Making time for the hobby

[Richard Hutchings]

I'm in a bit of a woodworking funk right now. I don't know if it's got anything to do with my age, 68, or what. Here's the deal. I love reading about woodworking and watching videos. Prior to YT I used to get up at 5:30 and head to my shop and do stuff. Now I get up, make coffee and watch YT until it's time to go to my job. I then complain to myself about not doing any woodworking. I need to get out of this new routine and get back to the old. Weekend woodworking isn't cutting it for me. Maybe I need a shrink or maybe some of you have the same problem and and have overcome it. What have you got.

[Jason Buresh]

Well, I have found there to be lots of reasons.

Is your shop a mess? Are you stuck in the middle of a project that you lost interest on? Are you stressed out about a project?

I get the same way sometimes. I get stressed about a bigger project or just lack the interest to start something at the moment. I too am always reading books on woodworking and watching YouTube.

The best way I find is to do something you want to do or make a small project. Small projects that are stress free and can be completed quickly are a good way to bust a slump. Make a small cutting board, a mallet, something. Just make sure you have fun doing it.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

I have resolved to spend less time on the web and actually make something. We even got rid of our internet provider and landline. Now using a free hot spot checked out from the library. You have 10 years on me and I am already thinking about how to get away from the really big distraction, the job. I just bumped in to an old shop-mate, recently retired, burnt out on general wood working, very excited about Naval Architecture. He is building really neat boats.

[Thomas Wilson]

In the evening, make a to-do list. Draw the project. Then go to bed early. I say that but I confess it is hard.

[Richard Hutchings]

Jason, you hit on a couple of things that ring true. I'm in the middle of building a deck, which I really don't enjoy doing. That's not something I would work on before work so it shouldn't be an issue. The other thing is a guitar I was working on took a turn for the worst right before finishing started. I don't have any desire to complete the finishing job now.

Maurice, I don't think I'm burnt out on woodworking. I get excited if I go into my shop and sharpen my pocket knives. I do love making things sharp!

Maybe starting this thread will be the impetus for getting off the couch or not even sitting down when I get up. I think the path I'm taking is the quickest way to the grave and I don't like it. Having said that, tomorrow morning, I'm going to bring my coffee cup into the shop and do something, I'm not sure what. That could be the problem as well. Maybe finish my saw til that I sort of quit on.

Thanks for listening.

[James Pallas]

Hi Richard, I have a few years on you. I’ve had the same thing happen at times. My cure is to pick the job I like the least and focus on it to completion. There is a great relief in this and you then can get back to fun. It also helps me to do a project entirely for fun. With that I mean doing something with no reason or use. I just pick up my carving knife and carve a little bear or a fish or something knowing all along that I have more pressing things to be done. It’s kind of a guilty escape like sneaking the last piece of cake.
Jim

[Richard Hutchings]

James, I like doing quick little projects when I get like this, just to have a reason to walk into the shop. I think I need to wrap my head around finishing that guitar, warts and all.

[Richard Coers]

What's to be in a funk about? Let's see, a World War, pandemic with loss of friends, laws and all political decisions have to be decided in courts, you are likely going to more funerals than any other time of your life, and you are in the last couple decades of productive work. I only know one guy who is still highly productive in my group of woodworking friends, and even he has slowed. Just a stage of life Richard, I'm 69 and had an echocardiogram today. As that productive guy I told you about always says, "life is like a roll of toilet paper, it goes faster as it nears the end."

[Richard Hutchings]

That's a pretty bleak outlook Richard. While there's a lot of truth in what you said, I'm not ready to succumb to it.

I sat on the couch this morning and enjoyed a cup of coffee, sans TV, and then headed down to the shop. It was a great feeling to just overcome the laziness for this one morning. I picked up where I left off on my saw til project. As I was considering options for wood choices and joinery, I thought, damn, if I wasn't into traditional hand tools, I could bang this entire thing out in about an hour with a good plan an power tools and pocket holes. What's the fun in that! So I continue to torture myself with handplanes and chisels and saws because without a challenge, why bother.

I want to make a scratch stock tool and add a little flare to this thing, just because. That will be a new challenge.

[Luke Dupont]

What's to be in a funk about? Let's see, a World War, pandemic with loss of friends, laws and all political decisions have to be decided in courts, you are likely going to more funerals than any other time of your life, and you are in the last couple decades of productive work. I only know one guy who is still highly productive in my group of woodworking friends, and even he has slowed. Just a stage of life Richard, I'm 69 and had an echocardiogram today. As that productive guy I told you about always says, "life is like a roll of toilet paper, it goes faster as it nears the end."


You guys have it easy. At least you have some hope of retiring still.

I'm 34. As the meme goes, "My retirement plan is total Societal Collapse."

My planning for retirement has become as much about prepping as financial planning, as any positive prospect of the latter is, quite honestly, not very realistic at the moment.

Lately, I've pretty much decided to enjoy Woodworking for as long as possible while the World rushes headlong into ruin. I have to do something to stay sane with all of the madness. Woodworking is a good escape where I can just focus on making something nice. That's as good a reason as any to get out into the shop... errr, step to the other side of my apartment room office.

Martial Arts and Bushcraft are great pursuits for this sort of escapism as well. Perhaps a little more challenging with age though.

I've always been a very ambitious person with a ton of hobbies and interests and bounce between them though. I'm not a "Woodworker." Woodworking is just one of my passions, along side many others. I'll focus on one for 2-3 years, get bored/burnt out, focus on another for 2-3 years, and then go back to the old one, rotating between them, occasionally adding something new, but always returning to a few core passions. Depth and breadth. I think this is the case for many people, and there's nothing wrong with it. If you're burnt out from woodworking, take a break and do something else you've been wanting to, and come back to woodworking when you have the inspiration to do something that you absolutely have to do. Or maybe mix things up and combine woodworking and electronics, or wood and metal, or wood and leather, etc.

[Richard Hutchings]

I'm with you on the tons of hobbies. I've been a musician all my life and played in a bluegrass band for quite a bit. I play guitar, banjo, fiddle and mandolin. Fishing was a passion in my youth. I've tried HO trains for a couple of years and completely revamped my shop into a train room. I'm glad that's over with. Then there was golf. I found it more aggravating than fun. Archery for a number of years until I developed trigger finger.

I built a few F5 mandolins. I started building a dreadnought guitar and made more mistakes than anything I ever did, I need to start the second one to recover my sanity. I never really had any desire to build furniture outside of some things I made for my kids when they were growing up using the cheapest materials I could get. I made a desk entirely out of wafer board that my daughter used throughout her school years. I'm not sure what to do now but I'm getting my feet wet with some shop stuff starting with my saw vise and tail-vise rebuild and a saw til with some dovetailing. I don't think I'm bored with woodworking at all because there are so many ways to enjoy it.

All that said, I would like to finish up some projects that have been around for a long time. A couple of carved mandolins, a violin and 2 dreadnoughts. For some reason, I still love reading the furniture make escapades on this forum.

[Luke Dupont]

I'm with you on the tons of hobbies. I've been a musician all my life and played in a bluegrass band for quite a bit. I play guitar, banjo, fiddle and mandolin. Fishing was a passion in my youth. I've tried HO trains for a couple of years and completely revamped my shop into a train room. I'm glad that's over with. Then there was golf. I found it more aggravating than fun. Archery for a number of years until I developed trigger finger.

I built a few F5 mandolins. I started building a dreadnought guitar and made more mistakes than anything I ever did, I need to start the second one to recover my sanity. I never really had any desire to build furniture outside of some things I made for my kids when they were growing up using the cheapest materials I could get. I made a desk entirely out of wafer board that my daughter used throughout her school years. I'm not sure what to do now but I'm getting my feet wet with some shop stuff starting with my saw vise and tail-vise rebuild and a saw til with some dovetailing. I don't think I'm bored with woodworking at all because there are so many ways to enjoy it.

All that said, I would like to finish up some projects that have been around for a long time. A couple of carved mandolins, a violin and 2 dreadnoughts. For some reason, I still love reading the furniture make escapades on this forum.


One thing you need to do, which I myself am *really* *really* bad at, is prioritize your work / tasks. Pick one project. List up the tasks that need to be done. Do the next one necessary to move on, especially if it's a task you don't like. That'll get the momentum going.

I'm at a stage in my life where I have extremely limited time. I don't really have time for woodworking, but I make it. This means I have to be super intentional about how I use my time -- something I don't normally do.

And, you know what? I'm way more productive than when I was a single college graduate with a part time job and all the time in the world... Something about limitations really helps.

Sometimes I just lack motivation for any given project. That can be *okay* actually. Sometimes there's just nothing I really want to build so badly. I have a hard time being motivated to make something just for the sake of it. Most of the time, I want to make something because there's something that I really want, which you can't even buy if you wanted to, so I make it. Maybe find such a project that motivates you. Or maybe you have too many such projects that you've started and lost momentum on? In that case, think about the end result and which project you really want to see finished / would enjoy using for years to come. Let that help you decide / find motivation again. Visualization is a powerful tool.

[Prashun Patel]

I am also in a funk. As a hobbyist, how many tables, bowls, guitars, cutting boards, etc can one make? It's just the same old stuff over and over again. The way to make it fresh is to pick a different skill.

I'm excited about spoon carving for the next couple months. It also appeals to me that I can do a bunch of it outside. As I'm getting older I appreciate connecting to nature and outdoors more than being in the shop.

The second thing that gets me engaged is making things for others.

The third thing that gets invigorated is trying to master a new skill. Right now I'm trying to turn a chair leg without vibration. Without the pressure of a project, the discrete goal is fun and challenging.

[James Pallas]

LOL about this thread. Got to thinking. When you are retired everything can be a hobby because you no longer have a “job” and the responsibilities that go with it. You only have obligations, pay your bills, check the mail and such. The rest you can do when you want. In the course of a day I do many different things at the time i want to do them. So far today starting at 4 i cleaned up a little in the shop from yesterday, made some coffee and breakfast, spent a couple of hours mowing, played with the dog, watched a show on you tube, took a shower and talked with you all. I have plenty on the list that I can do when I want. For now I think I’ll watch the birds at the feeder. Maybe I’ll go work in the garden or do something in the shop later. All hobby work for the most part. And for Luke. We always will face things to worry about that are bad. My big ones were polio, Hong Kong flu, fear of atomic attack, market crashes to take retirement funds, a trip to Vietnam, heart attack, bad back and now covid. Now I’m just a hobbyist 😁
Jim

[Scott Winners]

I originally registered here because I was doing actual wood work in my shop, and when I got stuck my internet searches brought me here consistently. So I registered. Then more or less simultaneously the pandemic hit and I got sucked in to substituting being here for actual shop time.

At the end of the day, being online here is more screen time, and I get enough of that on the clock. In 2022 I am making a conscious effort to stop by here every once in a while to contribute where I can, but also minimize my screen time by actually being out in my shop doing shop stuff with my free time. We do have a legitimate community here; but if I spend all my time here and none actually in my shop doing stuff I will have nothing to contribute.

[Richard Hutchings]

I hear you Scott. I still spend the majority of my time in front of a screen because I still work. My job allows me to keep tabs on the forum while I work. It's the only thing that keeps me sane waiting for that mystical retirement day. Only 19 months give or take, to go. Crossing my fingers that my health will stay for another 10 years after, hey that's a band, shhhhh.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Think about doing projects that give back and enrich life. Freedom Pens is a great example. My friend who claims to be "burnt out on general woodworking" loves building boats, he is also excited about sailing. Richard Hutchings list of hobbies is a great example of interactive creativity. It is fun to make things. It is fun to have fun using or playing with things things you have made. A quiet, skilled, carver gave our son a wooden spoon to add to his camping rig. Getting that spoon out never fails to bring smiles all around. I Read "The Traditional Bowers's Bible" and hope to keep trying to make a long bow. Staying positive should not feel like work, sometimes it dose.

The Traditional Bowers's Bible vol 1 ISBN
1721670076, 9781721670079

[Luke Dupont]

Think about doing projects that give back and enrich life. Freedom Pens is a great example. My friend who claims to be "burnt out on general woodworking" loves building boats, he is also excited about sailing. Richard Hutchings list of hobbies is a great example of interactive creativity. It is fun to make things. It is fun to have fun using or playing with things things you have made. A quiet, skilled, carver gave our son a wooden spoon to add to his camping rig. Getting that spoon out never fails to bring smiles all around. I Read "The Traditional Bowers's Bible" and hope to keep trying to make a long bow. Staying positive should not feel like work, sometimes it dose.

The Traditional Bowers's Bible vol 1 ISBN
1721670076, 9781721670079





This is me.

I got into woodworking because I wanted to build specific things that enrich my life.

Bows and arrows, training weapons for my Martial Arts practice, instruments, camping / bushcraft gear, and all kinds of very specific things, many which I still enjoy decades later (and some of which I did an amazingly good job on despite having no knowledge or proper tools or workholding devices, if I may say so myself! I was making things with wood and hand tools long before I had any idea what I was doing :D).

I love things that function and have life to them. That's why I never built much in the way of furniture I guess. Traditional bows or instruments are great fun and should definitely be a good way to bring some fun back in.

Another great way is to do some projects (bows might fit into this category, as would any carving) which require less accuracy and fuss. It can be a huge joy to just shape things with a hatchet and a knife, or a draw knife, and let everything take shape organically. I really, really love working on such things.

[Jack Frederick]

I retired at 70 and it took a while to understand that I no longer had to answer the bell. I have done so. Not a small thing when you have worked for 60 yrs. I’m not a psychologist but upcoming big changes are worth a bit of thought. Hind sight is marvelous;) I’m rolling up to 74 and while I can still put in a day, that day is shorter. Conditioning is important to protect the energy you do have. I’m surprised taht I’ve been doing yoga (Yoga with Adriene on YT) with my wife for a bit over 1.5 yrs. Dropping 20+# I am back to my college weight. That isn’t a real cause for rejoicing as the distribution of the weight is far different than 50 yrs ago, but as you age, muscle mass declines and your strength is in flexibility and range of motion. Conditioning protects your head too. Interest in a hobby will wax and wane. It drives me nuts when I don’t get out to the shop. When I’m nuts enough I get out there. Sometimes I will only sweep or re-arrange, but I get closer to the work. There is a balance out there somewhere. I’m still looking for it. Let me know if you find it. Good luck on the guitar. I can’t wait to see and hear it.

[Scott Clausen]

I am 60 and eyeing and looking forward to retirement. I am also eyeing a 1100 point dip in the Dow so owning my own company the date is a moving target. Due to SSA and other factors I am thinking 65 to 68 is a soft target. I started woodworking because I needed something to "do" when that day arrives because daytime (and frankly nigh time) TV sucks. I look forward to having time to "putter" all day.

To the OP, three things that work for me are 1) find a small project like a box to make, 2) make something for the shop to fix a need 3) My favorite, pick a project that is beyond your ability to do. It may not be a work of art but it will challenge you, grow your mind & skill set. Always good for me.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

I retired at 70 and it took a while to understand that I no longer had to answer the bell. I have done so. Not a small thing when you have worked for 60 yrs. IÂ’m not a psychologist but upcoming big changes are worth a bit of thought. Hind sight is marvelous;) IÂ’m rolling up to 74 and while I can still put in a day, that day is shorter. Conditioning is important to protect the energy you do have. IÂ’m surprised taht IÂ’ve been doing yoga (Yoga with Adriene on YT) with my wife for a bit over 1.5 yrs. Dropping 20+# I am back to my college weight. That isnÂ’t a real cause for rejoicing as the distribution of the weight is far different than 50 yrs ago, but as you age, muscle mass declines and your strength is in flexibility and range of motion. Conditioning protects your head too. Interest in a hobby will wax and wane. It drives me nuts when I donÂ’t get out to the shop. When IÂ’m nuts enough I get out there. Sometimes I will only sweep or re-arrange, but I get closer to the work. There is a balance out there somewhere. IÂ’m still looking for it. Let me know if you find it. Good luck on the guitar. I canÂ’t wait to see and hear it.

My Father In law has a term for this physical condition. It is called Furniture Disorder
(when your chest falls unto your drawers)

[Richard Hutchings]

Yeah, unless your hobby is body building. It's certainly not mine :-)

[Tom Bender]

If the guitar is a roadblock it might be time for a campfire, allowing you to move on.

[Richard Hutchings]

I've considered it.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Richard, There ought to a law with no bail burn a guitar and you go to jail. If you have the chops for an F-5 mandolin you can make a guitar happen. I tried to do a guitar building apprenticeship. Studying the book Guitar-building Tradition and Technology would have been time better spent.


ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0811806404

[Richard Hutchings]

I scraped through the side trying to level after the fact. You can actually see the end of a brace.

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Binding usually covers the ends of the braces. do you have any images?

[Richard Coers]

That's a pretty bleak outlook Richard. While there's a lot of truth in what you said, I'm not ready to succumb to it.

I sat on the couch this morning and enjoyed a cup of coffee, sans TV, and then headed down to the shop. It was a great feeling to just overcome the laziness for this one morning. I picked up where I left off on my saw til project. As I was considering options for wood choices and joinery, I thought, damn, if I wasn't into traditional hand tools, I could bang this entire thing out in about an hour with a good plan an power tools and pocket holes. What's the fun in that! So I continue to torture myself with handplanes and chisels and saws because without a challenge, why bother.

I want to make a scratch stock tool and add a little flare to this thing, just because. That will be a new challenge.
It is bleak Richard, and it has an affect on everyone. I've seen quite a few stories on young athletes committing suicide. It's really horrible to see that in anyone, but for young people it is a tragedy! My funk came with my Mother dying from complications of Alzheimer's. Watching the person I loved the most forgetting my name and then every single memory she ever had, knocked the sap right out of me for 3 1/2 years now. I haven't made a single thing, but changed my hobby to riding Ebikes. I put on about 2,700 miles a year. I even started selling off my stash of figured maple turning blanks. But I'm getting closer to cutting wood again.

[Richard Coers]

You guys have it easy. At least you have some hope of retiring still.

I'm 34. As the meme goes, "My retirement plan is total Societal Collapse."

My planning for retirement has become as much about prepping as financial planning, as any positive prospect of the latter is, quite honestly, not very realistic at the moment.

Lately, I've pretty much decided to enjoy Woodworking for as long as possible while the World rushes headlong into ruin. I have to do something to stay sane with all of the madness. Woodworking is a good escape where I can just focus on making something nice. That's as good a reason as any to get out into the shop... errr, step to the other side of my apartment room office.

Martial Arts and Bushcraft are great pursuits for this sort of escapism as well. Perhaps a little more challenging with age though.

I've always been a very ambitious person with a ton of hobbies and interests and bounce between them though. I'm not a "Woodworker." Woodworking is just one of my passions, along side many others. I'll focus on one for 2-3 years, get bored/burnt out, focus on another for 2-3 years, and then go back to the old one, rotating between them, occasionally adding something new, but always returning to a few core passions. Depth and breadth. I think this is the case for many people, and there's nothing wrong with it. If you're burnt out from woodworking, take a break and do something else you've been wanting to, and come back to woodworking when you have the inspiration to do something that you absolutely have to do. Or maybe mix things up and combine woodworking and electronics, or wood and metal, or wood and leather, etc.
Hope of retiring? I've been retired 8 years now and even have that unheard of thing called a traditional pension. I'm very grateful!

[Maurice Mcmurry]

Richard Coers, Traditional pension means you did your time. A dedicated career is worthy of reward! Congratulations! My good friend, recently retired from 40+ years at our local hospital, is having is so much fun in his shop I can't even get him to brag on the web. I am going to sneak in some images of his work, if I can get his permission.
Gratitude works wonders.

[Tom Bender]

Hi Luke
As you say there are two main parts to retirement planning, financial and everything else. Financial is best started as early as possible. Everything else can wait, you're only 34.

[glenn bradley]

Jason, you hit on a couple of things that ring true. I'm in the middle of building a deck, which I really don't enjoy doing.

I do find then when I am tasked with things that I don't really enjoy like painting the porch or fixing a deck my enjoyable woodworking seems to suffer as well. Certainly keeping the shop area clean and ready to go will inspire me more to do things at the bench than if I have to spend time cleaning up just so I can start.

[Luke Dupont]

Hope of retiring? I've been retired 8 years now and even have that unheard of thing called a traditional pension. I'm very grateful!

The chances that anyone from my generation will recieve a pension, Social security, or even get out of their 401k's what they put in, is rather unlikely, to say the least. 401k's might possibly come out ahead after a lost decade or two, though I'm skeptical that money won't be effectively stolen in one form or another, directly or indirectly.

About the only thing we can hope to do is invest and manage our own money, but these are the most perilous times to invest since the just prior to the Great Depression -- perhaps even more so. Even the most prudent professional money managers are struggling to figure out what is a prudent way to protect -- let alone grow, their client's savings.

That's what 50 years of falling interest rates and monetary expansion will do, I guess. One generation benefits at the cost of the next, as all debts come due in one manner or another, no matter how cleverly you kick the can down the road.

[Lawrence Duckworth]

What's to be in a funk about? Let's see, a World War, pandemic with loss of friends, laws and all political decisions have to be decided in courts, you are likely going to more funerals than any other time of your life, and you are in the last couple decades of productive work. I only know one guy who is still highly productive in my group of woodworking friends, and even he has slowed. Just a stage of life Richard, I'm 69 and had an echocardiogram today. As that productive guy I told you about always says, "life is like a roll of toilet paper, it goes faster as it nears the end."


I've been on the phone more than several times in the last month with our financial advisor,yesterday I noticed his name is just above my suicide prevention# on my phone contacts.


....likely the dumbest shit youll ever read but... Be Positive!

[mike stenson]

The chances that anyone from my generation will recieve a pension, Social security, or even get out of their 401k's what they put in, is rather unlikely, to say the least. 401k's might possibly come out ahead after a lost decade or two, though I'm skeptical that money won't be effectively stolen in one form or another, directly or indirectly.

About the only thing we can hope to do is invest and manage our own money, but these are the most perilous times to invest since the just prior to the Great Depression -- perhaps even more so. Even the most prudent professional money managers are struggling to figure out what is a prudent way to protect -- let alone grow, their client's savings.

That's what 50 years of falling interest rates and monetary expansion will do, I guess. One generation benefits at the cost of the next, as all debts come due in one manner or another, no matter how cleverly you kick the can down the road.

I'm a gen-Xer and well.. I gave up on retirement in the 90s. The 00's cemented it. I'm content to just work until I die. Unfortunately, my kids (which includes both millennial and gen-z) are left with this same mess too.

[Thomas Crawford]

Do you like to read? Shopclass as Soulcraft by Matthew Crawford, I highly recommend it (no relation).

Second, I would fast from youTube. You have to break habits. Personally I observe Lent every year and ~40 days minus Sundays is about the right time to either kick a bad habit or start a new one. This has successfully worked for me in a variety of ways - when I was younger, to stop playing video games. At some point I fasted from talk radio on my commutes and never went back. It got me reading novels again. For woodworking its long enough to start a finish a decent size project.


If you can drop it cold-turkey for 6 weeks do it, if not set aside a dedicated day or block that you watch it, and other days its off limits. There are apps that can limit your time on certain websites, set that up as a reminder or if you don't have the self-control give someone else the password and then you are locked out.

[Jim Koepke]

The chances that anyone from my generation will recieve a pension, Social security, or even get out of their 401k's what they put in, is rather unlikely, to say the least. 401k's might possibly come out ahead after a lost decade or two, though I'm skeptical that money won't be effectively stolen in one form or another, directly or indirectly.

A rather dystopian outlook in my opinion, it may be the future, hopefully not.

Upon my retirement money was a bit tight. Buying and rehabbing old tools brought in a little extra money. Making items of wood and selling them at the local farmers market made a little more. We also propagated and sold plants.

If someone is motivated there are ways to increase one's income, or make time to enjoy a hobby. Even if one has to use the time enjoying their hobby creating items to sell.

jtk

[Richard Hutchings]

A rather dystopian outlook in my opinion, it may be the future, hopefully not.

Upon my retirement money was a bit tight. Buying and rehabbing old tools brought in a little extra money. Making items of wood and selling them at the local farmers market made a little more. We also propagated and sold plants.

If someone is motivated there are ways to increase one's income, or make time to enjoy a hobby. Even if one has to use the time enjoying their hobby creating items to sell.

jtk

This IS my retirement plan. December 8 2023, or sooner :-)

[Jim Koepke]

This IS my retirement plan. December 8 2023, or sooner :-)

There isn't anyone who is going to extend your days for working longer. One of my supervisors told me about a study showing people who retired early lived longer than people who worked a few more years before retirement.

Too many of my coworkers died before retirement or shortly after retiring. That is why my plan changed from working longer to retiring sooner.

jtk

[Rob Luter]

For me there's so much to do that shop time often suffers. Woodworking tends to be a foul weather hobby for me as when it's nice out I'm doing yard work, enjoying the outside, etc. The bulk of my woodworking gets done on rainy days or in the winter. My basement shop is a nice cool respite from hot summer days though.

[Jim Koepke]

For me there's so much to do that shop time often suffers. Woodworking tends to be a foul weather hobby for me as when it's nice out I'm doing yard work, enjoying the outside, etc. The bulk of my woodworking gets done on rainy days or in the winter. My basement shop is a nice cool respite from hot summer days though.

That may be much the same for many of us who have home and yard maintenance duties.

jtk

[James Pallas]

I may not be right on this. A hobby is something that you can do for enjoyment after you have fulfilled your obligations. I try to get as much enjoyment out of obligations as hobbies. For obligations I try to have the best equipment I can afford to make work easier and many times faster. The obligations become faster and easier allowing me to get back to more enjoyable things. There is nothing worse than a mower or string trimmer or some other task tool that is hard to use. If the equipment is good the obligations seem like hobbies sometimes.
Jim

[Luke Dupont]

A rather dystopian outlook in my opinion, it may be the future, hopefully not.

Upon my retirement money was a bit tight. Buying and rehabbing old tools brought in a little extra money. Making items of wood and selling them at the local farmers market made a little more. We also propagated and sold plants.

If someone is motivated there are ways to increase one's income, or make time to enjoy a hobby. Even if one has to use the time enjoying their hobby creating items to sell.

jtk


Well, I really hope I'm wrong. I try to stay humble and don't think for a moment that I know what is going to happen -- noone does, and even the best investors and macro-economists can only speak in terms of probabilities. But, that said, I've been spot on with my "most likely case" forecasts, often against the consensus, and that's starting to scare me. I really want to be wrong more often.

My advice is not to peek under the hood. One should never, of course, expect it to be pretty under there. But "not pretty" and "impending systemic failure" are two very different things.

Of course, many back in the 70's were convinced we'd see hyper inflation in the U.S., and that things were going to come crashing down, when they didn't. We were able to kick the can down the road, and everyone benefitted greatly from 50 years of falling interest rates after that. So I often ask myself "what would I have thought back then, and what might I be missing now?"

There's a lot to learn from History, and the cycles that play out, and this is a really good tool for checking your own thinking and keeping perspective.

Anyway, despite my very negative outlook, I actually intend to stay positive. I like your examples. I'm hopeless at business endeavors and side hustles, but I have a good while before retirement to learn!

[Chuck Hill]

I suffer from depression and often have trouble getting into the shop even though I usually enjoy the time I spend there. One thing that has helped me is to just decide to spend five minutes in there at a set time (At 8:15 I will go into the shop and stay there for five minutes). It does not matter what you do: sit and think about the shop, clean up and organize a bit, work on a piece, look at some wood. Usually by then something will have picked up my interest and I will spend longer doing something or other. Regardless, I keep doing it to make it a habit. I will often then let got of the habit and have to start again. You may find the book Atomic Habits useful in regard to making (and breaking) habits.