[watwut]

My experience with such outlets is that I then put less effort into work and people around. And my observation of people who have super intellectually involved hobbies is that they do too. I can use prime mental effort for work and thinking about world around me. Or into difficult hobby (chess, electronics was for me a little). But if I do spend time with difficult hobby I am tired for work which requires focus. If I fully focus on work so I do my maximum, then I am too tired for chess. If I was not, I could be coding faster.

So for me, intellectual hobbies correlate with when project in work are boring or unmotivating (there are such periods).