Programming Burnout

For me the burn out comes when both of those things happen: - not seeing why what I'm building matters - nothing interesting in the learning process of the given techs.

Or, after this happens: - being somewhat forced to hustle massive amounts of code constantly for too long.

Don't over do. And keep building things that matter, ideally while learning new tech related things.

For me programming motivation comes and goes. I might code personal projects every day for a few months, then lose all motivation and don't code anything (outside of work) for a few months. Took me some time to realize but it's completely okay to take breaks, it doesn't mean that you've lost your motivation or passion or whatever.

One thing that helped me balance this was to code only stuff I really wanted to code. Sometimes I get ideas which I think are great, and the very next day realize that it was just a momentarily over excitement. I think and plan the project for a few days before starting anything concrete

I am practicing quitting quite often, for exactly the same reason. But as I am employed as programmer, I cannot quit entirely. Instead, I look around what I can do: I help at support forum, checks other's guy issues and chime in with ideas how to solve or pointing them to the older related tickets.

This way I once happen to be employee of the month, even though I didn't write single line of code: suddenly I was so visible to everyone so they awarded me with their votes.

I worked a long-hours job for a few years and burned out. Rode my mountain bike every day for a year and then was ready to get back into it.

I used to work as a software developer for 10 years then quit because of a complete bore out.

Another 10 years have passed and i have reached the following conclusiom: To make programming worthwhile you need to add a different thing to the mix and try to see programming as a tool for doing intersting things.

I'm seasoned enough with burnouts and the best cure is indeed to quit (for a while).

Last year, nearing summer - i quit my job and didn't touch my laptop for 3 months.

Resumed during fall with a fresh mind and lots of energy to code again.

Funny, there's two threads for this story.