Hobby time vs Talking about Hobby time

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**Nuclear Mekanik**

Recently I have noticed that most evenings I either actually focus on hobby stuff, and get some modelling done, or more often than not, get distracted by keeping up with Dakka and get hooked into it for the entire evening and don't actually get any "Hobby" done at all.

Does anyone else find this balance difficult?? I can either spend an evening on my hobby, or spend an evening talking about it on Dakka, but not any mix of the two. Just me??

I think it's partly because I'm fussy about getting paint/glue on my good jeans that I come home from work in and can't be arsed to change, and also fear of getting paint or glue on the Macbook.

Your thoughts, possibly a poll topic but I'm not sure how to word it.

**Sean_OBrien**

Nope.

While I am at work, I talk about the hobby.

When I am at home, I generally do stuff...unless of course I am waiting on the wife for one reason or another in which case I twiddle my thumbs and talk about the hobby.

**hotsauceman1**

For me its like that too. I have a bit to paint/work on. But i dont, mainly because sometimes it gets tedious and boring.

**leohart**

Nope not really. I check Dakka at work so I hobby at home. :-) (j/k)

**wowsmash**

I do a bit of both. I'm a litte older so my neck, shoulder and back muscles start to get sore after painting for a bit. So after I start to get stiff or don't feel like being stiff the next day i hope on dakka.

**Howard A Treesong**

A lot of my Dakka time is spent passing time on the tube. Have you tried painting on a train?

**Flashman**

Yep, Dakka addict. Spend far too much time grumbling about GW and being nostalgic for the old days. I find it best to have an evening of no tv/laptop and just get on with painting.

**Necros**

Like right now, I spend most of my day at work looking at dakka through a tiny window at the bottom of my screen so no one around me can see that I'm hardly working instead of working hard. And I start going over in my head what models I'm gonna focus on when I get home and what army needs this or that. Then, when I get home I veg on the sofa for the rest of the night and forget all about whatever it was I was gonna paint.

**Zygrot24**

I tend to do a lot of waiting for my job so job time is dakka time. When I get home I stop thinking about it.

However, when my pals come over or we go to the FLGS, it can happen that we BS about games 2 hours for every 1 hour we actually play games. But that's part of the fun, right?

**Imaginos**

I spend more time talking about the hobby than I do doing the hobby. I can get online and discuss while I'm at work, but finding time between honey-do's, kids, and home commitments means doing the hobby takes back seat.

**Nuclear Mekanik**

I can Dakka at work sometimes, but it's usually quite interrupted. No real chance of P&M at work. My main issue is once I start looking at Dakka, I just get hooked in to the internetz and any hope of achieving anything that evening dies soon after. I think I need to have a laptop free evening, trouble is it's the first thing that gets opened up as I get in from work so I can fire up Spotify for music purposes. Music is pretty much a constant here when I am not at work.

**Uhlan**

Lol.

I think ALL hobbyists have days like that regardless which hobby they tend to pursue.

As I've gotten older I've experienced this more and more often. Some say it's just "life" creeping in that keeps us from the hobby. I think there's more to it than that... atleast for me.

I've always been a day-dreamer. I often found myself wandering off from reality, doodling lists of figures, crunching points and costs at work. It even bleeds over to the period just before I fall off to sleep where I think about paint schemes and "how cool it'd be" to do this, that or the other. After years of having never quite lived up to my own expectations, it began to chip away at my resolve.

Now, more and more I have trouble finding the will to push through the less fun parts of the hobby to get any real enjoyment out of it.

Don't get me wrong, I still day-dream, I still have hopes and dreams (lol), but 40k and miniatures wargaming in general doesn't consume the center of my life as it once did.

The 'bloom is off the rose"... so-to-speak.

I can't stop the day-dreaming though.

**Adam LongWalker**

Flashman wrote:
Yep, Dakka addict. Spend far too much time grumbling about GW and being nostalgic for the old days. I find it best to have an evening of no tv/laptop and just get on with painting.

Yea getting there myself though I have models all around and stop lurking to hack, slash and cobble a few plastic bits together to get out my frustration on a few idi... er maladjusted people in here. j/k of course

**KalashnikovMarine**

I spend way too much time chatting and writing and no where near enough time working on my Sisters of Space Marines...

**Pilau Rice**

Howard A Treesong wrote:
Have you tried painting on a train?

New film for Samuel L Jackson maybe?

Enough is enough! I have had it with these m*****f*****g paints on this m*****f*****g train!"

**Leigen_Zero**

I spend all my free time planning what hobby activities I'm going to do with my free time.

**oadie**

Leigen_Zero wrote:
I spend all my free time planning what hobby activities I'm going to do with my free time.

Quote of the thread, right there.

Personally, I spend way more time on Dakka than I do actually painting, let alone playing anything. I'm almost beginning to think that this is my hobby and I just painted a few models so I'd have some sliver of credibility on my usual subforum. The thing is, Dakka is so much easier than working. Even if it's rewarding... hell, even if it's actively enjoyable, the amount of physical effort required to put down just a single coat of a single color on a single model is far greater than that required to scroll down a few pages and perhaps type a response. Dakka is also easy to intersperse between other online activities, which are daily routine. I need to make time for P&M. I don't have the luxury of external internet access at work (or free time, for that matter...

), so I can't get all my interweb putzing done during the day to leave my evenings free for hobby time - I only get so much free time at the end of my day and that usually means I take the easy way out. Maybe I'll do some planning for projects I'll probably never get around to. More often than not, it means TV, perhaps a mindless video game, and Dakka. Reading about the hobby and talking about the hobby are my main ways of staying involved when energy and motivation levels mean I'm rarely going to get anything real done. I'd like for the balance to swing in the other direction, just not enough to do anything about it, apparently (I'm possessed of an enviable disposition, am I not?

).

**SickSix**

If I spent as much time on my models as I do on dakka, B&C and watching 40k videos on youtube, every single model I have would be painted.

**MightyGodzilla**

The only time I'm on Dakka currently is while I'm at work. While I'm home my time distractions come from outside the hobby. Tv, going out, doing chores, friends. But I've been fairly focused lately. I would say that I spend as much on my models, either building, painting, or prepping as much as I do here.

**SoloFalcon1138**

If I could replace my talk time with model time, my armies would be assembled, based, and painted. And one of them is a Tyranid army...

**kronk**

Talking about hobby time is hobby time!