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Comment by realharo | Hacker News Reader

>Joy of tinkering - build projects, try out frameworks, build stuff on the side. Keeps the spark alive.

>Tech detox — Recharging away from your monitor makes you a better programmer.

Aren't these the opposite of each other? Do build stuff on your own time, but don't spend your own time on the computer?

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I do both. I’ve got lots of not computer hobbies (and kids) and I have tinker projects. I usually use early morning a couple days a week for tinker time as I’m an early riser.

Nope,

Go above and beyond, but still close tickets = work 60 hrs/week

Do a tech detox = you better not have family to visit, because every vacation has to be about recovery from work.

Do side projects = what are kids ?

All of these these posts are written with a massive dose of cognitive dissonance.

Make US top 1 percentile wages, but live with the emotional security of a daily wage earner. Amazing !

You can do the one after the other. When on vacation, no tech. When at home, one weekend a month (or some afternoons), do some tinkering and learning

I'm general I feel icky about people telling employees how they should spend their free time.

I'm keeping an open mind, that's my initial reaction but if what follows is interesting then it has value nonetheless. In this case it's just 2 generalities that don't really help anyone, akin to me saying that to live a better life you should have a good work-life balance.

Everybody knows that, I'm not bringing anything that they can reflect about or act upon.

Yeah, I’m also quite conflicted on this. I don’t like the way the industry expects this to some extent. At the same time most of my learning comes from tinkering outside of work and some larger initiatives have started from me hacking around on parts of a work codebase or open source dependency on the weekend or after work.

A neat trick would be for a company to say “you work 40 hours but 5 of those can be anytime you want 24/7 - and you can tinker. That would be a perk. some people can just do the normal 5 days but others might do stuff at the weekend because it is when they want to do it. I believe tinkering is essential for productivity not Jirafying evey minute of paid time. Software is non-linear. A tinker could lead to an entire team-quarter of work saved.

The Ayns will say do those 5 in addition you lazy bastard to which I say OK then I will do them for my own IP/ideas.

Advice on being a better professional from a colleague and an employer dictating my free time usage are entirely different things. This thread is very clearly about the former.

I mean obviously you can do both, why be so obtuse?

With a full-time job, your time will be quite limited. If you want to learn/read (on more than 1 subject), build something with what you've learned, and still have enough time for other things, chores, not to mention fun, you will eventually find you have to give something up, or do it in a very limited fashion.

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