But as a metaphor for other creative pursuits, my experience is that most of the time when people are "planning" or working on other things that they like to believe will help them do the thing... they are really just avoiding doing the thing.

People spend years doing "world-building" and writing character backgrounds and never write the damn book. Aspiring musicians spend thousands collecting instruments and never make a song.

As you say, if it's just for fun, that's all fine. But if the satisfaction you want comes from the result of the thing, you have to do the thing.