Anything social to do? Find a class or workshop for something you enjoy. Go to a bar (they often have games), library, college campus, public park with courts to play on, etc. theres always things to do.

You could practise not needing constant dopamine? Being bored is not deadly, and if anything it can boost your creativity towards your creative hobbies. Practise seeing the good in being bored instead of constantly try to kill the boredom.

Gardening and cooking. Plant some veggies or herbs used in your favorite recipes. Start a sourdough starter. Then when they ripen, use them to cook with. Feed that back into planning the garden for next year. Low cost, small chunks of time spread out over months, high personal reward.

i’ve realized in the last few years that i spend my biggest chunk of time out of work – and by far – with the community bottoms in my city, so it’s become a de facto hobby.

i suspect that it’ll never run out until i’m too old or out of shape, given how intrinsically tied to human nature it is.

If your free time is required to be spent optimally then you aren’t experiencing the actual freedom of it. If what you want to do is nothing then do nothing.

Catch up with loved ones. Volunteer with your local mutual aid group. Join a local sports club.

I do my future self favors!

Oftentimes I may want to listen to a podcast or whatever, but don’t have anything specific to do with my hands. So I tend to tackle tasks that don’t get done daily - cleaning the microwave, folding and putting away the clean laundry, vacuuming, making my bed, weeding the garden, etc.

There’s always something that needs doing around the house. And it’s very calming and enjoyable to be able to come home to everything in it’s place and no weird smells from the kitchen haha

When I’m burnt out from programming, I tend to just play some video games. Depending on how fried my brain is, it might be simple, mindless games like Brotato or Slime Rancher, or maybe something more complex like a survival game.

If I am actually bored, I also start cleaning things you don’t usually clean. Footboards, light switches, the fridge… Put away stuff you won’t use in the next month.
But right now I am considering to put cooking from chores to hobby category in my mind. If I try to look at it as fun instead of have to - I think I will do it more. And my sourdough starter is ready to go also.

I like crochet or knitting. When I’m working on something, there’s usually a period where I do have to focus on the task, but once I get going, I love how I can just do it ambiently, as I’m either doing something else, or nothing at all — I used to take crochet to my university lectures, and it actually helped me to focus on the lecture.

Similarly, when I made a chainmaille hauberk, I liked how easily I could just zone out once I had a bag of rings and I just needed to interlock them, using pliers. When I was piecing all of it together, I needed to focus, but I spent tens of hours just mindlessly linking rings together

Sometimes I just watch movies and short series.

personally like watching ones not made in my country as of late. Its fun to see stuff from other cultures. HBO has a fuck ton of old movies, even back in the 1930’s. Those are fun sometimes too.

I have a lot of hobbies. Sometimes, all I can do is take a break and watch Tv.

I take naps

Maybe read a book?

Devolve into anxiety

Panic cry and panic more. Not having a special interest to dive completely into causes a lot of panic and anxiety. Usually because once I’m done with a hyper fixation there isn’t a lot of options because of waves at everything. So just usually panic and cry.