed that the table was clean.

“Usually,” the man said, “I work on alien religions… I catalogue, evaluate, compare. I come up with theories and argue with colleagues here and elsewhere. But the job’s never finished. Always new examples and even the old ones get reevaluated and new people come along and come up with new ideas about what you thought was settled. But,” he slapped the table, “when you clean a table, you clean a table. You feel you’ve done something. It’s an achievement.”

> from Use Of Weapons, by Iain M. Banks

29athrowaway 

    If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day.
    It will give you a small sense of pride, and it will encourage you to do another task
    and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned 
    into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little
    things in life matter. If you can't do the little things right, you will never do the
    big things right.

    And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made
    — that you made — and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.

    If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.

    - Admiral William H. McRaven
Tempest1981
He also mentioned courage:

“Without courage, men will be ruled by tyrants and despots. Without courage, no great society can flourish. Without courage, the bullies of the world rise up. With it, you can accomplish any goal. With it, you can defy and defeat evil.”

29athrowaway
There are many gems in that speech, but I took the excerpt that was more relevant as a reply. I am not militaristic but I do believe that discipline makes your life better.
soperj
Is it wrong that I've never achieved any satisfaction or sense of accomplishment from making my bed?
everybodyknows
Not wrong. Try this alternative: Relocate your bed within the room, even if only by a few inches. If better, keep the modest improvement to your local environment. If worse, move the bed back and keep the knowledge.
soperj
Honestly I feel like there are people out there that are massively affected by the environment around them. They can't work without a tidy desk, eat without the cupboards closed etc. A tidy desk or closed doors don't effect my mental well being, neither a bed in disarray, or bed not centered in the room? I go about my day blissfully unaware of any of it.
lucumo
No.

It usually even fills me with the opposite feeling. I don't like sleeping in "made beds". They're very constricting. A made bed may look tidy, but I don't look at my bed other than when I go to sleep.

mlboss
I also don't achieve any satisfaction in making up bed. Yes it looks nice but its not an achievement just a necessary task.
dmd
Why is it necessary?
ryandvm
It's not even necessary. The practice is just a testament to the fact that some people find solace and comfort in superficial busywork.
gverrilla
I've heard a single good argument for making beds: insects. But I don't care and still don't make mine :)
AA-BA-94-2A-56
I'm inclined to agree, but when I moved in with my girlfriend that changed. My girlfriend is one of those people who finds fulfillment in busywork. She likes a made bed.

So now I find meaning in making the bed, because she likes it made.

sundarurfriend
This is as good a place as any to ask: what does it mean to "make your bed"? I've been hearing this expression for years, and always have a vague impression of arranging your blankets, pillows, etc., neat and tidy - but that's just my assumption based on context.

Growing up in India in the 90s, we generally made our beds (in a more literal sense) in the night: unrolling a dried grass mat [1] on the floor, a few blankets on top of that (a woollen one in the middle if it's winter), and a pillow or two. In the morning, the blankets were folded, mat rolled up, pillows and everything stashed away in a shelf until it's night again. The first time I came across this expression, I thought this is what they meant - to make this contraption in the morning itself!

[1] https://duckduckgo.com/?q=dried+grass+mat&iax=images&ia=imag...

radu_floricica
Just straighten out pillows, sheets and blankets so it's visually appealing instead of a mess.
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bnjms
In your context making your bed would be the reverse. It would be storing away the contraption. The saying refers to people’s habit of leaving their beds a mess of twisted blankets and a bumble of pillows.
snarf21
Well said. Also, you get to decide everything. There are no meetings or planning sessions. You can change your mind halfway through and no one else cares. Control can be quite satisfying.
pontifier
Wait til the city finds out he's been building a shed without a permit, permission from the neighbors, an architect to oversee the project, etc...
chestervonwinch
It's important to maintain a sense of self awareness about it though, i.e., recognizing you want/need to focus more well-defined task where the outcome yields a sense of achievement because you need a break from some larger/fuzzier goal.
wwilim
You are also in full control of the project for the entire duration. A few months of your work won't end up in the trash bin due to a C-level decision
IanCal
I spent a few days moving several tons of soil from bags to planters, and it was fantastic. Very rewarding for being everything my job usually isn't. Clearly defined, known progress, you just get stuck in and go.
bcrl
This absolutely meshes with my own experience. After years of software development, I find there's a very different sort of reward associated with building out my own fibre network. Once a cable is up on the poles and spliced in, it's a physical real world object that works and makes the customer happy. It's not like software that's never finished with so much internal state that is invisible and constantly needs improvement.