For some coding is a craft and a job. Just as I would expect a professional musician to enjoy growing in their craft and learning from their peers, so do people in other areas of life, including programming.
Do it on company time.
If you enjoy programming for its own sake, why not improve your skills in it both on and off company time?
Depending on workload you will need to watch very carefully for burnout and other mental exhaustion issues if you do this.
Not all of us are professional programmers, and especially not all of us are only professional programmers.
For me, programming for free would be painful at a cellular level.
Better to learn the piano or how to do portrait art.
And my work is not programming so coding in the morning for me is the same as you playing guitar.
Programming constantly changes and evolves. Does your employer allow you to use your work time to read journals and educate yourself on modern developments? If not, you’d better do it in your own time if you want to avoid being stuck in the past.
If your employer doesn't allot some time for you to do just that, ask them to, or find one that will.
You read journals about programming? Like research papers?
Eh, I was a hobbyist before being a pro. I love coding at home, I just won't do the same thing I do at work.