Not really, though. I build software for a living. If I told my boss "we should make X better" they would probably want to know in what way will X be better, how much better do I want it to be, what will we gain from these improvements and approximately how long will it take me to make the improvements. That is, there should be a clear goal in mind that fits in to the bigger picture with a rough estimate of cost associated to determine if this task is worth undertaking.
For my hobby, I don't do any of this analysis. I attend a class every week and outside of class, I practice daily. I don't ask myself if it is time and money well spent, I don't have an end goal in mind (aside from the vague goal of "learning another language") or any idea how this fits in to some bigger picture. I just do it because I enjoy it. If I did all the same sort of analysis that I do at work in the context of my broader life goals, my bet is that I probably would come to the conclusion that learning this language is a waste of my time. But, what is the point of living if you spend 100% of your time achieving goals and none of your time enjoying your life. Thus, I spend time on hobbies outside of work.
In general learning foreign languages is useful for getting better in programming. It is possible that as a programmer you would get naturally attracted to such hobby.
If you went down that route, wouldn’t you include “enjoyment” as a goal, as a way your life would be “better”, and so that would get taken into account in your analysis?
Usually most people set goals that require some level of effort and/or self discipline over a longer period of time. I suppose you don't have to do this, but this is usually the standard reason for setting goals - so you can accomplish something you otherwise wouldn't if you didn't give it some special attention. Most people do things they enjoy by default - you only need to make some time for it, you don't really need to set a goal to do it.
Yeah, so this is kind of my point, actually. I like my hobbies, so they don't really require much effort and self discipline to engage in daily. If I don't have time to study one day, I don't beat myself up over it. It is just sort of my default thing to do when I have free time.
As another example, I also read fiction. I don't set goals like "I want to read X number of chapters this week" or "I want to read for X hours this week", nor do I track how much time I spend on it. It is purely for enjoyment, it doesn't matter.
For my hobby, I don't do any of this analysis. I attend a class every week and outside of class, I practice daily. I don't ask myself if it is time and money well spent, I don't have an end goal in mind (aside from the vague goal of "learning another language") or any idea how this fits in to some bigger picture. I just do it because I enjoy it. If I did all the same sort of analysis that I do at work in the context of my broader life goals, my bet is that I probably would come to the conclusion that learning this language is a waste of my time. But, what is the point of living if you spend 100% of your time achieving goals and none of your time enjoying your life. Thus, I spend time on hobbies outside of work.