Ask HN: How do I switch from being a passive consumer to an active producer?

You seem to have missed one very valid option, the middle road, you don't have to trade free time now for free time later, there is in my opinion a happy middle ground to be had (like most thing life, politics being the primary one).

Sure you could argue that you get more free time later if you give up free time now but then you enter into the difficulty of quantifying the quality of the free time. When you are young, active and healthy you might be able to enjoy your free time more or perhaps having more money later in life allows you to do things you enjoy more, either way I feel balance is the key.

Have you checked for H.Pylori?

Would you mind explaining his you do this?

Any software you use? Modus operandi?

As someone who works a lot on the computer, producing what is essentially sequence of bits, I had the same thoughts a few years back.

What helped me alleviate this feeling of consumerism was to pick up DIY projects at home. I resolved to fix everything at home, even if I failed at it or ended up costing me more than if I'd just called professional help the first time. But, over time, I became good at it and the sense of satisfaction you get from building/fixing things with hand is wonderful at alleviating the overbearing sense of uselessness that I'd otherwise feel, clicking on 'never-ending reddit' or refreshing Facebook endlessly.

A few sample projects (fixes really), if it's of any help, that I've worked on:

1. Completely dismantle my bicycle and fix it back. I can now fix any problem that it has on my own without having to take it to a bike shop.

2. Fix a flat tire on my motorbike.

3. Leaking taps and pipes are a forte now.

4. Compost pit to convert organic kitchen waste to organic fertiliser for my garden.

5. Gardening; this takes a lot of time and I'm really not into it but when I get around to it, it gives me the most joy.

6. Fixed a DIY rack for my DTH + Playstation console

Over the last 9 months or so I have slowly moved from never blogging, releasing videos, or doing anything like that to fairly consistently releasing educational articles related to Go at https://www.calhoun.io , writing a book (+ videos for a complete course) teaching web development with Go, and releasing a few screencasts teaching algorithms with Go.

I say all that to tell you that I didn't just magically start writing every day. I started slowly. Some days I was too worn out to write, but I would try to push myself to spend 10m doing SOMETHING nearly every day.

Maybe that was writing up some quick code to see if it would make an interesting article, or maybe I would take an article idea and turn it into a rough outline, or maybe I would turn a small section of the outline into sentences and paragraphs. It didn't matter as long as I tried to build that habit of doing something.

At first it was hard but it got way easier. And 10m a day really isn't a big commitment.

As you figure out your own process you will find there are many small pieces you can work on each day that slowly help you turn whatever you want to do into a habit.

So my advice is to start with small goals that you can achieve and build on them. Maybe instead of one video a week you should try one every two weeks. If you get an extra video out, great, but if you don't you won't feel like you failed.

And regardless of what you do, don't feel like you have to do something. There are several great blogs out there that aren't regular but only have articles pop up when the author feels particularly inspired. That is okay too. A regular schedule helps build an audience but it def isn't necessary.