This is very insightful. I find that having to have a "reason" to code kind of takes away the joy of it. I.e. I start to think "is this useful?" or "is this a waste of time?". At that point all the joy is sucked out of the atmosphere and I end up doing work instead, which is very little fun most of the time.

Time you enjoy wasting is not wasted. I often need to remind myself of that.