Ask HN: What do you do when you're not working/programming?

Mapping in OpenStreetMap - goes well with a side order of cycling for fun and transport (and a dose of downloading the planet data and hacking at them, bringing me back to programming in a roundabout way :))

Teaching high school physics and calculus to neighbourhood kids, play guitar and ukulele, hiking small hill near house and contemplating life once in a while.

Playing music (both with a band, and composing/recording by myself at home), photography, play and exercise with a border collie.

Camping/Backpacking. Chilling with my dog. Gardening. Photography. Painting.

Taekwondo, Gaming. Hit me up in the bay if you're down for some martial arts, I can give you the whole tour to see if you like it.

Sailing, hiking.

Writing. Board games. Animé. Occasional club nights (there are a few that I know that seem to attract the right kind of people).

Bouldering (really good for programmers as a prevention of back issues or RSI, imho), sailing, hiking, cycling, figuring out how much beer can I drink in a single night every now and then

Writing. Seeing art. Running. Biking. Photography. Chess.

Flying, biking, walking my dog, swimming, reading.

If I had to make a suggestion, I'd say get a bike and find some interesting trail close to where you live. Cycling is great exercise, very invigorating (mentally and physically). It's a very good way to both reduce stress, give yourself more energy and come up with new ideas and solutions to problems.

Exercise, maintain an active dating & social life, other intellectual pursuits (e.g. learning math), waste time on reddit and social media.

Sleeping. Netflix, movie. Day dreaming. Learn to be a chef and just staying home browsing interesting things on the Internet (meme, cats, idk). I am not outgoing. I like my home...

Building physical objects. Primarily furniture. It's ridiculous how many problems you can solve while using a woodplane.

Sports to keep yourself at shape. Doesn't really matter which sport as long as it's fun for you. I particulary like swimming, running and badminton.

Cooking. You can easily make great meals from raw ingredients so you are not dependent on local restaurants or anything, just have a stock of long lasting base ingrediences and if you eg. run out of bread on holidays, just make your own. Besides that, it's another topic you can use at chit chat; it's attractive to the females and you can save some money.

Learning physics. Well, that's just cool and maybe you can find some practical use too, once you learn enough. The freely available Feynman lectures are great.

Playing an instrument. I try to learn ukulele and even though I totaly suck, even trying broadened my horizons and perception of music.

Reading beletry. Whatever floats your boat. I like scifi and some classics Sherlock Holmes or Three Men in a Boat.

Reading scientific studies. Whatever catches your fancy. Eg. I recently read about reviewing effectivity of methods law enforcement uses to spot drug users or how different music affects customer at shopping mall.

You have some really amazing surfing and bouldering right in your back yard. Both easily accessible for after work sessions. It's one of the few places in the country that has both, so you're making me sad by not doing either of them.

Castle Rock is like a mini Fontainebleau, with really nice sandstone in a pleasant setting. Train up at any of the half dozen local climbing gyms, then start heading up the hill every evening once the days get longer.

Santa Cruz has tons of amazing breaks, but Pleasure Point is my particular favorite, with its easy access, fun waves, and good aprez surf tacos a short walk away.

Both those things will fix any back/wrist issues you might try to inflict upon yourself sitting in that felt cube all day. Both will encourage you to get out travelling, which is an added bonus. You'll one day find there are beaches with tropical warm water where you won't need that 4 mm of rubber anymore, and hillsides with more than seven distinct boulders in a half mile radius.

Good luck!

Spending QT with my kids/wife, working out (MMA), tinkering with Arduino and multirotors, movies, hiking.

Find a side project you really like; ideally it should have some kind of goal attached. My recent project were:

1) Build a pair of kevlar canoes and explore the local waterways.

2) Hiking, often just to stay in shape for vacations. My wife isn't a fan of relaxing vacations.

3) Gardening: has the added benefit of producing amazing vegetables for little money.

4) Writing iOS games, or working on the data acquisition system for my "business". This is looking more like a hobby than a home business every day.

You are not alone. I program some more, read HN or some programming books or watch netflix.

I lift weights. I do weight lifting 6 days a week, Monday through Saturday, as soon as I wake up.

My priories in life are:

- Fitness.

- Family.

- Work.

It sounds a bit rough, but fitness is what keeps me grounded. I'm by no means at my goal, but bodybuilding is something that is incredibly fun and relaxing to do. It requires a ton of energy, but the discipline gives me a great feeling through the rest of the day, and makes me feel -- powerful.

It's been a huge confidence booster, and it's been fun to focus on physical development as well as personal development -- it helps balance out my life.

I also live in the Bay Area (SF). Here's a small sampling of things I do when I'm not working:

* Write. Every weekday morning, I go to a coffee shop downtown and write for 30-60 minutes. I've written two full-length novels and two novellas so far, though they are all as-of-yet unpublished. Someday...

* Run. I run 3-4 nights per week, either along Embarcadero or through Golden Gate Park. I started off with the Couch to 5K program in January 2012 and I've worked up to four half-marathons in the last 12 months.

* Disc golf. There's a disc golf course in Golden Gate Park. Grab a beginner set (20 bucks from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Innova-Disc-Golf-3-Disc-Colors/dp/B000...), grab a friend, and go play. It's super fun.

* Nerd Nite. http://sf.nerdnite.com - 8 bucks. It's like the Discovery Channel -- with beer! (Side note: it's also where I met my girlfriend, and I go every month.)

* Rock climbing - check out Planet Granite (http://www.planetgranite.com/) or Mission Cliffs (http://www.touchstoneclimbing.com/mission-cliffs)

* Meetups - I've attended a dozen Meetups, including the SF Rust meetup. Very fun way to meet new people.

* Biking - Go to Roaring Mouse bikes in Crissy Field (http://www.roaringmousecycles.com/) and buy a bike. Then bike to work, bike to Golden Gate Park, bike across the GG bridge to Sausalito, to Tiburon, to Marin. There are a million awesome places to bike in the Bay Area, and there are huge communities around it. It's something you can do by yourself or with a group. Super fun.

* Anything from sf.funcheap.com. Like the site says, it's a list of fun, cheap things to do in the Bay Area.

* Take online classes (http://coursera.org). I'm currently taking the Machine Learning course and the Compilers course. It's very fun to learn new things!

* Become a Stormtroooper (http://www.goldengategarrison.com) - I'm not a member, but I know a lot of people who build their own Stormtrooper armor and then do volunteer activities with the 501st (the official Stormtrooper organization). Very cool way to give back to the community, especially if you're a Star Wars geek!

* Volunteer! There's a great organization in the city called One Brick (http://sfbay.onebrick.org/). You basically pick an event and just show up. It's volunteering a la carte! You're not making long term commitments -- just one event at a time. And you meet TONS of good, kind-hearted people. It's a win/win!

* And being Hacker News, I would be remiss if I didn't mention: start your own business. Find a problem domain you know something about, and solve that problem. Get out there, meet some co-founders, crank out some code, save the world, and get the cheerleader. Or maybe it was save the cheerleader? Whatever.

* And so much more. I do all of the above things regularly (sometimes daily, sometimes weekly, sometimes monthly), but there are a huge list of things I just don't have the time or memory to mention. There's a whole world out there. Get outside and explore!

Good luck!

* Running - I try for 3x a week, usually 5k but sometimes I got 6k or 7k on the weekend.

* Volunteering - I socialize feral and semi-feral cats for 3-4 hours a week at a local animal shelter. I get a lot of cuts and scars from it, but it's great when the scared animal I met becomes someone's loving pet.

* Reading - Right now I'm reading a book on the history of Mexican food in the US ("Taco USA"). It keeps me thinking about things outside the tech scene.

* Gardening - Not as easy now that I'm living in an apartment, but I like getting my hands dirty and you can't beat the taste of food you grew yourself.

browsing hn

Get started on the classics. As a very strong general rule, they're classics for a reason. Some of them can be read in a single long sitting ("The Great Gatsby" springs to mind for that). Old and modern; the British author David Mitchell has written some fist-bitingly good modern literature. Branch out; some modern Japanese literature is so good it carries through the translation.

If you can, get them in second-hand paperback - carry them, bend them, flick back and forth through them, mark them up with a stub of pencil. They're so good. They really are. Thankfully, they're also something that can't be hacked, pivoted, presented as a service, gameified or whatever other buzz phrases we churn out to make ourselves feel smug. There's no other way to read them than to simply open the book and read.

I live in Columbus, OH, and I do far less than what some of these posts do, but haven't seen anyone else from Ohio so I thought I would post.

* Read - Much like the others I'm constantly reading something, not usually programming related

* Learn - Also like others, I'm always teaching myself something new. Cooking something new, knitting, organic chemistry, I'm kind of all over the map

* Archery - http://www.velocityarcheryrange.com/ Sorry for their awful website (not my code, just to throw that out there* but I go out every now and again and shoot a bow and arrow for something physical to do that's eccentric and difficult enough to keep me interested

May update if I think of more things that I do, or if I remember Columbus-based things if people are interested!

I live in Los Angeles. My routine is very routine, but I like it that way.

Morning weekday routine: Get up, exercise, eat breakfast, shoot some arrows (hence the username), go to work

At work hobbies: Table tennis, and we have a crew that does calisthenics at the park below work

Night: Come home, chill with wife, sleep

Weekends: Archery in the morning, gym with the wife in the afternoon, usually go to dinner in the evening.

I used to have more hobbies, but I found that the routine is liberating in a strange way. I don't have to think about what I need to do, I just do the same things week in week out and try to get really good at them.