<story><title>The modern trap of turning hobbies into hustles (2019)</title><url>https://repeller.com/trap-of-turning-hobbies-into-hustles/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>A common theme of the most successful people that come through a mentoring group that I&amp;#x27;m part of is that they don&amp;#x27;t have side projects or side hustles. They focus their time and energy on doing one thing very well, whether it&amp;#x27;s education, their internship, or their job.&lt;p&gt;Somewhere along the line, tech students got the idea that the key to success is to have many side projects and side hustles going at once. While it is true that in very narrow, specific cases something like a GitHub project could fill in gaps in a resume, it&amp;#x27;s rare that companies even look at GitHub work as the deciding factor in a hiring decision. It&amp;#x27;s too easy to let your energy, attention, and motivation get diluted across too many side projects. The problem is amplified when people start entering relationships and eventually having kids, further diluting their limited time and energy.&lt;p&gt;Some of the worst offenders are things that don&amp;#x27;t necessarily feel like a side hustle but nevertheless drain inordinate amounts of time. Daytrading stocks and cryptocurrencies commonly traps people into constantly checking their phone, Twitter, and portfolio to avoid losing money or missing out on breaking news. The pocket change most people make (or lose) on day trading is lost in the noise relative to a successful tech career.&lt;p&gt;The best advice I have for career success is to pick one thing at a time and focus intently on it. Use your off time to do anything else: Social activities, physical activities, or even simply relax and recharge for the next day.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s better to do one thing well (usually your job) rather accumulate a lot of half-finished side projects or side hustles that are constantly stealing attention.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>CosmicShadow</author><text>To follow this advice, you have to:
A) Be the type of person who can focus on only one thing
B) Love not learning or doing other fun things because a career trumps all things in life
C) Like putting all your eggs in one basket and hoping your career or skill is always relevant
D) Love being the best you can be for the benefit of your boss
E) Want to work in a career for the rest of your life&lt;p&gt;Of course the most successful people you mentor are the ones who are only doing what you are guiding them to do and aren&amp;#x27;t distracted by life, it doesn&amp;#x27;t mean they are better.&lt;p&gt;This sounds like propaganda given by the CEO to have more effective employees. There is no doubt that focus can help you improve and get there faster, but at what cost and with what life goals?&lt;p&gt;Side hustles can be fun, profitable and life changing. We&amp;#x27;ve got at least 3 that has allowed my partner to reduce her work hours to 4 days a week and generates half of her salary. We can buy fun stuff and business expense it and if we continue to improve we can gain more control and freedom.&lt;p&gt;Original post was about having hobbies and not feeling guilty about not turning them into side businesses. It would be better if our culture was set as a default to say &amp;quot;that&amp;#x27;s awesome, it&amp;#x27;s so good you could sell it if you were so inclined, but feel no pressure to do so, I just want you to know it&amp;#x27;s that good&amp;quot;, instead of saying &amp;quot;you should make a store&amp;#x2F;service to sell your hobby&amp;quot; and make people feel bad, even though it&amp;#x27;s just a compliment.</text></comment>
<story><title>The modern trap of turning hobbies into hustles (2019)</title><url>https://repeller.com/trap-of-turning-hobbies-into-hustles/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>PragmaticPulp</author><text>A common theme of the most successful people that come through a mentoring group that I&amp;#x27;m part of is that they don&amp;#x27;t have side projects or side hustles. They focus their time and energy on doing one thing very well, whether it&amp;#x27;s education, their internship, or their job.&lt;p&gt;Somewhere along the line, tech students got the idea that the key to success is to have many side projects and side hustles going at once. While it is true that in very narrow, specific cases something like a GitHub project could fill in gaps in a resume, it&amp;#x27;s rare that companies even look at GitHub work as the deciding factor in a hiring decision. It&amp;#x27;s too easy to let your energy, attention, and motivation get diluted across too many side projects. The problem is amplified when people start entering relationships and eventually having kids, further diluting their limited time and energy.&lt;p&gt;Some of the worst offenders are things that don&amp;#x27;t necessarily feel like a side hustle but nevertheless drain inordinate amounts of time. Daytrading stocks and cryptocurrencies commonly traps people into constantly checking their phone, Twitter, and portfolio to avoid losing money or missing out on breaking news. The pocket change most people make (or lose) on day trading is lost in the noise relative to a successful tech career.&lt;p&gt;The best advice I have for career success is to pick one thing at a time and focus intently on it. Use your off time to do anything else: Social activities, physical activities, or even simply relax and recharge for the next day.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s better to do one thing well (usually your job) rather accumulate a lot of half-finished side projects or side hustles that are constantly stealing attention.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>evo</author><text>I think there&amp;#x27;s always inherent tradeoffs to specialization vs. generalization, and side projects&amp;#x2F;side hustles are more of a generalization technique. It feels rather akin to the &amp;quot;exploration vs exploitation&amp;quot; tradeoff in AI; do you search the space for better opportunities, or maximally refine the opportunity you have?&lt;p&gt;Specialization is great, if the specialty you choose ends up being important or highly in-demand. For example, everyone wants to be the Geoffrey Hinton of the 21st century, a luminary in deep learning. Not too many people want to be the Geoffrey Hinton of 1986, publishing back-propagation into an AI winter and subsequent decades-long disinterest. It&amp;#x27;s hard to know which one you&amp;#x27;ll be (or in the above, both!)&lt;p&gt;Side projects and hustles allow you to broaden your toolbox and see potentially interesting crossovers. &amp;quot;It&amp;#x27;s like [X] for [Y]!&amp;quot; is a cliche startup pitch at this point, but it&amp;#x27;s true that a lot of cool ideas arise from applying principles of one field in a widely disparate area.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think that it&amp;#x27;s particularly wrong to choose one route or the other--I admire the specialists I know, even as I know that&amp;#x27;s not something I can replicate. I&amp;#x27;m too enamored of the possibilities, and cognizant of the brevity of my lifespan, to be able to commit like that.</text></comment>