I code/do technical work outside work for a number of reasons: 1) I have a problem I want to solve- like making Christmas lights synced to music or building a

I code/do technical work outside work for a number of reasons: 1) I have a problem I want to solve- like making Christmas lights synced to music or building a speed camera out of a raspberry pi (although those mostly use prebuilt solutions) 2) I saw something cool I want to try. I never build anything to publish, just to scratch a curiosity itch. 3) it’s advent of code time. I never do more than a few of them, but I find the puzzles fun. 4) My kids ask me to (this happens surprisingly often- Minecraft mods, websites for selling their artwork, coding a simple game with them) I also maintain a blog that gets a little technical, but so far no code there. Finally, my work sponsors internal hackathons, which I make time to participate in. The doesn’t really count though as it is done on with time. I don’t spend a ton of time coding outside work, but it naturally fits into my life at serendipitous moments.