I don't know if you're a guy or lady, but there are lots of men who knit these days too.
Hey - I used to knit in 2nd grade and got tonnes of giggles because I was a boy. and my wife has crochet stuff so I was thinking of trying that soon. Gender is so irrelevant to this, though, its funny you'd bring that up cos old-fashioned people still giggle.
Who says that time-waster/rest and something that improves your life are mutually exclusive?
I've enjoyed vegetable gardening a lot. It doesn't have to be a huge time suck, depending on how much you plant. It just might save you a bit on groceries. It gets you outside and doing a bit of unchallenging physical labor. I personally find the work in the garden FAR more rewarding and cleansing than anything I do at my cubicle job.
Currently growing Zuchini and beans, jasmine, frangipani, and succulents in pots. This gets me and the kids outside. Due to kids though its more of a chore getting into the garden sometimes. Still a worthy pursuit and helps me to relax. Love the reward of seeing the plants change, and they do so surprisingly fast!
I somewhat disagree - I'm the same way, and have been getting more aggressive along those lines. I pick interesting things to do "for fun" that give me skills I think will be useful in the future.
I'll tell you my thoughts here:
1. I have lots of serious hobbies and the learning curve is not so steep anymore. I want my brain to get the payoff of learning interesting new things.
2. To remedy this, I have been doing a new hobby (Thanks for the ideas guys, the winner is:..) garageband-based music making. Specifically ambient/soundtrack/background music. Since I play guitar I tend to think of the "songs"(verse/chorus structure) I can play and that's where it ends. Now I've challenged myself to pretend that I do not play guitar at all when undertaking this activity. This kind of forces me into a different mindset and i truly feel its "for fun". That really helps to get the stress reduction I needed.
3. Related to 2. but I previously did a little soldering project for fun and I got some electronic stuff, I'm hoping to do a DIY "iRig" type device that lets you play electric guitar straight into a 4-pole audio jack. It's with some future thought that I'll do this, since I do want to work with audio electronics and guitar related stuff in future. It's also something that will save me money, requires prep, and will teach me a physical skill. It's way different to the garageband-based music project above but still related.
The point I am focusing on is that for me it can be hard to put something into a "for fun" mode, since I want to work towards one day and not waste any time... But all work and no play means no relaxation and that's what's getting me nowhere too.