For 26-year-old digital marketer Karishma Pramanik, the first sign that she was bored of her own routine came in the form of a Metro stop she had never used before. “I was just tired of doing the same thing every day,” she says. She felt life was reduced to a familiar circuit: office, commute and home, repeated with little variation. So, one day, she simply got off at a different stop. There was no plan, no particular destination and certainly no larger purpose behind it. She just wanted to see where the detour took her. “At some point, I just embarked at a different stop and realised it might actually be good to do things like that more often. It breaks the monotony in a way that feels surprisingly refreshing.”
It is a small act, almost inconsequential. Yet increasingly, such moments of purposeless spontaneity are being embraced by a generation that has grown up with lives heavily organised around goals, schedules and outcomes. And now, the idea of ‘side questing’ is making its way beyond Gen Z, offering adults a deceptively simple way to interrupt the predictability of everyday life.
Borrowed from gaming, where side quests are optional missions that exist outside the main storyline, the term has found a second life online. Side-questing refers to those small, spontaneous departures from routine. It could mean getting off at a random metro stop, wandering into a café you have never noticed before, signing up for a class on impulse or spending an evening doing something simply because it catches your fancy.
Unlike a hobby, a side quest does not come with an expectation of continuity. There is no commitment to get better at something, turn it into a passion or even do it again. Unlike self-improvement, it does not need to produce a better version of you. And unlike productivity, it has no measurable outcome to chase.
Its appeal lies precisely in the absence of one. “Side questing is agency in its simplest form. A small, deliberate break from a life that often feels pre-written. In doing so, it cuts through monotony and restores a sense of being alive rather than managed,” says counselling psychologist Aman Bhonsle.
That distinction matters, particularly at a time when even leisure can begin to resemble work. The pressure to make every experience count leaves surprisingly little room for simply having an experience. “The reason it feels so appealing, especially to younger people, is that life has become relentlessly performative,” says Bhonsle.
Brief, novel, self directed actions can interrupt cycles of rumination, reduce attention-fatigue and bring back a sense of curiosity.
Perhaps that explains why the idea resonates with adults who are not part of Gen Z. For them, life has a way of becoming increasingly scripted. Commuting, work, errands, household responsibilities, social obligations and appointments create a calibrated rhythm where downtime is according to schedule. Side-questing introduces a tiny rupture into that rhythm.
Chef Ashutosh Awasthi's kitchen itself is the space for such small detours. “There are days when I will try plating a dish in a completely new way, just because I felt like it,” he admits.
Perhaps that is why the idea has traction. Not because it disrupts life, but because it slightly loosens it up. Not everything has to be part of the main storyline. Some things are allowed to simply exist on the side.
No commitment
A hobby is something you return to; a side quest can be a one-time detour.
No mastery
Hobbies involve getting better; side quests have no skill to perfect.
No goal
A hobby can build a skill or become a passion; a side quest has no endgame.
Curiosity
Hobbies are chosen interests; side quests are often spontaneous impulses.
The point
With a hobby, you ask “What can I make of this?” With a side quest, “What if I just try it?”
