Balancing a screen-based job with a hands-on hobby

I spend a lot of time in front of a computer screen – almost 100% of my work hours over the past year – so I’m trying to prioritise offscreen hobbies for my days off. Most recently, that’s been sewing and mending. It’s satisfying, mindful and good for the earth. I like how ‘visible mending’ acknowledges when things have been fixed, instead of trying to make them look ‘perfect’ again.

This piece is written by a writer who works at a bakery one day a week. She interviews a photographer/osteopath, an archaeologist/milliner, and a haemotologist / furniture restorer. They all tout the benefits of screen-free activities as a second work stream to balance a desk job, but what I took out of it was that parts of our lives can be complementary to each other, and that giving yourself space is productive.

From the article:
“Personally, baking really helped my writing, not just by giving me insight into food systems, but by affording me a different environment to work in and some headspace to think. Bread making is pretty repetitive work and I’d often find myself thinking about writing while I was shaping at the bench.”