Have you ever been boreout? If so, how did you cope/fix it?

Yes, I had a job like that. At one point I literally had nothing to do, even after asking.

I made getting another job a priority, which was compounded by a 360 review (job feedback) that was meant to be anonymous, but turned out to be anything but. The fallout was my supervisor left (might be been asked to) and I got a job elsewhere - 50% better pay and infinitely more stimulating.

Find a way to the exit.

My honest answer is Ritalin. I occasionally use it to get into a groove again and it helps me explore new interests that I can continue the momentum with off the prescription. This might be controversial and or unhelpful, but it’s my personal experience with this. My job is steady and well paid, so I don’t want to move to a stressful startup. I also have adhd since childhood, so YMMV.

I went freelance. It was a coincidence more than a planned exit, but that last employer made me very confident about my decision.

In any case, I don't recommend staying, unless you can find a way to benefit from staying, like a generous training budget.

Wow, that's the definition off my existence.

Seriously, the vast majority of my career has been boring and frustrating. I never knew the word before this.

Switching jobs might be the best solution. If you miss the motivation, you might want to learn about the role dopamin plays in motivation. A good start might be the podcasts at https://hubermanlab.com/

Perhaps try the following - which admittedly could be considered risky depending on your tolerance?

1. Save up as much money as reasonable. This will help buffer you in case you lose your future job (and can not return to your old job).

2. Retain as much of a good relationship with your current employer as possible...Because if you lose any other jobs, you want a fallback. This might seem odd, but when i worked in real estate, apparently that was somewhat not odd. Folks jumped ship from one realtor company to another and after some time back again, etc. Not everyone, and not all the time, but this industry more than others that i've worked in seemed to be ok with this. (I'm not suggesting that you joina real esate company, simply that some industries are ok with same person jumping back and forth into a company.) Also, if you hit a really hard time and have dependents and/or need any benefits like healthcare that come with this, existing job...you want to be able to return to your legacy job in a pinch and provide for your family, etc.

3. Once you have some savings, and a good relationship with soon-to-be-former employer, try one of the following: join a startup, and maybe join it at a slightly junior level than what you do currently; or, start looking at contract-related/project-related work; or, try and start your own business (I suggest a 1-person business at first...do not go for some mega business or even a multi-person company right away). In other words, do NOT try to get a "conventional" full-time/permanent, 40-hour per week sort of role at a non-startup firm. Any of these options will expose you to very different scenarios...and all could be something that you either try for a short time and then move onto other jobs...Or, if you enjoy, can stick to the same one.

I want to clarify again, that doing the above is risky...or at least, if i were in your frame of mind (as you described), it would feel very risky to me. And even if you can mitigate the risk at first, you might still feel overwhelmed since even only the "newness" might open up new/rusty synapses in your brain...likely giving you that nervous though maybe exhilarating feeling. FINAL CAUTION: I am not a doctor nor life coach or anything like that...I am only a random person/outside observer on the internet, so please take my suggestion with a grain of salt for what is appropriate for your life. Good luck!!!!

Learn something new in your free time. Use that to change jobs.

That’s the only fix I see. Learning something new is always exciting, even if you don’t think it is fun, and it allows you to sell more capabilities and expand the range of jobs you could apply for.

I’m in the same situation. Bored with IT. I want to do software dev. I’ve been working on a personal project and applying to jobs. It’s brutal to change industries with no experience, but I’m not giving up.

I learned something new today! I'd never heard of "boreout" before. I had been thinking that I was suffering from long-term burnout, but perhaps it's this instead.

I don't have an answer for you, though. What I think I'm likely to do is take a year or so off work entirely.

I've found it really helpful to re-challenge yourself. Do it faster, do it better, learn the underside, read the sources.

In the end, you'll create real value while improving yourself. Then it's an easy matter to be recognized or move on.

I first learn to code Python during a boreout job. I was a management accountant, so only had work to do for the first 10 days of a month. No one bothered me as it looked enough like work.

https://twitter.com/holman

´Recovering Programmers' is about moving past boundaries of the mental capability.

I'm in a job like that now. I'm not solving interesting problems, mostly just doing REST junk. And I end up waiting for code reviews[0] which occur long after I've completed my code.

I don't have a solution other than switching jobs. There are plenty out there, I know we're constantly interviewing[1].

0: I move on to other tasks, but that incomplete task lingers and takes up brain. That exacerbated the boredom.

1: Won't share a link, for obvious reasons.