Many years ago, I read a blog, possibly linked from here, that gave this definition of a true hobby that I really like.
A true hobby is something that you don't do for money and that has no deadlines attached.
Once you start accepting payment to do something, someone else is setting expectations for your work. If you are a pretty good hobbyist photographer, one of the worst things you can do is shoot a wedding. Shooting a wedding, even for professional photographers, is one of the highest stress environments possible for photography.
If you have deadlines associated with your hobby, what happens if they "slip"? For example, if you set an artificial deadline to make your first ambitious Arduino project that will do something that will make your friends impressed and you get stuck somewhere, does it really matter?
Nothing needs to be said about the combination of paid work and deadlines. That is not hobbying, that is contracting. A long time ago, I did some subcontracting on iOS development. Beautiful weekend? Didn't matter. Monday deadline for client. Sucked.
> A true hobby is something that you don't do for money and that has no deadlines attached.
I think that's a little too specific and doesn't fit a lot of hobbies. People do often make a little money from their hobbies: fixing up and reselling old cars, thrifting and selling on eBay, refinishing furniture, putting up videos on YouTube.
Also, many hobbies have time-critical components. Even all-American pastimes like sports require you to not miss the game.
I'd crystalize it like so: A hobby is something you sink time into where failure has no negative consequences.
Since people like to pick nits here, that probably needs a couple of qualifiers. The sunk time itself can be considered a negative consequence. And the failure may have negative consequences within the hobby — if you accidentally crush your ship in a bottle, you aren't gonna be happy.
But the negative consequences of failure don't bleed out into anything else in your life. You have no need to succeed. That encapsulation of failure is what I think makes hobbies safe and thus encourage fun and a sense of play.
The reason it's so often disastrous to turn your hobby into a job is exactly because of that reason: it means you are now adding real stakes to the game. If you failed frequently and safely when it was a hobby, that was fine and you might still love the hobby. Once those failures matter, it can upend the whole cost/benefit calculation.
I've lately been thinking about the relative healthiness of my hobby, in which failure could definitely bleed into the rest of my life. I go climbing and mountaineering, where the negative consequences for a mistake can be disastrous. Part of the fun of this hobby is the risk assessment with consequences, so I wonder how it skews with your definition. There are similar edge cases with other potentially dangerous hobbies (racing cars, mountain biking, wingsuiting, boxing, etc) and this also brings up the nature of consequences as a delineator. Where you draw the line is very personal--I also tinker with electronics and, as part of that, have messed around with mains electricity.
Not saying you're wrong, just throwing a wrench into the works because it has been on my mind and I'm curious what the hive mind has to say.
His definition is not invalidated by making money so long as the money you make is not the reason you are doing the activity.
The deadline part is a more onerous constraint but still I like his definition better than yours because of the hobbies that have negative consequences (like the mountaineering).
I think the best definition would be a modification of "A true hobby is something that you don't do for money and that has no deadlines attached." but instead of saying what it isn't (deadlines, money) say what it is:
A true hobby is a personal activity that has sentimental value.
The meaning of 'personal' here is that it would be detrimental for the activity to be attached to the world (through things like deadlines or money) and it has sentimental value i.e. it is not a chore but is actually enjoyable.
Another observation is that you sometimes want to share personal things with others but only if they belong to the group you trust with this particular secret. Hobbies can therefore have attachments but only to the world of that hobby (some niche community probably). This world can then become a gateway to the real world again since if you rise in the ranks of this community you become a part of the leadership that straddles the border between the community and the real world, the members of the community will often pay for this 'protection' - as an example, pro gamers legitimize the hobby of gaming since it becomes a possibility, however unlikely, to make a living playing games. This protection allows hobbyists to fully engage in their activity without concern for reality, hiding behind the delusion of one day becoming pro or in other cases staying relatively anonymous or legitimate due to the more extreme people taking the spotlight. For those who stand the vanguard it is a cutthroat life very much attached to the real world (deadlines, money, training, hard work) the hobby has therefore ceased to be a hobby and has become a job or lifestyle.
I think that definition is actually too general—ironing my shirts or mowing my lawn might apply. I think some nod toward personal fulfillment needs to be there.
I agree with OP mindset but not saying there is an unique answer, just different mindsets. Personally, I enjoyed when thinking in a specific problem, improvement, algorithm, etc could last forever. The point was enjoying the moment and connecting the brain with strong feelings about progress and microachievements. I could rewrite the same app from scratch without feeling exhausted, just for pleasure.
I also think specialization works against this idea. In the early 80s a computer game was a job of a single or few developers: they were moving a few pixels, using limited colors, and with very limited sound capabilities. Now it is very difficult to impress ourselves or others working in small groups. There are exceptions like computer security, demo scenes, etc but the participants are outliers and not the common denominator.
I think making money and doing a hobby need not be independent. Being able to earn money doing something you enjoy makes the activity more sustainable and provides resources you can pour back into the hobby to take it to new heights.
Additionally I think maintaining ownership and flexibility of schedule is good to a certain point, but having deadlines and external stakeholders (which you preferably choose and control) also helps for motivation. It's always more rewarding when you meet those than question your commitment to your hobby when you forget about it for a few months because "you were busy".
> If you are a pretty good hobbyist photographer, one of the worst things you can do is shoot a wedding. Shooting a wedding, even for professional photographers, is one of the highest stress environments possible for photography.
I class myself as taking "decent snapshots", have a good DSLR and a fair bit of experience. I've shot three weddings for family & friends, all of them were under duress. None of the couples were going to pay for a photographer so I was pretty much the only alternative to them asking people for whatever pictures they happened to take and share.
On the day it was a balance between taking part in the wedding and getting decent pictures, including the formal shots. I was pretty nervous and didn't like the directing part, I prefer to be anonymous in the background. Not everything turned out well but compared to the alternative they were all very happy and I did get good coverage of the days events. I did sort of enjoy it and was well prepared with kit & plans for the day plus it was certainly an experience but have said to myself never again.......
I've been a hobbyist DJ for a long time and I would totally agree with this.
I began charging a small fee for my time a few years ago (I justified that I should make at least half my freelance dev rate) but even that small price totally ruined the experience for me. Once it became a job it wasn't fun. Now I'm back to doing pro-bono events mainly for non profits and it's fun again.
Well, if you're planning a costume for a whole year and then don't finish in time, it's a huge deal, at least for cosplayers that I know. Many of them actually postpone the real-life work before big events in order to finish the costumes and prepare everything. For them it's more of an obsession than just pastime, but still it's a hobby.
There are obvious consequences within the scope of the hobby itself, even if there aren't to your overall life. If you don't get the costume done in time for the convention, then you either miss the convention or go without the costume. Those are the consequences for missing that particular deadline.
> Because the last thing I want is you designing or coding all day and night and then getting burned out and rage-quitting.
Yet both examples of employees with hobbies are people who code outside of work. I'm certainly guilty of this, but I would suggest that unless you're 100% devoted to a single goal during the day, you can use your job as a means to tinker with code-related stuff you're interested in.
For instance, the people doing ML and AI degrees should be doing it on company time, especially if it's benefiting the business. Ask your boss and you'd be surprised what benefits you can squeeze out.
I'd strongly recommend getting into something more creative or totally orthogonal to your career. For example I've done a bit of pottery and learned some basic woodworking - both of which I'd like to improve on. Music or languages are two other hobbies which are generally accessible.
You can sometimes find odd passions via work. I've done some projects in smart agriculture and it got me into gardening in a nerdy way. The science behind commercial horticulture is fascinating - it's half cutting edge research and half "old guy" expertise. My tomato crop was a lot better for it.
If you want to really nail the hipster, rounded, programmer stereotype, get down to the climbing wall and start brewing beer. No surprises why climbing is popular with programmers. It's a lot of thinking, works just fine as a solo (or group) sport and tends to attract people who didn't enjoy "conventional" sports at school.
I cannot believe people haven't come to this realization yet. I actually feel my brain rotting away when I don't spend time actively pursuing goals outside of work.
To me hobbies are as important, if not more important, than your day job. Before you down-vote me, please understand that I'm someone who learned about 95% of my technical knowledge from fun and hobbies. Although I'm full-force into computer vision, machine learning, and robotics in the company I'm co-founding, I wouldn't know any of that stuff if I weren't building robots to chase cats and deliver toilet paper, training algorithms to classify free food e-mails, and toying with neural net ideas 10 years ago when I was an physics undergrad (no, I didn't major in CS -- that was my hobby).
And I wouldn't have been a physics undergrad if I hadn't spent hours at night back in high school studying physics and differential equations secretly while my parents thought I had gone to bed already.
Likewise, what I do 10 years from now will depend heavily on the things I learn and ponder on nights and weekends today. It would effectively be the end of my life and career if I didn't have, and insist on having, that time to myself now.
I'll also add as very much an introvert I absolutely must have sufficient disconnected / off-the-grid / "me" time to recuperate. Like food and water, that's largely non-negotiable beyond occasional stretches of a day or two. I'd probably go into clinical depression if I was forced to be in front of people all day for extended periods of time.
+100 on the advice in the article. I work from home and my home office space is actually 50/50 an area where I can do development work, plus a music studio.
I literally have to turn my chair around 180 degrees to go from my PC & laptop to a rack of guitars and amps. Makes it easy during those long compile cycles or waiting for an up/download to just reach back and grab a guitar and noodle away for a bit.
And to actually get out of the house every now and then for a brain refresh, I recently took up Kendo as a sport as well.
Anyone who's been involved in hyper-growth startups knows that having a hobby is extremely difficult. The least one can do is squeeze in gym time at hotels during business trips, but otherwise, time is definitely an issue.
For a decently established startup with well-secured funding, this article is spot-on.
Sometimes putting more work time in is less useful than than taking time to improve the quality of that work. 14 hours working at 75% capacity because you're tired, isolated, or missing social stimulation is worse than 10 hours at 100% of your capacity.
Many founders find missing their friends and hobbies makes them less productive, so, for some, it's far better for the startup to spend a little less time on it. It takes a very self-aware founder to actually do it though.
I was feeling exhausted recently, in desperate need of a vacation. I took an 18 hour trip to Chicago to visit a friend of mine and came back quite renewed.
In a perfect world I would probably only socialize once a week, with a good friend each time.
I really should make that a higher priority, even if some travel is required.
DHH not only open sourced Rails while he built 37 Signals / Basecamp he also won Le Mans racing trophies and wrote a couple books on entrepreneurship.
Sometimes there are situations where it truly is a matter of hyper growth and full bore competition, but I think there are plenty of opportunities to build a sub-billion dollar business and still have an interesting life outside of work.
DHH has been my idol for 10-15 years. His Tweets are legit too. I really should consider the Chicago scene, from Minneapolis originally but gosh do I not wanna deal with snow after a couple years on Ocean Beach/SF. The work culture here is disgusting and my productivity is hampered by management judo-ing me out of hobbies. I am sure I could do a quantative analysis based on historic data, not my forte tho, but I know it. My reputation here is messed from quitting and getting pushed from so many jobs. And I mention elsewhere here, my only hobby is 45min daily empty gym and hr lunch out. The money here gets to peoples’ heads, can also tell by popping bottles for trivial accomplishments.
Rails and the books were both byproducts of 37 Signals (ie stuff they were doing anyway, so they released it to the public - not that that is cost-free, but it's not as intensive as doing it from scratch). And cars are his hobby.
When you say "involved" do you include engineers too or just founders? Is it normal for some startups to make their engineers work so much that they cannot have any hobby other than gym?
You may think your hyper growth startup needs 100% of your time, but that pressure is all in your head. Whether you work yourself to the point of exhaustion, or you take it at a reasonable pace, your chance of succeeding is still the same (extremely low.)
I've recently (since about 5 months) started learning Piano (or rather, keyboard) and I've looked forward to playing it everyday. It's relaxing and helps me reduce the stress. Plus, it helps me get out of my comfort zone and give me wonderful new perspective on things.
And for the past 2 months, I am also taking tennis lessons, and they've had unexpected positive influences on my life. I am waking early everyday to play, I've improved my stamina, and I get a solid sleep at the end of the day because physical activity tires out over the day and you easily sleep.
I'm trying to learn guitar and although I mostly enjoy it, I can't say I look forward to my 30 minutes of practice each day (although once I'm going I usually go long).
Precisely, even at the micro level. Coding a video platform is different than coding an analytics system. 90% of coding is research and lots of that is done without as another commenter said money+deadline, ie. not a contract. Musk surely has lots of hobbies and Hammock Driven Development happens (Rich Hickey/Clojure style). If Musk ever starts getting chubby then I’ll worry—elsewhere in thread I qualify this.
My hobby remained my hobby even when it started making money. It wasn't until I started focusing on profit where it ceased to be a hobby and started feeling like work.
Elon Musk doesn't appear to be motivated by profit and therefore he doesn't need a hobby. Besides, what cooler hobby could there be than building rockets.
He’s a smart guy, he knows that the whole Mars thing is just PR for people who want to believe. Musk is a marketing genius, but when you strip away the money he’s in it for money and power.
I think of it as axiomatic that nobody is really in it for the money, as that is just a placeholder for the ability to do things or comparative status.
When you say he's in it for power, that sounds like you think of power as meaning power over other people, but why can't he be primarily motivated by seeking power over nature - which living on Mars might amount to the ultimate example of?
So how come this is specific to founders of companies?
And I am not conviced having side projects as a fronted developer makes you a better developer unless you push yourself really hard.
What is more likely to make you better developer in any job is working with people who have a lot of experience and are willing to share it. So not necessarily a hobby, or you have to spend a lot of time yourself to discover and think about a lot of concepts, at which point is not really a hobby, more like college.
And i would argue also about hiking being a hobby, i never go hiking, but i love walking around the city like a maniac, is that a hoby? oh well maybe, but i’d say it would be more correct to say that you need to relax and gain strength for next working day, how exactly to do it you have to findout for yourself cos not everyone is the same...
I don't know... I feel like the only hobby you should have with a start up going is exercise. I also understand needing other unstructured off time besides exercise but really... a hobby? If you want to have a hobby you probably shouldn't be trying to start a business...
I really question the intelligence of any founder who thinks the way you do.
I give a lot of lee-way to people when it comes to learning lessons, but this idea that your mind should be on your business 24/7 and nothing else, and that that is somehow healthy... I mean, I don't even know how it's controversial for Josh to say people need to do stuff outside of work.
I am a huge believer that we, as founders, should apply the same standards to ourselves as we do to employees. Enforce personal time and vacations, that sort of thing. If it's healthy for an employee, it's healthy for you, and your business doesn't need one of its founders to burn out.
The artificial "must do everything now right now" rush comes from "Funding will run out!" and "We must be first to market!". Those things will happen either way if you lose one of your founders to burnout along the way. Or even if you don't lose them, your productivity will sink like a horse in wet toilet paper if you don't give yourself limits.
Furthermore, "funding will run out if I don't rush" is usually a sign you've taken on funding too early. Give yourself enough time early on.
I'm particularly sensible to all this because I've seen how the games industry has abused employees in the past (and this keeps happening, although less), the same way a lot of founders abuse themselves today. Ridiculous deadlines, trading employee health for "code crunch" as if there's just a lot of ones and zeroes to type until you're done.
Don't pull regular all-nighters, don't order KFC every day because you "don't have time to cook", don't stop reading/gaming/watching TV (that business meeting email can wait until tomorrow). And for god sake, don't neglect your personal life to the point of losing your boyfriend/girlfriend/SO, there's nothing like losing your partner to precipitate burnout.
I've even seen some founders rave about things like the Mythical Man-Month and then stay up 36 hours to "work more on their business", as if sleep wouldn't catch up on them anyway. Dumb, toxic culture.
Hobbies take a lot of time. You need to sleep, eat, relax, exercise and spend time with family. There is no room in there for a hobby if you are starting a company. If you want to have hobbies it is more realistic to get a job.
Yes, creating a company from scratch is hard. It's a lot of work. Part of that work is taking care of yourself and your cofounders.
If you want to create a successful company, there's no room not to do those things. At best you'll burn out. If somehow your company survives, you probably won't like the culture you created.
To be clear: I'm not saying "don't work hard". I'm saying that if you think you can make it by cutting out all personal time, you don't have the stamina you think you do. Almost nobody does, you're not the exception, and even if you are, you're gambling your company with your own life which, in startup lingo, is what we call a "dumb move".
In one year someone will post an article about how burnout destroyed their business, and I will look for your comment saying "I was totally committed to my business, didn't even have a hobby or anything for fun, and I ended up wandering downtown naked, unaware of where or who I was".
If business founders shouldn't have a hobby should they also not have a family or other activities that could (or will) require non-work time commitments?
Two birds, one stone: make your hobby something active... I do powerlifting. Adding pounds on the bar week/week is the only metric I'm confident will keep going up ;)
You’re downvoted and my managers always make me look like a slacker for holding this one singular hobby/2 routines. Each one, while they are chubby and often have poor posture, fooling themselves into thinking they’re on turbo—nope. I can do 12x6 forever but don’t F with my 3-4pm empty gym slot which effectively saves time. Superman. Even when the gym was in the same building. Hour lunch out of office is the other. A couple workspaces have given me hell for this, and I just quit at first sign now. Last workplace was 4 people total and of course my supervisor was the fat ass and others did marathons and crossfit—guess how that went. I do judge workplaces based on fitness level; mind-body.
A true hobby is something that you don't do for money and that has no deadlines attached.
Once you start accepting payment to do something, someone else is setting expectations for your work. If you are a pretty good hobbyist photographer, one of the worst things you can do is shoot a wedding. Shooting a wedding, even for professional photographers, is one of the highest stress environments possible for photography.
If you have deadlines associated with your hobby, what happens if they "slip"? For example, if you set an artificial deadline to make your first ambitious Arduino project that will do something that will make your friends impressed and you get stuck somewhere, does it really matter?
Nothing needs to be said about the combination of paid work and deadlines. That is not hobbying, that is contracting. A long time ago, I did some subcontracting on iOS development. Beautiful weekend? Didn't matter. Monday deadline for client. Sucked.