Time flies while you're having fun, but then one day your bio says something about being a 30+ year veteran in software engineering. Still, I've not seen it all, let alone done it all (yet).
It doesn't work for me - no matter what interests I take up, I end up writing code to solve some problem I encounter there. You mention Music, and for me that has been the worst of any hobby for this. I bought Ableton Live (a digital audio workstation), and discovered it comes with it's own programming language, call Max For Live. Don't get me wrong, its loads of fun, but its definitely a rabbit hole!
It could also be that I'm just not very good at "switching off". I find it just leads to a kind of mental restlessness, that is anything but relaxing.
What does work for me is to have a problem of my own to work on - without time/budget pressures, or having to deal team dynamics.
It doesn't work for me - no matter what interests I take up, I end up writing code to solve some problem I encounter there. You mention Music, and for me that has been the worst of any hobby for this. I bought Ableton Live (a digital audio workstation), and discovered it comes with it's own programming language, call Max For Live. Don't get me wrong, its loads of fun, but its definitely a rabbit hole!
It could also be that I'm just not very good at "switching off". I find it just leads to a kind of mental restlessness, that is anything but relaxing.
What does work for me is to have a problem of my own to work on - without time/budget pressures, or having to deal team dynamics.
Ah yes, I fell down the Web MIDI rabbit hole not too long ago...
I quite like that hobbies generate problems for you to solve, it at least gives side projects a goal and makes them a little more interesting.