A month in south East Asia. Then another month simply learning something new. Get excited about programming again. Make programming your hobby again, and not just your job.

The first time I experienced burnout, I didn't fully understand what was happening, so I kept spending 12-16 hours a day staring at my desk. My productivity got close to zero for what I think was well over a month. In retrospect I think I should have:

a.) accepted that I've begun to experience burnout

b.) recognized that I would lose some output over this

c.) talked to my boss and organized a week or two of out-of-office time to reset.

Having battled with burn-out myself twice I noticed there were some general principles at work for me:

(1) The cause must be addressed for recovery to start.

(2) Getting out of the hole takes as long as sliding into it.

(3) The key thing was to find the joy of programming again, and to just have fun in general. Hobby projects helped.

Not really burnout but a lack of enthusiasm for the job a few years ago. Until I got a new job building something from scratch, learning Django. M

aking use of my existing database skills. I think too many new things at once can get a bit overwhelming but coming from Perl, Django and Python were easy to pick up. It was a nice balance of using my existing Perl / Database skills as well as learning new stuff that felt productive.

Obviously it would be impossible to continue doing what one was doing. So, one should just stop, do something else, learn something new and it'll pass in a year.

Go to a developing country with your significant other.

For me, learn something new, is the only think that relaxes me. ( for example if you don't use vim, learn it.. Or learn Emacs... )

Rest until you will want to code again.

Do something that you enjoy.

actively take care of yourself.

One thing that would have helped me avoiding burnout -- make certain you are healthy.

E.g. no bacteria infections, no sleep apnea, and no food intolerances that make you chronically tired. And many other possibilities.