As a software eng who has always had a lot of hobbies, it's almost alienating how so many people in the office are only into TV shows, super hero movies, sci fi books, video games... It's like, there's a whole world out there people!
The plus for most of these is that you can actually use your creations by yourself and have a great source of gifts for friends and family.
Those are all pretty low-tec-examples, but of course you could also look into diy electronics, game programming etc. For some those aren't optimal because they resemble work too much.
I would personally avoid hobbies that tend to devolve into collecting kit, e.g. photography. IMO Great activites are those where the fun part is the creative task itself, and which involve manual exertion (assuming you are a desk worker).
- Woodworking
- Car maintenance
- Gardening
- Baking
- Painting miniatures
- D&D
- Home Brewing
I currently don't have time to engage in all of them on a regular basis, but tend to cycle through them throughout the year :)
I'd also add social/multiplayer stuff (although many of these things might be improved by sharing) like team sports, a band, board games.
I took a motorcycle course over one weekend. Took the license test another weekend. Bought a bike and filled out paperwork during the week (registration & insurance). Rode almost every day for the first month, practiced maneuvers (finding the friction zone, quick stopping w/o skidding) I wasn't comfortable with in a parking lot.
Now I'm comfortable riding almost everywhere. All told, it took one weekend of high effort (motorcycle class), medium effort for one week (1-2 hours daily of either: riding, reading a motorcycle riding book, filling out paperwork, researching/coordinating/buying the bike), and low effort for the rest of the month (15 - 60 minutes of riding -- FUN).
Only took a month of effort to acquire a lifelong skill
Graphical arts, digital and analog (which covers everything from painting with all different types of paints to mixed media, large format, small format, from the side of a building to the size of a grain of rice)
These are all mostly looks-based, but you can also make things that do things, make electronics, restore old electronics, go antiquing for vinyl players, go antiquing for anything else.
Join a choir, join a band, join a barbershop quartet, go to the Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival and listen to sea shanties.
The list goes on.
And I can never tell if my coworkers don’t have cool hobbies or the urge to bring them up has been beaten out of them.
Cooking is an interesting one because I try to learn various cuisines reasonably well and some of the dishes from places like Indonesia are very complex.
All of these have the point in common that they cannot be rushed so they force a mentality of taking it slow, which I think helps with the time anxiety as well.
archery, bowling, pool, mountain biking, ice hockey, inline hockey, floorball, ultimate frisbee, sailing, windsurfing, kitesurfing, rock climbing, shooting, reloading, hunting, home improvement (has a lot of sub areas), games programming, tae kwon do, kung fu, krav maga, jiu jitsu, paint ball, role playing games, online games, being helpful on forums, scuba diving, piano, golf, camping, chinese, poker, chess, settlers of cataan, cooking.
These are all activities that I have done for at least 6 months on a regular basis.
There are many things Ive only done a few times but will definitely do in the future (surfing, snowboarding, drone flying, 3d printing,etc)
At this moment I mainly mountain bike, kitesurf, krav maga, and bjj. In the winter I will snowboard and on my next beach vacation I will hopefully surf.
I'm also into photography, graphic design, videography, fishing, surfing, and backpacking. My wife's paints.
[1] https://www.metalearth.com/aviation [2] https://www.guillow.com/ [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18504117
Just to get started: instruments/music, foreign languages, cultural events, theatre/art/design, local volunteering, civic engagement/politics, outdoor activities, cycling/sports/yoga/gym, pets, travel, investing and finance, continued education (moocs/math/history/etc), meditation, ham radio, tabletop/video/retro gaming, books/writing/blogging, gardening, woodworking, cooking. Even "programming" things totally outside your field (little overlap with your day-job) can make for a good hobby if that's your thing.
Some are more fun than others to talk about to other people but that's not the point. I find whenever I'm feeling burnt out or stressed my problem is usually that I'm focused too much on work and not getting satisfaction from the rest of life. Hobbies can make up the rest of life.
My favorite example, William Stein (https://wstein.org/). Math/CS Professor at UW - absolutely kills it on a skateboard.
Finding this hobby has given me pretty great happiness this year. I suffer from a fair bit of existential time anxiety, and anxiety over having too many consumptive "hobbies". Diving isn't exactly a constructive hobby, but it's opened up a new avenue of happiness that isn't strictly input/output for me.
For me it currently is archery, underwater hockey, running, volunteering (as swimming instructor), keeping a (planted, tropical) fish tank, learning a new language (a local Filipino dialect), electronics (home automation).
In the (in some cases distant) past (yet could come make a come back): drums, guitar, drawing, writing, photography, origami, snowboarding, reading.
I work as a(n independent) software dev by day. So programming is my job, but it is also my all time (well, since 8) favourite hobby.
I like to think that brogrammers were trying to solve this very problem. But they failed by going too aggressively the opposite direction.
Aw, come on, one of those is not like the others.