Ask HN: How do I find energy to work on hobbies after the work day ends?

[cgb223]

I’m sitting here at 11 at night watching my 3rd straight hour of TV. It’s embarrassing, but I’m so wiped out after a day of work, that my brain just doesn’t feel like doing anything.

I’m sitting here in my bedroom looking at a book I’ve been meaning to finish for months, but it’s complex enough that when I start working on the next chapter, I get a quarter of the way through it and have to put it down, because I just dont “get it” when I feel this way.

Across from me is my desk, with a computer where somewhere on it, is a half built personal website I was using as a way to teach myself web development. But when I open it up and start working on it, I feel like I’m missing that spark that makes the right connections to learn new things like JavaScript objects and how they work.

I have Duolingo on my phone, which I complete in spurts lasting 2 or 3 days then I drop for maybe a week or so, even though I know it’s only “10 minutes a day”. If I do it now, I won’t remember most of it tomorrow.

My job isn’t particularly demanding. It’s average. I don’t work more than maybe 8-9 hours a day on stuff that I understand most of but still have a chance to learn new things. My point is it’s not like it’s a brutal work culture at all.

I even exercise mid day or after work (depending on how busy I am) which is proportioned to give one energy, not take it away.

But yet at the end of the day, I’m just beat.

How do you find the motivation to do the things you genuinely enjoy, when you’re too wiped out to do them?

Is this normal?

[xenopticon]

Two things that worked well for me:

1. Work on your hobbies _before_ your actual work (or when you feel rested the most).

Don't spend all of your "prime time" in your job. In the morning, when I am rested and focused, I dedicate the first one or two hours of the day to work on my things. Of course this pushes my schedule and I finish work later, but at the end it feels like an accomplished day. There's no feeling of guilt because you "only worked on your job". This of course only applies if you have a flexible job.

2. You cannot do everything at once.

I had very similar goals as you in the beginning of the year. I was trying to write posts for my blog, learn my partner's language, study for the Terraform associate exam, and exercise daily. All combined with a moderately demanding job. We simply cannot have that many things in our buffer. Try to focus on what's more urgent or important for you. Do one or two things at a time.

[100011_100001]

This is the correct answer. The number of hours you can be productive is limited. Frontload your hobbies before work. Interestingly enough you won't underperform at work as much as you would think.

For me it used to be work 100%, hobbies 0-10%. By frontloading my hobbies and doing them first, it's now work 90%, hobbies 90%. A good net gain. At the same time my happiness has increased by a good 20%, because as you know, no one feels great watching TV for 3 hours.

The reason why this works is, if you work like a semi-normal human even if you are tired you will do the thing. However hobbies, being "optional" you will skip. By flipping things around you still have that push to perform well at work, so it stays relatively the same.

By the way, with kids, frontloading becomes even more important.

Edit: I try to have 5 main todos every day. 1 work, 4 hobbies. It averages out to about 11 hours (work being 8). I use my "hour" of lunch to play guitar, which is another hobby of mine, but it's the only time I can squeeze it in.

[sloaken]

Great point about the hobbies. Too many people are tied to the clock for when to do things. Get up at 6, go to work at 7, be home by x. Time is relative. I plan to now switch my clock to do my hobbies first. Thanks for the suggestion.

[bmer]

In my case, it turned out to be ADHD, which is far more nuanced than people make it out to be.

For a person to do something, there are two components: 1) motivation, and 2) activation. Activation is how "easy" it is to get going. Activation has an aspect of mental state to it, and an aspect of engineering (e.g. many dark design patterns work by reducing the activation needed to do what the designer wants you to).

People with ADHD need much more activation than the usual person to get going. So, a common refrain is "I must be lazy, because I can't bring myself to do the things I care about". Once an ADHD person is over the activation hump though, they face a different challenge: stopping. Stopping in a timely fashion is necessary for good health (need to sleep, and eat), and consistent progress (doing a little bit every day is much better than "a lot" one day in two months).

But, whether you have ADHD or not, don't discount the impact of the $$$ spent engineering various services so that they require as little activation as possible. I'm not yet sure what the solution to this is, but I think being aware of the activation/motivation distinction is a good first step to eventually reaching a solution.

[vixit]

This is what I struggle with.

The activation, or executive function, is often missing with folks who have ADHD. Things that I have found which help:

1. Set a timer/alarm for you to get up and start. 2. Set a timer/alarm for you to stop and zone out or take a break. 3. Try to keep a list of actions you can take instead of the one you can't start

And be gentle with yourself when you enter the mental state of "I need to get up to do X now" but your brain simply won't let you. It happens and is frustrating, but don't let that feel like a failure. ADHD brains just can be very difficult sometimes. When this "stuck" feeling happens, I try to cycle through other things I could do until I eventually find on that allows my brain to let me get up. It can be as simple as deciding that I should go pet my dog.

[bradstewart]

I don't have ADHD (that I know of), but often struggle with the "activation" bit as well. One seemingly simple thing that's really, really helped me was a quote from Jerry Seinfeld (on the Tim Ferriss podcast):

"You don't have to write, but you can't do anything else."

Replace "write" with "code" or whatever you need to do. His process was to set a fixed amount of time to work (having a defined length is important), sit down, start the timer, and either write or sit and do nothing.

Removing the mental pressure of "oh no I have to get this thing done" by making _doing nothing_ an acceptable outcome was huge for me. It took a few tries to actually stick to the "do nothing else" part--no HN, no phones, etc--but now I find I can dispense with distractions and get work done much more easily.

[vcavallo]

interesting.

> being aware of the activation/motivation distinction is a good first step

what’s the second step? :)

Do you have thoughts on adderall?

[matt_s]

Watching 3 hours of TV is perfectly fine. Lean into the binge watching. Do more of it. Find more shows you want to watch. Pile it on, watch so much you get bored and then turn it off. Then maybe just sit there. Maybe that takes a few weeks.

I think there's been some research that professional/thinking jobs can be as taxing on someone as hard labor like construction. Your brain needs time to relax, decompress, and wander. You have a stable job and free time after work to do whatever you want. This is part of being human - your hierarchy of needs is mostly complete, I assume.

Set all of those things aside for now (book, duolingo, web-dev, etc.) Just chill. Don't treat hobbies or recreational activities like work. The interest in them will come back to you naturally. If it doesn't then were you really that interested? Or was there some observation of others falsely creating a desire?

If one of your interests is career related (web-dev), seek out time during your work day to further your career. Sneak it in if your employer won't allow it.

[serjester]

Strongly disagree. Watching TV is easy and numbing - before you know you’ll have a habit. Habits are hard to break.

I think OP would far better advised spending 15 minutes a day on any of the hobbies he listed. If he doesn’t feel like doing it, do it anyways. Eventually he’ll have a positive habit.

Some people are going to make the argument that you work hard enough, don’t “work” outside your job. Doing anything new is inherently hard though - you need to get past the initial “suck”.

After some time you’ll be far better equipped to figure out if this something you actually want in your life.

Don’t feel like starting something? Do it anyways. Take tomorrow off, but not today.

[ryandvm]

No offense, but doubling down on the binge watching is maybe the worst personal advice I've ever heard. Maybe somehow that worked for you, but far too many folks are multiple decades into a TV watching habit that has become unbreakable.

Honestly, I find the way that Netflix tries to cram the next episode down your throat to be borderline criminal behavior.

Take your queue from some of these shows. None of the people in them are watching 3 or 4 hours of TV a day. Well, unless they're on step 1 of the Hero's Journey...

[ElectricMind]

Why you feel need to do more? It is because society told you story of "hustle hustle till you die"? When was the last time you took walk in nature? When was the last time you lay down on grass on night and watch stars? When was the last time you played sports? When was the last time you volunteer for something? When was the last time you called someone after long time and check if they okay? When was the last time you watched bird fly in V shape?

I mean I understand you but sometimes not every seconds needs to be inside "utility function". Again you need strip out every assumption, belief about life that society has inscribed on your mind. Trust me, you will feel the same once you become Google CEO too. There is no "this is enough" point in future.

[leokennis]

Well said. I’m productive at work 9 hours a day. I sleep 8 hours a day. I do household work 2 hours a day. I raise kids 2-3 hours a day.

The remaining 2-3 hours are mine, I don’t want to spend them being productive. I just want to take a shower, read a book, browse Reddit or watch old episodes of Top Gear.

[thepiratesailor]

Excellent point. We are forced to slave by news, parents, schools and college, etc. Promising that one day we'll be movie Gods and millionaires. But we won't and we are slowly learning that and we are very pissed. Life is more than just career. It is about enjoying too.

[dorkwood]

I think it's normal. Even highly productive people go through slumps where they can barely muster the strength to stare at the screen, let alone get any actual work done. My secrets for regaining some of that strength at the end of a work day:

- Work on things that interest you. Sounds simple, but a lot of people screw this one up. They'll work on things they think they're supposed to be working on, or they'll brainstorm the most lucrative ideas they can think of and work on those. For most people, this kills motivation. Give yourself a treat and work on that thing you're curious about but that other people think is a waste of time.

- Drink a sugary beverage. This one runs counter to all modern dietary advice, but was my secret technique for a good number of years. Next time you have an idea you want to work on but it feels impossible to focus, try downing a can of soda. Thank me later.

- Create a productivity playlist. This was my other secret technique. This can be as simple as a single album that you leave on repeat while you work. Doesn't matter if it has lyrics or whatever. Just needs to be something that your brain is extremely familiar with. If you do this often enough, listening to that music can help you get back in the zone when you're out of it.

- Finally, go easy on yourself. Peaks and troughs are common. If you're in a trough, give yourself space to relax and do nothing, and have faith that the motivation will return one day soon.

[madamelic]

I like this list so I'll add one I've adopted recently & seems to be working.

- Small victories. Rather than jumping immediately to your big giant task, build up to it with small victories. Brush your teeth, wipe down the counters, something small that's quick to do. While I do this, I remind myself "small victories". I build up a few of these (make the bed, brush my teeth, clean up the kitchen) then move onto my computer tasks for the day.

If I am feeling defeated, I start back at small victories: put the dog leash away, clean off my desk, etc.

Definitely hokey and weird, but it's all about momentum and building up activation energy (stealing from another post).

[jmfldn]

Sorry to hear. I've felt like this at times too. A couple of thoughts...

1. I think it's normal yeah. Social media and advertising make us think everyone else is a super achiever but that's mainly nonsense. Us modern humans are over-stimulated mentally to an extent that would have been unrecognisable to our ancestors. We're not adapted to be thinking, talking, reading, studying, watching things all day. It would be exhausting to not sit down all day right? The mind isn't so different. Find ways to enjoy doing nothing. Could be meditation, gentle slow yoga, listening to some quiet music, nothing too mentally taxing. Your mind needs time to idle and reset, it's almost like your mind's 'garbage collection" kicks in and clears out the junk. It can't be processing all the time. Take time for being, it's incredibly restorative.

2. I'm a big believer in hobbies. As a father of two very young children my time is limited to I rely on the little and often approach. Don't knock the power of small daily incremental practice. I've made good progress with programming and piano in this way from very little time.

3. Doing non "thinking" hobbies is also important to me. I'm a bit addicted to over-thinking (like many of us I suspect) and something like piano is a counterforce to that. Find fun hobbies that you do for the pure intrinsic joy.

4. Assuming like many of us you're a covid home worker, don't knock the massive effect this has had. All of my colleagues seem to be feeling burnout to one degree or another. Again self care and self compassion are key here.

5. Check in with your doctor. You might have a deficiency, maybe you have a bit of low lying depression or something like that. Very common in both cases but it's good to seek help just to eliminate these things.

[blaser-waffle]

> 4. Assuming like many of us you're a covid home worker, don't knock the massive effect this has had. All of my colleagues seem to be feeling burnout to one degree or another. Again self care and self compassion are key here.

This has been a trend I've noticed with all of my friends who are work-at-home due to COVID. Everyone is pretty fried and feeling heavy burnout.

I was 100% remote before COVID and even though my work life hasn't changed I'm still feeling it as well, both due to not having places to go (gym, bar, theater, etc), as well as just via secondhand stress; e.g. the boss is burnt and takes it out on you.

[pjivers]

Step 1:

- Go to bed early and get enough sleep [For me this is the most important point]

- Drink enough water

- Eat a balanced diet

- Cut back on processed sugar

- Cut back on caffeine (or completely stop)

- Exercise, but don't overdo it if you want to save some energy for projects

- Block yourself from wasting time on social media

- Limit your consumption of "news"

- Cut out TV

- Lastly, if you haven't taken time off work in a while, take a week or so off

Step 2:

- Reevaluate

[0x008]

I want to add: Go for walks. Iif it works for Bill Gates it's good enough for me. Walks are really great at reorganizing all the stuff floating around your head.

[madamelic]

>- Eat a balanced diet

>- Cut back on processed sugar

>- Cut back on caffeine (or completely stop)

---

Not everyone processes food the same, even normally functioning bodies will have different responses to the same foods.

Absolutely you should target healthy food and I would discourage anyone from eating cheeseburgers every day, but if salad makes you feel like crap: don't eat salad.

There is no one most optimal way to eat. You need to learn and feed your body what it needs (and occasionally wants).

Your productivity will (probably) not plummet because you caved and ate a cheeseburger for lunch. Neither will productivity cave because you had a bottle of Coke.

I've been wearing a continuous glucose monitor (not diabetic, just curious) for the past few weeks and I've noted that some "healthy" meals are actually worse blood sugar wise than "bad" meals.

McD's cheeseburger: pretty steady blood sugar.

Small bowl of granola (not the shitty sugary kind): stupid huge spike.

[jhrozek]

Nice list, that's pretty much what I've been doing.

Especially limiting "news" (I would also emphasize their "quality" with quotes..) and social media. I feel so much better since I quit twitter, for some reason it feels just like a giant pit of awfulness.

The only two things I'd add or say differently is that a) this helps (or at least helped me) not to be more productive, but just in general happier. Being happier brought more energy which in turn means just doing more things, or just other things. The other thing (b) is, with the exception of social media which I outright quit, I'm not strict with limiting or rather going over limit with some of the negative things on your list. Do I feel like eating cake after lunch and having my third coffee after dinner? OK, as long as it doesn't become an everyday habit, I just do it..

[permalac]

+ Read something unrelated to your usual work.

[taffronaut]

Do hobbies have to be successful? IMHO the time is for restoring your sense of well-being. There are loads of happy (but terrible) amateur artists, musicians, dancers, DJs, woodworkers, model-makers, novelists, photographers, Wordpress website builders, RPi hobbyists, medieval French students. Everywhere is full of half-assembled or half-disassembled clocks, airbrush compressors, and that PDP-11 someone planned to restore and it's fine.

The website and the book have successfully distracted you from the TV for a while. Now they're making you feel bad. That's not the function of a hobby. Maybe it's time to find something else.

[MrRiddle]

Well, you work too much. At least in Europe, 40 hour work week includes having lunch, going to bathroom, water cooler small talk and similar.

If you’re productive for 8-9 hours a day, you’re effectively working more that full time, and that’s where your energy goes away.

[ddnb]

On top of that, make sure to get some free time. Get a housekeeper to do the boring house work, the cost is negligible but it frees up your Saturdays.

[_Microft]

Breaks do not count towards working hours in Germany at least [0]. You may be confusing a week of e.g. 38 paid hours plus a few hours of unpaid breaks with a "40 hour work week"?

[0] "Arbeitszeit im Sinne dieses Gesetzes ist die Zeit vom Beginn bis zum Ende der Arbeit ohne die Ruhepausen", § 2 Abs. 1 ArbZG, see: https://dejure.org/gesetze/ArbZG/2.html

[em-bee]

last i checked lunch break was in addition to the 40 hours of work.

[_y5hn]

8-9 hours of mind numbing work every day will be 8-9 hours of demotivation. Also you've reached efficiency cap by 4-6 hours. You'll find many variations of normal, though this may warrant studies.

[mujina93]

It's amazing and fascinating how many diverse explanations and personal narratives are present in all the answers. It shows how difficult it is to diagnose something as common and relatable as the situation described here.

[jmfldn]

Looking at the answers there're definitely a lot of common trends. But yes, I see your point. Part of the problem is separating the pure productivity question ie how to fit in hobbies, vs asking whether the question itself points to deeper issues around health, excessive pressure to achieve and so on.

[BrianB]

It seems to me like all of your hobbies are highly analytical. Maybe try making art or playing an instrument to relax your mind instead of trying to read another book or learn a new language in your down time.

[tartoran]

Yes, I find that this resonates with me as well. I find it like giving a part of my brain a break when doing a hobby, and in my case painting it is. And playing instruments, I altetnate between the two. At some point after doing this one would replenish the analytical power and feel like doing analytical work again

[langfo]

You haven't mentioned your age. It could be good to get a blood test. When my wife was pregnant with twin girls I was always feeling wiped out, a blood test revealed my I had low thyroid hormone levels. A tablet a day has fixed that.

Are you able to do some of your project work at work. Included in this is building an internal web based application for your customers/users, automating things. I built things at work and home while learning the Java Spring Framework for example.

I also worked on stuff during my commute on the bus to and from work.

I find I have to stop working on a computer by 9pm or I won't sleep that night.

There's heaps of things I can't get done in a day or put off as I'm too tired. Trying to reduce TV consumption and social media consumption can help!

[0x008]

> It’s embarrassing

That is the problem right here. Stop beating yourself up. Everybody is lazy. All these people having sideprojects make 90% of a months progress on 1 weekend or a single day they have off from work.

For me it helped to spend less time on HN.

Regarding hobbies: They should be fun first and foremost. Don't focus on the progress. Focus on having an easy and relaxing time.

[brudgers]

None of these sound much like hobbies.

Self-improvement is not a hobby.

I mean building websites might be a hobby.

Just not when it is "to teach myself web development."

There's nothing wrong with learning in your spare time in lieu of a hobby. Indeed it's good. Even better if you recognize that's what you are doing. And best when you realize that there is no rush. No deadline.

Getting older improves pattern matching. Sometimes you will read voraciously. Other times there will be GTA-V and the South Park back catalog...so to speak.

You've got the rest of your life to finish that book. Hopefully it's Knuth. But TikTok is ok in the now.

Good luck.

[kodah]

First I would say that just because you hear about a number of engineers that are hobbyist programmers after work doesn't mean it's commonplace. It's just commonly talked about and can be beneficial. The majority of engineers I interview for leadership positions are not hobbyist programmers.

It's also taxing. I am one of these people. I don't have responsibilities in my life outside of work, so I have infinite time to do what I want. That also means I have less time to do what others want, which makes making friends outside of programming and other demanding careers difficult. Additionally, it requires a myriad of maturity processes; you will have to learn to flip a switch of perspective between work code and hobby code so as to maintain a healthy separation. Hobby code should be fun at the end of the day, or it's not a hobby anymore.

I've learned to decompress hard rather than gradually. I'll go ride my bike and push myself for an hour, I'll soak in the tub, and then pick up my journal that has all the notes from my hobby code in it.

I do not buy into extended work activities any more. I lead development teams, but I started cutting out all extracurricular activities at work so as to reserve my time for me. Understand that even with people at work you are bound by a contract, by all means fulfill that contract but don't give things to a profit machine for free. This significantly cut down the energy-spending-spin-cycle I found myself in at work. I'm a person that's happy to help people to learn and grow, but if I make myself too available I spread myself so thin that I make no room for me.

Hope this helps.

[oriel]

I personally need to feel the progress on whatever my hobby is at the moment.

Currently, i've been working on a side project for months now, but i remember it took me years to get started. The essence of how i did start was to take a weekend, bang out a basic proof of concept that had occurred to me, then over time add to it, even in small ways. fix a bug here, add a view there, model data this way, etc.

It's less about energy and more about motivation. Some people would say discipline, but if you're exhausted, you're exhausted, and to push harder would only damage your resolve (IMO). It's an emotional energy thing more than physical energy, so in combination with other suggestions on here (like do it in the morning not the evening), take some time (off or the weekend, etc) to get momentum on a hobby or project (dev env setup takes at minimum a day in many cases), and then put in tiny steps or amounts of energy over time.

You'll be surprised how far you can go once you're moving.

[domano]

I have the same problem and manage to conquer it with 3 strategies:

1. Acknowledge that passive media consumption is actually not that interesting to me and just turn off the TV. Or when watching TV sometimes look at tutorials etc for the technologies you are trying to learn. If you find a good teacher this can be very entertaining too.

2. Have 2 Projects - 1 is permanent and the thing you actually want to achieve. The other is dynamic, meaning you can just switch to something else if you feel like exploring a new technology.

3. Give talks on some basic topics. Expectations are not high, but you are forced to learn it so that you can prepare the talk in time. Also this is very rewarding and efforts are very predictable.

[morty_s]

Prioritize what you want to do/work on. Too tired at 11pm? Splice that time onto the front of your day to get a couple hours in before work. Put yourself first.

People find/make time for the things they want to do (for their hobbies). Hobbies are typically enjoyed, if you’re not enjoying things, try something else?

I have a dozen books I’m “currently reading.” Sometimes I finish three or four books while still only 20 pages into another. Reading also compounds (the more you read, the more you can read—and understand).

Maybe a good audio book for you would be Atomic Habits. Maybe you can start with doing something you enjoy for just 10-20minutes a day, consistently. Consistency compounds.

[caffeine]

The problem is that your hobbies are not hobbies, they are just more work.

If you could pick something to do after work that is not TV, and that you WOULD feel like getting up and doing, what would that be? Maybe a game of tennis with a friend?