Who else is working on nothing?

Wow, I just wanted to say thanks a lot for posting this. I'm in a very similar boat. I was always very focused and goal-oriented in my younger days - a bit of a workaholic but generally enjoyed working hard. A number of changes since the pandemic have left me feeling very similar to you:

1. Like tons of other people, I re-evaluated my relationship with work during the pandemic. To be honest, it wasn't easy. I think a ton of people (especially Americans) tie up their self-worth with their jobs, and during the pandemic I just felt more disconnected from my job.

2. I think a lot of folks have underestimated the psychological changes that happen from being way more isolated these days. I don't mean "shut-in" isolated, I just mean that working remote most days means the number of people I interact with in person has gone way, way down. I'm all for remote work but I won't deny that I greatly miss a lot of the energy from just being around other people.

3. Finally, I've just become really disillusioned with tech over the course of my career, which makes me very sad. I started my career during the dot com boom, and there was so much optimism about the beneficial societal changes that tech and the Internet would bring. I don't feel like all tech is "evil" these days, but I do feel that the world would be better off if all the big tech companies (Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft) just completely stopped building any new tech. Obviously that's not realistic, but it highlights my feeling that I'm not looking forward to any new tech from these companies, because more tech is going to invariably lead to more isolation, more "doom scrolling", more assaults on our attention. I feel like most big tech companies have just become the equivalent of drug dealers, just trying to hijack our brain's evolutionary attention mechanisms to addict us. "Attention is all you need" is right...

Anyway, don't have any advice or anything, just wanted to say I appreciated your post in a "misery loves company" sort-of-way, so thank you.

I found in my mid thirties that my perspective on what was important and desirable shifted significantly. Which led me to become disengaged from my desire to build side projects and learn new programming languages. It was a time were ecclesiastes from the Bible resonated a lot. After a while I just found out that I wasn’t interested in nothing but I had to rediscover what was important to me and what I valued spending my time on.

While my current lifestyle doesn’t lineup well with the tech grind and won’t get me attention online I’m much happier living a lifestyle that serves me and family rather than some external validation. Hope that helps and good luck on your journey.

If you find yourself thinking “this is all for nothing”, you’d be correct. You can’t take any of this crap with you when you pass. You do what makes you happy. What makes you happy? Searching for external validation of a pat on the back for a job well done is not what makes one happy. Take a moment, pause, just be, focus on your happiness and what that means to you. Stop comparing yourself to others. Stop trying to find fulfillment through praise or purpose and instead search inwards and ask yourself “What do I like, dislike, enjoy, and am I doing those things?”. If you are just going through the motions but haven’t searched within then I suggest you take a time out and get to know you again. Remember you. Rediscover you. Or start a new path. Life isn’t a straight line.

This is such an interesting thread and I feel I should share my story since it's on the other end of the spectrum.

I had a poor relationship with work about a decade ago. I struggled with very bad health, both physical and mental. I went through a slow journey of recovery that made me unplug from work a lot. I traveled quite a bit, cheap backpacking. I invested in friendships, good food, and very simple life.

In the last couple years I have moved to a village in eastern Himalayas. I gained my anchor: nature. I started a co-living hostel here. I started working in software again but I have no expectations of a traditional career. My passion came back slowly. I have been able to invest in learning new languages, create passion projects, do daily physical chores of running a nomad space.

I have even started learning drums. I have kept investing in people, learning how to build bonds. I also feed animals around me daily. Now I have come around to finally focus on software work full-time again. I'm building a product, but without big financial expectations. I realise this isn't standard, but: software product is about impact to me, not about becoming rich. And I'm deeply content with this.

I have been inspired a lot by Pieter Levels, the founder of nomadlist and have even connected on how I wanted to build things like him. For me, I feel I'm here now since building is not about making tons of money to me. I haven't had as much fun writing code daily as in the last couple years. And I'm 40 years old. Hope it helps.

I'm not sure how this will resonate here, but this past year my interests in side projects sharply declined. For reference I am early 30s, married no kids. Up until now I used to work on 2-3 large side projects a year, diving deep into them obsessed with sleepless nights working.

Now with LLMs it just feels kind of like whats the point? Either my work will be consumed by an LLM to train and get tossed aside or i should just wait 5 years and whatever i will have worked on will probably just be a prompt away. Even if that doesn't become true, nobody really cares about traditional software building anyways. Everything is just LLMs. All interesting things about AI that I really liked building with ML or RL now just seem completely obsolete. Any mention of AI is just overwhelmed by "oh so your just connecting to ChatGPT and boom no problem, right?" with the majority of the population completely blind to the fact that there are many types of ML and other things besides an LLM.

Its just hard to get motivated by anything. Unless you are working on a LLM right now nobody really cares what you are doing in software. Just seems futile.

I think also my own personal expectations get in the way of doing side projects. Its hard to work hundreds of hours on something knowing the end monetary value is going to be $0. So I end up in this state of wanting to work on something but then getting cynical, realizing there's little to no money to be made and just demotivate myself.

Anyways that is a long rant and this past year instead of building software i started to learn an instrument. it has been great. with software there is this notion of something being "optimal" but with music there is no optimal. Even the highest level artists are not satisfied with their work. The music is always above you.

The value proposition, honestly, has fallen off a cliff.

If "they" can dangle things you really want (money, better lifestyle, interesting work) in front of you, then there is reason to get excited.

Right now? Oh hell no.

Entire tech industry is in the mode of getting rid of people, lowering standards, lowering pay checks, the work is boring and tedious.

It is reasonable to simply not have any motivation to work on or do anything if there is legitimately no "line of site" to improving your situation.

Or working on terms which you can resonate with.

The idea of going into an office shudder to work for people like WebMD on ... creating search engine spam content in the age of AI? oh hell no.

There have been times in my career where I was intrinsically ultra motivated and willing to overlook a lot of the toxic overhead that comes with corporate jobs.

Now?

I am really not enthusiastic or excited at all. The stuff that is showing up is all a step down, less pay, less interesting work, boring companies. I can't even get myself interested.

I know that when something that excites me comes along I can get motivated again, but after exhausting myself the last few years chasing carrots dangling on sticks I just dont want to do it anymore.

I dont know what it will take for corporate // work to motivate me again. I am not seeing it out there.

Sooner or later, "That" opportunity always shows up and I can renegage. Lately, no.

I like working on (relatively) nothing. I quit working a few months ago and now I don't want to go back. I've spent these months reading books about everything, working out, playing with hobbies and relaxing. The experience has reinforced for me that I don't want kids, I don't need any "lasting" legacy or any greater career success, and I want to work only enough that I can avoid it as much as I can. I want to learn everything, but I don't want to be compelled to employ that knowledge for "success".

If by "everyone" you mean "people I see on the internet", you're only seeing them because they desperately want / need you to see them, and your perception of their accomplishments is their currency.

If you mean people you encounter in real life (and they aren't inner-circle), they likely are just saying something, ANYTHING, to either just make conversation or give themselves confirmation that they exist and that they're valid. We're human, after all.

Just try to take it all with a grain of salt. There's no "correct path" in life. You get to define what success and happiness means for you, and you'll also never find a shortage of people who will tell you you're wrong lol -- but the most-free people in the world are those who unapologetically just "are".

Be your authentic self, dude -- do nothing, do something, who gives a shit!

Life can't pass you by if you spend it truly enjoying whatever it is that gets you off (even if that's "nothing")

I am currently doing nothing.

I've spent several years recently writing various bits of open source software outside work, and trying to get a new search algorithm published in some journal. After several rejections, I stuck it on arXiv, but I think I'm done with it.

I'm not particularly bothered by my lack of drive right now. Sometimes it's good to just enjoy life and kick back. I'm sure something else will come along that I get into eventually.

There's a lot of negative vibes in programming these days. When I think of a programming community I think of fun, learning, engagement, projects, /programming/. These days it feels like it's just for money or power. These negative feelings make it all less fun.

So I've been doing music instead. I'm not good at it at all, but learning it ticks pretty much all the boxes that programming does. It's scientific in some ways, creative in others, and overall kind of fun to just build things.

I recently realized everything else I'd ever worked on amounted to nothing, because I had never figured out how to be someone. (I was something to someone growing up, but someone who still doesn't know other people are also someones.)

So I'm working on becoming someone. That's a combination of figuring out what things are just given in my life--that I am or I like or I want unprompted, naturally--and what things I choose, where I'll actually make an assessment from my values and apply my will and effort to making a change.

Hopefully once I do this, I'll be able to be someone who works on something, instead of living the remainder of my life afraid of the responsibility, and continuing to be no one working on nothing.

I'm working on things. Just, things I subconsciously devalue because they're not new/hard/valuable enough. So when people ask me what I work on I often answer 'nothing much' back even though those same people would find what I'm actually doing to be as hard as most jobs - which is not that much but enough. Enough is what I should answer, and maybe you too.

Everything will work itself out, these years will turn out to have a hidden purpose, or you'll eventually die and it won't matter either way. If we avoid any major moral failures till the end then we're ahead of the curve, friend. We did our part.

Yes. I quit my job in September, haven't really produced anything since despite having a lot of free time on my hands. I find the software space to be very uninspiring at the moment; everything that's going on is LLMs and crappy LLM wrapper startups. In all my years of HN surfing addiction, the last 6 months have been the most boring, but maybe that's just me.

I just want to say that if you get a chance, go to the underbelly of the tech world like the hacking / piracy / emulator forums and scenes.

Tech has been made into this sanitized version of what tech was when we were growing up (over 30 folks) and I think it needs to be discovered because so much of our current experience with tech has been this pale, tasteless, flat designed pasty.

But the joy a lot of us felt with tech because we could tinker and hack things to our heart's content still exists. It just requires a bit more effort to find it these days. And those communities I mentioned up above are the easiest entry points to that whole world.

But the commercialized tech world of the Leetcodes and the Faangs, ya that will make the brightest eyed techie jaded in 10 yrs.

Sometime in my late 40s I got really tired of learning the "next great thing" only to realize that some young developers had reinvented the wheel. Again.

Since then, I have learned new things, but not because they were "relevant" or "important", bit just because they were fun.

Python is a crappy language, and always has been. It's just a happy accident that the ML folks glommed in to it. Most frameworks suck, seriously, they are awful, victims of their own success.

Learn a clean, new language. Use it to solve AdventOfCode, just for fun. Get back to the fun in programming :-)

Kind of?

I became a dad last summer and we also bought a house. My 9-5 takes a lot out of me, there is always something to work on at our house, building furniture, chopping wood, groceries, and the baby needs constant attention. Luckily, I'm relatively happy at my job, not too many meetings, I'm free to work whenever I can, and I like the company, my team, the technology, and the service we provide our customers.

However, I wish I could spend more time tinkering on software and tech stuff I care about.

I'm not in the "nothing matters" group, I know that nobody will care about my open source packages when I die, that's not why I'm doing it. I do it because I find software development and technology interesting, and I genuinely enjoy coding in my (though now very limited) free time.

On the other hand, I try not to consume too much content, as it would make me feel unproductive, but in reality, I just need to do different things at this point in my life. With my current schedule, I had to recognize and accept that I can't read 1 book a week, I ain't doing 10 leetcode questions a day, I won't be a FAANG YouTuber, I probably will never build a startup. I can, however, read twenty minutes before going to sleep, and spend 2-3 hours a week learning something new and exciting, while enjoying my time with my family.

> I am working on something, but that something is myself.

Great way to spend your time. It takes a lot of time and energy so it's not really surprising that there is little bandwidth left to spend on other things. I totally recognize that.

Sometimes boring and steady is good if you need that energy to work on other things, but if you think the "boring" is part of the problem, it might be time to change things up.

If you have the means/access, therapy might be helpful to figure out where these feelings come from and what to do with them.

> Everyone seems so busy building or learning the next big thing

I think this is also not per se a realistic view of what's going on. There are plenty of people who do their job and that's it, but you won't see them post about it.

Things are only a problem if you find them problematic. If you are happy doing nothing that's great, if not then you might need to take some action.

I've had times where I did absolutely nothing, now I am building a company haha, things change, lots is possible.

I do not want to write about the topic, although it is a deep field. There is something else that makes me write this comment:

There is nobody out there being an expert in his/her field without having also personal interrest. Yet - you say while you had this kind of drive which is key to be one of the best, all you got is luck. I dont think so. You describe the last 5 years as being without any success or fulfillment. This is absolutly impossible over such a long time. Nowadays, you say it is of no fun to you anymore to have this "hobby".

Well, you know which kind of people sound like this? Since i am not an expert, don't get me wrong - but to me it is textbook like depression. Please think about checking it with a pro.. best case is i am wrong.

Working on yourself / mental health is not working on nothing - it’s probably the most important, hardest and rewarding work you can do apart from recreational work. Recreational work is all the work that is required for everything to function but that doesn’t produce anything- think of cooking, cleaning, childcare, elderly care etc. - you know all the work that traditionally is/was “women’s work”

I have come to value “productive work” much less than recreational. We have enough stuff already to last a dozen lifetimes.

Just think that the brightest minds of our generation are working on making people click more ads. And then be thankful that you are not in the same boat and OK with not being productive at all.

This period of doing nothing is termed the "neutral zone" by Ritvik Carvalho (^1).

> "We need not feel defensive about this apparently unproductive time-out at turning points in our lives, for the neutral zone is meant to be a moratorium from the conventional activity of our everyday existence. In the apparently aimless activity of our time alone, we are doing important inner business.", Transitions by William Bridges.

Your post resonated with me deeply. I quit my job in April 2023 to spend 2 years doing nothing "productive". Although I was doing well at work, I lost the hustle. The flame of curiosity seemed to have gone out. I wondered what happened to my past self who was constantly preoccupied with different interests and hobbies.

I thought that traveling would give me some fulfillment. Yet, traveling for the past 7 months left me unfulfilled. I realized the real journey was inward: rediscovering my passions and interests. It's difficult to do that while carrying baggage from your current job.

Here's some further reading below if you're interested. Don't hesitate to reach out, I'm curious to learn what you've done to rediscover your interests and curiosities, and I'm more than happy to share my learnings.

1) https://ritvikcarvalho.substack.com/p/career-transitions-and...

2) The Pathless Path by Paul Millerd

3) https://arc.net/l/quote/qmbdiccg

I have a six month old and have dealt with two people dying in the past three years including handling their estates. I’m lucky I have time to learn anything at work.

I used to have one or more side projects going on all the time.

With work and family, I currently don't really have the energy to make consistent progress, so instead I do very small things, mostly not software.

Like, baking a sourdough bread usually spans two days, with not too much work on each of these days. Will it be The Next Big Thing? Well, only at our next meal :-)

That's the scope of projects I can manage these days.

And that's totally fine, the world cannot sustain the same number of Big Things as there are people, so I'm fine with most of us never having one, including me.

I often feel stagnant and like I should be "doing something". I've come to realize that the best way so far, for me, to add more fulfilling content in my life, is to meditate on what I actually want out of my life. What makes me excited? What gives me a reason to wake up in the morning? I started journaling this year, and it has forced me to record my thoughts and think about the answers to these question. Once I understand the goals that I have and what kind of life/environment I want for myself, I come up with action steps to lead my life in that direction. Whether it be taking a class, attending a type of social gathering every week, committing myself to sharpening a new skill, I follow it like a quest guide in a video game.

If you're feeling like you're stagnating, here are some ideas to help get you jump started that I've done over the years.

There are a lot of things you can learn that are inherently *fun*. Maybe try learning something that sounds fun and interesting to you! Some examples for myself include things like Ham Radio, how and why radio signals bounce off the atmosphere. Or cooking, figure out how to make the best salsa you've ever had by getting a molcajete and fire roasting some tomatillos and peppers. Or go learn Unreal Engine, and the endless wonders and rabbit holes therein. Or make your own toy programming language, or teach people about programming, or make it a goal to make the best apple pie, or chili, (or insert your favorite food here) that you've ever had. Learn how to make the best margaritas the world has ever seen. Or take up making homemade ice cream. Get into 3d modelling or animation or texturing. Take up dog training, and do agility or dog dancing. Take up camping, hiking, backpacking, cross country skiing, mountain biking. Learn about wilderness survival, or backcountry emergency medicine. Getting certifications can be a fun way to force yourself to learn things you wouldn't otherwise, and my ham radio license and emergency medicine first responder certifications were really fun to get. Learning to draw can be super fun, and easier than you might think (get the book "Drawing with the Right Side of the Brain"). Fitness, take up some form of exercise that sounds fun to you; in my case I did powerlifting. Take the Fastai course and learn to make ML models from scratch. Learn to fly the A10 Warthog in DCS-- they say that if you can do that, you can do anything in simulation gaming. I'd go further than that and say that learning all the content in the FastAI course was easier than attaining a level of mastery with the A10.

People skills: One of the most impactful things I've ever done is take the Masterclass in Negotiation. That and reading the book Nonviolent Communication changed how I think about and deal with people forever. The book on body language, What Every Body is Thinking is very fun and will help make you never be bored in a meeting again. The Like Switch is also pretty great. Together I consider these a pretty fabulous two semester course in dealing with people.

Getting started is always the hardest part. Once you get some momentum on something it gets easier. A lot of these things can be combined, like you can listen to tutorials about how to fly the A10 while you're out walking.

I have fewer personal software projects going on than I used to (in fact, almost none), and these days I think I spend a lot of the time on unimportant busywork, under the excuse that "organising myself will free me up in the future, when something interesting comes around".

However I also recently quit social media (by this I don't count IRC, HN and the Fediverse as these are mostly text-based - okay to browse in my books), quit soft drinks, quit YouTube (almost, new videos come in through my subscriptions about once a day) and started reading (albeit very slowly) after a multi-year lapse. So it's not all bad.

Let me guess, you’re about under 30 and/or without kids, right?

You’re just burnt out. It happens. You’ll be able to recognize it when you go through it a couple times lol

It’s not a big deal but you need to get sleep and exercise and get out of house and away from devices at least once a day for ~3 months.

And then reassess. But you shouldn’t make any decision if you’re depressed and burnt out.

Do what feels right for you, and make sure you're doing that in a way that ethical for those around you and the rest of the world. It sounds like our paths getting there were a bit different, but I also took a significant break from my professional life and disengaged with expectations that were not my own and used that time to deliberately work on my mental health and relationships. Thankfully, I was in a situation where I had the resources to do so (which includes the support of my partner). I quit a nice tech job and spent a year studying a ton of subjects that I loved or thought I'd love, and explored radical shifts in my career. I'm not done yet, but I managed to find the parts of my old work I still enjoy, the parts I don't, and the beginnings of an understanding of how to trade my time for money in a way that I'm comfortable with. I've been easing back into things, and am even finding joy in the things in things that had previously been surefire triggers for emotional spirals (including hackernews!). Anyway, I'm still not settled, and never will be, but I'm content with that for now.

My idea is to work on small toy things I can finish in uhh 30 minutes, a day, a week, 30 years etc Ponder the big problems in life, read up what was done to progress the progress sufficiently to be able to participate in attempting to solve the puzzle. Look where others didn't look. Eventually you find a problem that fits your ability. This could be a small problem that takes 5 years to complete or a big problem that takes 1 day once you know how to do it.

Sometimes you just have to try stuff. Without going into details my 2 most stupid ideas turned out to be completely hilarious and unlike anything one could imagine in advance.

Enjoy the process not the results.

I'm building things that I find fun and interesting, not necessarily for profit. Of course, I have a revenue generator that I'm also keeping up. But mostly just fun these days. Currently that fun thing is building software synths from scratch, just starting from audio callback.

After reading your title, I wanted to comment the same as you last paragraph: that I'm working on getting my shit together. I liked to worked on tech, and I didn't like to take care of other things, so if you look around in my life's garden, it's all overgrowth, mold, rot, and walls so that this all doesn't get to me. Adding more tech, or working on yet another something else won't help this situation, but it would need a lot of energy from me, so I don't do it.

What I did in my work so that it supports me on the journey is that I moved from software engineer to lower management. Lots of new types of problems, and lots of new ways to me to connect to people and tech.

Often, I came to think, new is not the answer. Rather it's something that I distracted myself with.

Extra energy also doesn't come by introducing more energy to the system. I also use the max already. The effort is better spent in conserving it, and building a system where it recharges faster.

I’ve always liked Viktor Frankl’s take on this:

There is no meaning. But humans need meaning. Create your own! Absolutely anything will do as long as you find it meaningful. Just pick a goal/meaning and go for it. It’s okay to change what you find meaningful as you go through life.

I have a lot of stuff I want to work on but completely lack the motivation/mental health/physical health to get into a consistent routine that lends itself to me getting these projects done

I'm in my mid 30s and my preference would be to sit on a porch at a cabin in the woods and wittling a spoon next to a fire with a cup of tea. But I need to keep my skills sharp to stay employed so here I am, sitting in guilt over the lack of productivity in my life and living out a tremendously mediocre career making one fourth of what I'd make if I ever applied myself

Surprisingly I’m actually working on projects more. I’m turning 30 this year and my world view has only been affirmed more and more everyday.

Life is a ladder you keep climbing up on. There’s water beneath and it gets higher and higher. I suppose most people are fatalistic in this climb.

I’ve met a few successful business owners and their life isn’t any more secure than mine. We’re all on the ladder unless we have power. Money isn’t power; power is power.

Anyway. I’ve been trying to build a small company with my friend. Just something that will give us some breathing room from climbing.

I sympathize with a lot of you on here though. Technology hasn’t been all that we hoped. In fact- quite the opposite.

Most self aware tech people are tired of the society they helped build and would prefer to live away from it.

You can spend unlimited time working on yourself. I see no unhealthy unbalance in that as long as you have no inner need or outer pressure to produce (or you are able to control both).

Personally I find it tricky, though. Am I doing nothing for this long because I am just getting lazy (-> need resolve) or depressed (-> need real help)? It does not seem to be your case, so just take your time. Take your time.

Im going to antarctica next week because I want to, it's the 7th out of 7 continents :)

I don't really need another reason

Slowly been wandering through latin america until I ended up here

Doesn't mean I don't look for opportunities, in fact I still hack at projects, apply for stuff like YC

But there's no rush even if they don't succeed, I have some savings

> I am working on something, but that something is myself.

I'd say you're working on the right things. Our fellow humans would like to hide behind the idea that any of this matters, but at the end of the day, it doesn't. What does matter to you is yourself and the relationships of people close to you.

I’m not in the same place, but I do find it still surprising at age 40 you can flail around randomly in a city and discover entirely new areas of life that fully captivate your interest. The other day someone invited me to join a math club and now it’s my favorite part of my week. I hadn’t thought about math since I was 15. but that’s example one of dozens. not that anyone’s asking, but I think if anyone isn’t feeling satisfied they can easily try very random things and find some satisfaction and that’s what I would recommend

I am somewhat working on my own workflow. I have a lot of problems with the mental workload of external task and the sheer amount of things that are left to do. For example, having to remind myself to reschedule tasks because I didn't have the time as initially planned is very hard for me.

All other task planners never seem to be made for wrong estimations and the iterative evaluation of underestimated complexities for whatever reason. Nobody can predict the future so why should we be able to plan tasks ahead of time correctly?

Conflicting things in real life are hard to keep track of for me, too - (e.g. having to take your dog to the doctor, buying groceries, or cleaning up the household) and all task planning tools that I have tried never reduce the mental workload for me, because there's still the maintenance part of keeping your whiteboard/calendar up to date once anything goes wrong. And it always does.

That's why I took the last couple days to start to work on my own tool, agenda: the idea for this tool is that the app recommends you what to work on while still being able to keep track of conflicting tasks, with the idea that it adapts over time to your personal missed estimations of how long a task takes.

[1] https://github.com/cookiengineer/agenda

I was working on too many projects at the same time. Including a startup, a book, a blog, and pitching for a movie.

Along the way, I got married and slowed down a bit. Then i got twins. I couldn't work on my own stuff even if I wanted to. When covid hit I published a short story that I had been working on for 7 years just to say I did something.

Now I occasionally blog, and edit a paragraph or two of my book every week. I don't feel bad about it. The most important thing I want to reflect upon when I'm old, is my family.

I'm currently working on nothing outside of work due to an illness.

I hate it. I was halfway through dissembling my project car's engine for some upgrades and was hoping to get started on a bathroom demo for a remodel, and that's all been delayed.

I'm also not really working on any tech right now, because for the most part, I've gotten my personal technology working how I like it. I have a spare PC I've been meaning to turn into a home theater device but I'm more motivated to work on the car.

Great question & post!

I am definitely working on nothing (outside of my normal day job, of course).

I used to work a normal day job and then in the evenings and weekends work furiously on side projects. One of those side projects became a business that while still around today, is probably getting shut down this year due to failure to generate revenue that exceeds its relatively minimal costs. In other words, the business failed.

That business failing despite 3+ years of nights and weekends, and a significant chunk of my own money, is ONE reason why I struggle to find enthusiasm for new projects.

Another reason is something similar to yours which is that I am focusing on myself more these days. Mind, body, and spirit. I am taking more time to focus on things I enjoy rather than embracing a constant feeling that I need to do MORE. I work my day job and I try to be an excellent contributor there, but I've accepted that it doesn't seem like my path in life is going to be a tech entrepreneur. I just don't have what it takes to build something truly novel and unique enough to drive revenue, nor do I have the marketing and personal skills required to take something mediocre and generate sales.

That might sound like I'm giving up, and to a degree it is, but its more like I'm accepting reality. I don't think I was meant for that life and I'm learning to be ok with it. That means dropping all the side projects and constant hustle and just embracing life. Spending more time with family, working out more, and generally just chilling for a while (it's been a couple years).

At times this manifests as a mid life crisis where I worry that my time is running out and that I haven't accomplished my goals. I'm learning how to recognize these emotions and let them pass without disturbing me too much. It's definitely a skill and one that I am by no means an expert at.

On that note it's also worth pointing out that many of these feelings are common to people in their mid 30s. It's a time where I'm learning to re-evaluate what is important to me. I've accomplished a lot of my goals, and accepted some were foolhardy. Now I find that I should just learn to live well and appreciate what I have and who I am, rather than focusing on what I don't have, and who I am not.

I'm working on nothing. I'm making great progress, I have a whole lot of nothing !

Same! I took a break from my job. A couple of years ago. My new full-time engagement is myself, and it's one of the most challenging and exhausting and fulfilling jobs I've ever had. Sometimes I catch myself "wanting" to go back to the "less complex" version of myself, but there's no turning back now, and it only takes a few minutes to realize I wouldn't want to go back anyway. ;)

I believe that doing nothing, on purpose, especially for prolonged time (months, years), especially in solitude, is often _the_ most productive, highest leverage activity of all that an individual can be doing. The reason is that our subconscious is way more powerful than our conscious. The logical reasoning engine in our brain is really quite basic. Think a silly 8-bit console emulator running on an an actual modern piece of hardware (subconscious brain). And so relying on subconscious is somewhat like using hardware acceleration. The brain often knows better, but you cannot quite articulate what it is that needs to be done or why. And if you keep ignoring that signal, keep silencing it, keep forcing "doing the right thing" over what it's trying to tell you - that's a recipe for failure. You better listen. How? By doing nothing to the point of getting bored and looking how to "kill time". That's when your subconscious is finally heard. It keeps gently nudging you in the right direction without revealing the grander plan. Perhaps it doesn't have a plan; or perhaps it does but you're better off not knowing it. I also believe that procrastination is an acute case of the same. Your subconscious is screaming - hey human, this activity, this project, this job doesn't quite make sense. Again, you better listen. Otherwise you'll perhaps get more stuff done - but the wrong kind of stuff. Personally I'm looking back at my own timeline, and the gaps between jobs when I was up to nothing whatsoever as some of the most productive periods of my life. Not in a "I did X" way - more like, "I became more of what I want to be faster than at any other time".

These things come in seasons. Definitely good to take a beat and focus on yourself. You phrase it like it's permanent though.

I've certainly had times where I don't work on anything outside of work. Other times I have multiple side projects. I'm always doing it out of self love though whether its self care or projects! That's what's key.

I’m working on a lot of things which, when I think about it, are all related to the "smolnet/smallweb". (offpunk, mainly, but also other email/gemini/blog related stuff).

It is funny because it seems that I’m now always looking for "the next small thing" instead of the "the next big thing" ;-)

To be honest I was in a similar place last few years, professional development was pushed to the back seat somehow, nothing was interesting to me. But then I started doing stuff for me personally - got a sail skipper license, a motorbike license - traveled the world. But after a year of having fun, I have to say I’m quite happy getting back to the industry.

I think maybe it’s because I’m getting into health tech, and that feels slightly more meaningful. Also FHIR turned out to satisfy my lust for exploring complex systems quite a lot. We’ll see how it goes, but my advice to all burned out hackers is to get a sabbatical - like a year or so - code what you like, travel the world, tinker with hardware, join a ngo, stuff like that, time does heal all wounds.

Simply try to make everything you do about ultimately making the world a better place. It will give you your drive back. Stop thinking "me me me" all the time, but ask yourself "what can I do to help others?" The nuance is that, sometimes, in order to be able to take care of others you have to take care of/work on yourself first (simply keep in mind that you are doing that in order to come back stronger to be able to help others. Never loose sight of the bigger picture). That is what I believe one of, if not The, key to happiness (and therefore to finding your drive again)

Like you, I'm working on understanding myself; my drives, reactions, relationships, emotions. I'm reading more nonfiction in an effort to understand where humanity has been and where we might go. A hunter-gatherer/semi-nomadic lifestyle is appealing (it would not be easy at first, even given enough healthy land & water), and building/strengthening community, instead of silo-ing, is something we can all practice now. I've gotten to know so many of my neighbors, and I try not to exclude anyone with politics different from mine; we're all in this together, and we all have so much in common.

I'm also working on nothing for the past two years. After about 10 years into software development and side projects, keeping up to date with new tools and frameworks, and so on, I'm now feeling both overwhelmed and bored at the current incremental upgrades tech is having. Similar to smartphones, they're getting boring.

I feel that my level of knowledge allows me to easily grasp new concepts, and that exciment fades when I realize that the most juicy part will be implementing it in a big project, and not another CRUD SPA.

This pause/gap I consciously took made me realize I wanted to make my knowledge broader, and go all the way down to learning what makes software and tech exist: fundamental concepts like math, physics, calculus, probability, yada yada.

I'm also using this time to learn about cultural aspects of software, it's history amd methodologies.

Without being overwhelmed by tech, I took the decision of starting an engineering degree. And with that, I think I'm keeping the tech grinding on pause, until I learn how systems work, how tech is able to exist, with the hopes that after having a structural foundational base, I can go back to tech and move aside from CRUD SPAs, solving exciting and hard problems.

I'm really glad I found this post, this is something that keeps resonating in my mind. This is a really overwhelming industry.

And as a closing note (maybe I'm talking to myself here), never ever feel bad about doing what feels good doing.

Working on nothing is when I get my best work done. I’m sure there’s science behind it, but I very consistently return to the piano better than when I left off. And all my major code solutions come to me after a few days off.

Without turning this post into a book, I think what you are feeling is very normal, and perhaps even a healthy moment of reflection. If you consider time to be the single most precious resource, then perhaps you can figure out how you want to use it. If that's in bacchanalian and hedonistic pursuits, then great. If that's in self-discovery, great. Maybe on your path you'll find therapy or diet or exercise or hobbies or meds will bring renewal. My guess would be at some point you will find something that sparks renewed interest and you'll find the balance.

Not right now, but I was in that place during probably the final 2 years at my previous job. It's hard to say if that was primarily due to the job itself (I was there for a little over 10 years, but by year 8 or so I was becoming disillusioned with the company and felt like I wasn't doing much new or novel) or the pandemic (for reasons that should hopefully be obvious!). And I did have a few spurts of creativity/wanting-to-learn during that time, but they only lasted 4-6 weeks at a time, at best.

The job dissatisfaction translated to burnout. The pandemic stuff was I guess a different kind of burnout that I'd never experienced before, combined with mild depression over the isolation (fortunately my partner and I lived together; I can't imagine what people living alone had to go through) and inability do do most of the normal things I loved to do.

I think it's useful to really examine how you feel (possibly with the help of a therapist, but you can do a lot of this mental/emotional work on your own if that's not your thing) to try to determine if these feelings are coming from a true belief that this career/hobby path simply is no longer for you, or if it's more that there are some current conditions in your life that have temporarily made you feel this way. I've experienced various levels of burnout throughout my career and life, and I know during those periods I was very negative about continuing with what I was doing longer term. But ultimately I still love software, and still love building things with software, and I'm glad I haven't abandoned it entirely.

Taking a break -- consciously, without putting pressure on ourselves to do something, anything -- is I think the bare minimum to getting past feelings of burnout, if that is what it is. Sometimes that alone works. But sometimes you may need a new job with fresh people and challenges as well.

Regardless, I think it's important to understand and acknowledge that there is nothing wrong with you. This is an unfortunately normal thing that happens sometimes, when things aren't going well for a sustained period of time. There is a way out, either to find joy in what you're doing again, or to decide that you want to find something else to do with your life and time.

I find myself in the same hole but not because of lack of opportunities from peers or life, not because I dont have good ideas or dont know how to excecute them.

I have work mostly all my life working as a freelancer and havent been able to find a workplace that I feel really confortable. That and situations that always seem to happen in the worst possible moment, I found myself in the necesity to make my own company, what do we do? what do we make? software and hardware. anything specific? no im working towards that.

Thank you for your post, feels good to vent a little bit

I'm working on nothing. It is ok to give up the external validation of doing something, and I've found live much more livable.

"Evil comes from a man's inability to sit quietly in his own chair."

I don't think its possible to be working on 'absolutely nothing'. I think you'll find that if you really explore this idea that you can almost always go further. For example. Do you clean your house? Maintenance is something. The status quo is something and it need to be maintained to exist. I think you recognize this because you admit that you're working on yourself.

The only time I think you could truly do nothing is when you've passed.

I would say I was in a similar place - Wake up, Go to work, come home, watch youtube, sleep, repeat; I had projects I was interested in but couldn't bring myself to do them. For me, part of the answer was changing my environment, the people I was with, the culture was to chill because you're exhausted from work. Another part was, like you're doing now, working on yourself. Another, specific part of working on myself was taking inventory of the things I 'valued'. Did I truly still value those things or were they things from my youth that I am clinging to? Do I value them because I authentically value them or is it because culturally they are valued? Am I applying those cultural valued to places that matter to me. For example: "Hard work". I do value hard work, but the places I was applying that value did not provide return on the investment. So now I apply 'hard work' elsewhere.

I think it is both necessary and good to do this from time to time. Good luck on this journey.

I resonate a lot with this but I think it's against my will that I feel lost. I've started little projects like 48hr.dev to try to help me just build more and to collaborate with people in the same spot. I have friends building these incredible saas apps or stuff to help in scientific research, or just really cool side projects but I struggle to find ideas that are valuable to people. I don't lack motivation or interest I just lack the luck or either skills to find (and have faith in) solid ideas.

Yeah. Very similar story on my side.

I slowed down a lot, both at my job and with side projects. And you know what, Earth is still spinning!

Kids are here now, working on myself, trying to figure out things, be happier. Etc.

I had a period like this, I even stopped playing some games because it just was there anymore. My wife and I took a long road trip in 2021 and it gave me time to be peaceful (national parks helped a lot with this). I started grad school in 2022, it has really helped me with perspective and forces me to engage in my interests when other things are often easier. There’s drawbacks, but overall I’m happy to have motivation. In short: try something new!

A common theme here in this modern self and business driven world.

We are human beings not human doings.

Doing nothing is the most wonderful thing.

It is a place where new ideas and innovations come from.

I have always found that space to be a place of change, either in personality or the beginning of a new developmental stage. The old self changing the old life to meet my new demands of a new life. What we seek as teenegers is not same as when we are in our 30's, 40's or 50's.

However, the anxiety is unbearable in that space, hence we are continually seeking and doing things, anything to reduce the existential anxiety of just being.

Everyone? Who is everyone, do you not mean you? Own it and all you say. Not everyone is busy building and learning for the next big thing. You are or have been and still are. Own it. "I am so busy building and learning for the next big thing."

Those things are not out there they are in here. They are yours and it is your life.

Life is monotonous and unchallenging.

looking inside and working on ones self is always the beginning

Working on personal issues can only be a priority.

Creating a healthy balance, for me, is just business speak for keeping 50% of your focus on meaningless things. A real healthy balance is committing 100% to yourself

I am working on relocating to an area that will afford me more personal and professional opportunities in the future. I have been writing software professionally for over 20 years and there is not much left there to captivate me, so I’ve refocused my professional efforts towards softer skills. I spend a lot of my day talking to people, organizing schedules, planning, networking, writing proposals. Much like you, working on myself.

I think it’s super normal to have fluctuations in your interests and curiosities. Life would be pretty boring if we did the same thing for its entirety. I also think that focusing on yourself is something that always pays off - and will likely give you more mental and emotional capacity long term. Whenever I have periods like that I find my curiosity and drive comes back naturally if I’m patient and don’t try to force it.

Django 5 recently came out, I put off upgrading my app until after the holidays. turns out pip doesnt even have 5 yet? Whatever version I upgraded to went smoothly.

The new SSH 0day also messed me up as I use paramiko which is vulnerable in this project. I did have some upgrade problems but that was a 1 time problem.

Said project is a ssh based network config management project.

I think this week I'm going to investigate adding bgp awareness into it.

My list of ideas, whether or not they are even viable is a big question I'm sure, could probably keep me busy the rest of the year.

Then I also have my honeypot network project which also builds a threatfeed. Though that has been online for almost 1600 hours, very stable.

Here's the thing, I've been where you are.

You are seeking a purpose. Perhaps even a life purpose?

You can be anything you want but there's 2 rules.

1. You want to do the thing which you find is as fun as video games or whatever.

2. You must try to be the very best. You may not become Tiger Woods or Gretsky, but you have to aim to be the best.

I'm past that stage. I built a business in the 2000's and hosed it completely because I had no idea what I was doing. Then I spent a lot of the 2010's trying to conceptualise and create something I believe in which was similarly futile on the probabilistic scale. I figured at the end of it that it's futile and embarked on a journey of self improvement which devolved in chaos and nihilism.

Now I exist in a world of laughing maniacally at this shit show while raking in the cash from pretending I give a fuck about things like microservices and AngularJS, sleeping through hours of meetings, drinking a hell of a lot of really good wine and spending my spare time travelling all over the world and hooking up with floozies in bars and doing things which my parents would frown about.

Do what makes you happy and fuck everything else. Seriously. Leave no regrets.

Anyway I'm sure the HN community will frown upon this. I know I do :)

I am dabbling with a few code related things, but not very seriously. Mainly what I'm working on is trying to figure out how to approach the next few years. As in, I'm anticipating that I'll be entering what will be the second complete year with no work, and while I'm continuing to maintain the other personal systems that keep me going, I'll need to figure out how to proceed; does it mean fully committing to a new trade, fully committing to an attempt at contracting, fully committing to a general labor job, or whatever else. I don't know what that answer is, but I've been doing effectively nothing but learning and enjoying things on my own accord since being laid off 8 months ago, and that's great, but I don't really see what the next step is yet, and instead of burning myself out grinding through my own projects regardless of my enthusiasm, I'm just taking space to try and get there. Things have truly never looked worse for prospects in my career, and it might be time to quit, or maybe not, or maybe temporarily.

For most of human history seasons have dictated what we can and can’t do. I believe there’s an emotional and physical component to seasons that we can either respect, or push back against.

Which means there’s going to be seasons that are quite productive. And seasons of grief and pain. And seasons to focus on self growth. Once I accepted this it got a bit easier to stop beating myself up about these things.

I just shut down my startup (we raised a huge seed and we weren't gonna find product market fit with the original thesis; pivoting madly would have been a poor way to justify our valuation).

I am doing standup comedy and blacksmithing until I get bored. I thought it was gonna take longer than it seems like it will. But for now I'm not writing any code or doing any customer interviews.

I'm working on being a good father, husband and friend.

I have a 3.5yo and another on the way in a couple months. Also my amazing mother-in-law just unexpectedly passed over the holidays so we are all grieving.

Life puts everything in perspective. I have realized that I really don't have anyone but my spouse to really open up to and it is hard. Deep relationships are what I need to work on.

I've been in a bit of a funk since the beginning of the pandemic. The last "good" year for me was 2019. Since then, there's been a failed startup, several mediocre work-at-home jobs, and failed relationships. I'm not sure if it's burn out or something more. I'm mostly just treading water in several areas.

Sometimes I worry that I'm not doing things because I've finally officially become "burned out."

But I also read an article this week that said "unstructured time" is part of a healthy and relaxing weekend routine.

Either way, I think it's a good idea to make sure you're exercising, getting lots of sleep, and eating healthy, energizing foods.

The pandemic did this to a lot of people. Habits are difficult to form, and are more easily broken. In my estimation, the pandemic caused many people to lose everything, or at least lose a lot of things which they spent years creating or building. Rebuilding from proverbial ground zero, or seeing the transient nature of things that may not have seemed quite so transient (be they projects, friendships, relationships, careers) before become destroyed, does quite a number on motivation.

Obviously, some people flourished during the past few years. Though, the majority of my coworkers and friends hit the permanent suspend button on side projects and other things. It is difficult to stay motivated on projects when you realize how much can be taken from you in an instant.

I don't have much to offer you, but I have some questions if you're willing to answer:

1. Do you have a live in partner and/or children?

2. Do you work remotely?

I ask because I'm seeing similar sentiments more lately from friends who work remotely and live alone. Even those with active social lives still have this sense of lack of fulfillment.

But I don't see it amongst peers with live in partners or children or who work in an office. In fact I had some friends who were working remotely alone who either got partners or returned to the office and their outlook improved.

To be clear, I'm absolutely not suggesting that you should get a live-in partner or children or go to the office just for socializing.

I'm more making a comment on a trend I've noticed with the rise of remote work, and one that we as a society will need to work on fixing together without forcing everyone back to work.

I’m inquisitive so I keep my eye on the regular stream of hype and trends to find what’s actually good. My focus is math and computer science. Most of my mind is in the theoretical and pops up occasionally to do brief soul searching and give people advice. I don’t care about careers.

Hmm, my reading of the title was, is anyone working on something that they have a good reason to suspect will turn out to be nothing. I.e. does anyone think they are doing a bullshit job.

I am not sure how one can work on absolutely nothing unless one is happily retired/unemployed.

This is me. I've been working on my hardware design and engineering skills for 20 years, in the last I stopped trying to focus on progressing that and just focus on progressing me, my relationships (including with myself), and learning to market myself better and more genuinely. In learning about marketing I've learned a lot about human nature, and manipulation of such, and I've learned to recognize how marketing and soceity in general manipulates us in ways I was previously unaware of. Learning this alternate skillset really opened my eyes up to the broader world and has really broadened my horizons.

g4zj, you are doing the most important thing of your life. Keep doing, I'm pretty sure you are doing great! Keep healthy.

I was actually in a situation similar to you. Lost of interest in learning new stuff, every thing feeling the same as something that I already know, and obviously I was wrong, but it took sometime before I was hocked over a new subject I know little about. Lately, I'm studying Computer Related skills like soundness, proof assistant and automatic proof/solver. It will not have any impact on my IT career, but I never learned anything for my career.

I keep working on myself too.

A big part of this could just be mild burn out. I find that if I take a long vacation, sooner or later I get bored and get right back to being curious and working on building or learning something. Having said that, I have a harder time finding meaning in side projects now that I'm older.

There's a bit of nihilism in me now, kinda like the koa “If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" If I work on a side project and no one uses it, does it even matter? Learning for the sake of learning has become near meaningless to me.

Not only am I not working on anything, I'm not even reading HN anymore!

I’ve been adjusting to a new chronic illness and have found that I need to save my “health days” for work, exercise, and friends/family.

I still sometimes find myself feeling good during time off without any plans, but I have learned that I can’t really pick up projects that I know will take more than a couple days of focus to complete.

If I find myself longing for more work or bigger projects, it usually means I’ve been in a long span of feeling well, which means I should just go outside or be with people anyway. Work usually fills that void very quickly, too…

You can have a lot of output once you stop receiving input for a few days.

Are you 35-45-ish? Ask your doctor to check your hormone levels. This sounds SUPER familiar, and therapy ain't gonna patch the leak if the lugnuts aren't even holding the wheel on.

I've been the software engineering game for the last 8+ and this is the best lesson I've learned in the past two years, been facing lot of health issues due to my workoholic nature and ignoring my physical health. Somehow my mental health has been good due to the support systems I have in my life and I'm super grateful for that.

Having a balanced life is my biggest goal right now as other carrer related things are mostly on auto pilot mode. I have a system set for that.

I've been in the same state this summer. I burnt half of my savings bootstrapping my startup that failed, and gambled the rest 90% on crypto (longing crypto lol, it's 2x since then)... so I spent 2 months lying on the couch, rewatching my favorite movies and sleeping 12 months per day on Prozac. Ended up starting great relationships with my university classmate, it's much more meaningful now.

Creating a product and seeing people loving it brings me the most joy, from my experience.

ive been doing nothing basically over december, quit a fast paced design agency working with funded startups for 4 years, got so tired I just sat through december lol, did some travel, saw family, played sports and video games etc.

now in January I narrowed down my ideas for what to do next and main one i'm focused on right now is launching a productized agency for my services - a subscription for design services for indie makers, bootstrapped companies and early stage startups mostly

i'm actively enaging with other makers on twitter and making some connections which gives me a feeling I missed when working for the agency - I build up my own assets and value over time vs exchanging hours for cash consistently.

I'm finding also there are so many ways to provide value to other people, amount of ideas i get now to solve problems i notice and directly involve me is crazy - basically daily. Never have I been more excited and calm.

sometimes you need to abstract yourself and allow to do nothing to be at your best after - I think a lot of us working with tech can relate to that.

bento.me/mxd

If you're lacking motivation or inspiration, the best thing is to do something new everyday. That will in turn make you more motivated and inspired.

Well, this all resonates. I'm in the middle of a big life transition, and while re-evaluating how I got where I am and why I took on certain roles, I found I'm not as beholden to my trajectory as I felt.

I'm ready to bundle up everything I've spent the past twenty odd years doing and turn it into just a other stepping stone of a long and interesting journey.

I'm not working on engineering/programming related stuff right now, but I did start the year with a resolution to write some more music - been playing guitar for nearly 20 years now, but most of my playing is just looping a few chords and noodling over it. Which is fun! But I would like to actually get some songs done. Not for any particular reason, just seems fun.

I try to just sort of follow my interests in my free time instead of optimizing it or trying to find some "side hustle." Sometimes I'll be fiddling around with programming related stuff, sometimes its music, sometimes I get into a game for a while. Last summer it was (kind of out of left field for me) fishing - just bought a rod and some tackle and started going out.

If there's any antidote for "the hustle" it's fishing - sure, you can spend 1000s on gear if you want, but at the end of the day, you're going to go sit out in nature for a while and some days you just won't get a single bite. The first few times that happened, it bugged me, until I realized that sitting by the water for a couple of hours is a great use of time regardless of whether I see a single fish.

Another thing I like about fishing is it's just active enough that it keeps my mind busy - instead of sitting there worrying about the budget or whatever, I', just thinking "maybe I should try reeling a bit differently" or "maybe I should move down the bank a bit" or "maybe I'll tie on that new lure". It's like perfectly tuned to keep me pleasantly distracted while not being stressful or high-pressure in the least.

My oldest son asked for a kayak this Christmas, and I found a pretty good deal on a pair of fishing-style kayaks from a local guy who was getting rid of his. I'm very much looking forward to trying some kayak fishing this summer, there's so many good looking spots that weren't really accessible from the shore.

Speaking of kids, that's also a great way to pull myself away from the drive to constantly be doing something new and "productive". They keep me busy and while there's times I wish for a little more free time, overall they're a blast. My oldest and middle child are now old enough to game with me - we spent a lot of time over the Christmas break playing through the new Mario game, Mindustry, and even a bit of Fortnite (that's their thing, not mine, but it's something to do).

I’m in a similar boat. For me, I think it’s burnout. If I have a week+ off of work, I’ll start to get the itch to start a project, but with work the way it is, I hardly even touch my home computer anymore.

I have a lot of things I started during those weeks off that never really make it off the ground, because the interest falls to 0 the second work starts back up.

> But not only has my professional life become monotonous and unchallenging

In my 20 years as a developer, I think I can count actually fulfilling moments on one hand. Maybe I'm just really unlucky, but I suspect that professional development isn't very efficient or worthwhile. So many projects get canned, delayed, reworked, death marched, or are just, well, asinine.

Personally, my growth had stunted, especially ever since Covid hit. I was just kind of "existing" and not really doing anything. But lately I've taken on something completely new to me, and wow I'm pretty bad at it. I'm learning so much, and it's fun to see the improvement and "ohhhhhhhhh" moments. So maybe just try something totally different for a while.

I'd like to start some hobby projects, but only when i have energy and health resources to do it. Doing the bare minimum is default. Besides i doubt investing in something long-term is worth it, except very rare circumstances that don't apply to hobby/work/mundane "skills/knowledge".

Basically nothing but yoga for the last 3 months. Seems like the only thing worth doing. Every book on proper yoga/enlightenment says it's the way to lasting fulfilment. So I'm prioritising myself at the moment. I even pulled out of a £350k job to do this. Time to get the big thing on my bucket list ticked off.

I'm doing boring stuff. Forms with 5 to 20 fields that people put data into. Nothing AI, not a startup, regulated industry, kind of slow, low stress. I can focus on delivering on quality, I close laptop at 5pm and do other stuff. I feel that it's valuable to society to have this basic stuff not in a half-broken state, I enjoy the people around -- no tech bros with inflated egos or anything.

Hi. That'd be me. I'm struggling right now and just can't focus on anything. In middle-school I was diagnosed with ADHD and was on meds. I haven't taken meds in 20+ years but in the last couple of weeks I can feel that it's been really hitting really hard.

Been working on a project that interests me but progress is surprisingly slow (think half hour a day baby steps). Almost like I’m procrastinating except as I said I do actually want to do it

Haven’t quite placed where that internal contradiction is coming from.

Normally one procrastinates unpleasant things

I can completely relate to this, and was in a similar place not too long ago. My personal recommendation would be to check out Vipassana (dhamma.org) - it was a life-changing experience, and the first to actually address some of the mental issues I was facing.

i am in the middle of switching between job functions, and my free time is currently split between applying for jobs and doing things other than tech that i am more passionate about.

i am learning new things at work and while it would be a good idea to demonstrate it through some smaller projects using them. but i share the sentiment with op and the others in terms of personal drive to do such stuff.

i do find the "show HN" posts demotivating like some people would find other people posting about their great lives on social media.

I advise microdosing to people struggling with depressive or nihilistic mindsets. Microdosing gives me the boost I need to actually work on improving things. It's also virtually free and has no dangerous side effects.

Such a depressing post with so much resonance. Rule number 1 of freelancing or having a job with mental workload: Priority number 1 is to play the long term game and not let burn out kill passion.

I'm currently taking a break from working on anything. Just doing the bare minimum to get A's in college, and relaxing the rest of the time. Don't regret it after working so much before.

Hell yeah. Find your slack. Long live Bob and the church of the subgenious.

I'm working on myself through my work, if that counts?

I'm a staff-level SWE. I took the last year off of paid employment because I felt anxious and stressed even though everything was, objectively, fine. I had some poor health habits that I was staunchly ignoring and a project I was deeply vested in at my job was ripped out from under me. The meaning I ascribed to that project was giving my life purpose and, with that suddenly missing, and with my health in less than ideal shape, my outlook on the world became dismal.

I took the year off because I wanted to try and rediscover that curiosity you mentioned having lost. I used to LOVE programming. I loved feeling like a techno-wizard making pixels bend to my will. What happened? Why did I now feel anxious and uncomfortable staring at a screen while trying to think critically? I think I got a little too lost in the sauce of the startup world and it became clear that it would take some "me time" to rebalance.

So, from some perspectives, I've been doing nothing. No significant other, no money-making job, not travelling the world or living life to the fullest... but having a project that feels meaningful to me, whose existence is moderately under my control, and that I have sufficient time and energy to engage with -- that's giving me most of what I felt was missing. Well, that and dropping a bunch of widely understood bad habits and picking up some better ones.

I want to see myself as a more consistent and reliable person. In my 20s, I had infinite energy. In my 30s, I'm finding that's only true if I keep myself away from alcohol and drugs, exercise constantly, connect with people, and, most importantly, be mindful of my physical and emotional state. If I start slipping into a rut, and don't notice it and nip it in the butt, suddenly it can take over my whole demeanor and disrupt a lot of good things I had going. A couple of days of bad sleep, coupled with a desire to keep pushing forward, can cause me to regress into drinking a bunch of caffeine. The caffeine will mess with my anxiety and mood and I'll be more tempted by unhealthy food and marijuana. These decisions start to take their toll, the effects compound, and suddenly I'm in a destructive cycle where I see myself being less and less each day. I start to hide from myself. All these issues were present in my 20s, but they never really seemed to be a hindrance. I could just roll with the punches and remain proud of my accomplishments. Now, in my mid-thirties, I find myself frustrated (yet a little excited) to try and figure out how to keep myself running like a well-oiled machine. I want to remain proud of my consistent growth into my later years and it's going to require getting better at working with myself.

That said, I know me. I don't do well without a project that I can see myself in. It's what makes getting up in the morning worthwhile. I think it has to do with having an avoidant/dismissive emotional attachment style, or something to that effect. So, if someone were to ask me if I'm working on nothing then I guess I would always want to confidently say, "No. I am working on something, but at my own pace and with poorly-defined goals."

So, in an effort to work on myself, I've given myself a project whose goal is to help me, and others, be more consistent and present. I must admit I've taken the most circuitous route possible to achieving this effect as I'm ostensibly creating a digital ant farm which functions as a mental health companion (https://github.com/MeoMix/symbiants). The goal is to create a pet whose growth fluctuates with its owners' consistency. I want to see my ant colony thrive when I am consistent. When I am feeling good I want to see my ants take on new challenges, expand their territory, stress themselves out trying to maintain growth, build habituated pathways to foods in an attempt to scale. And then, when I invariably go through an emotional downturn, I want to see my ants yield some of their land back to the fog-of-war, hunker down and weather the storm of inconsistent check-ins and less good habits undermining my personal energy. And then, when I've sated my desire for self-destruction and re-commit to being dedicated to my goals, I want to see my ants rediscover forgotten pathways, regain their ground quickly, and act as a reminder that my emotional downturns didn't undo all my personal growth. The habits are still there, hidden in fog, waiting to be rediscovered with a little effort. I want to have this pseudo-living creature that serves as a visual proxy for how well I feel I'm doing.

If anyone feels similarly and could see themselves finding purpose through this effort - feel free to reach out. I would be happy to talk to you and help you find a home in the project. There's Discord and email in my bio. It's my first game, the scope is way too large, the code I've written is bad, and I have no strategy for monetization. You'll very likely become a worse Rust developer by associating with me :) ... but I know I want to create something that helps motivate people to continue showing up for themselves and I'm confident there are others out there who either feel similarly, or feel lost and could use help finding themselves with the right project.

I've written a lot! Sorry for the meandering thoughts and the weird upsell of a project in a thread about working on nothing... but it all seemed relevant to me while the juices were flowing. Cheers :)

I read a book from 1960 about Quantum Mechanics. There is more content from one paragraph there than from anything from your AppleTV, your Facebook, your WhatsApp, your Telegram or anything else from your stupid overpriced trash media. Ken Thompson is right when he calls Apple an atrocity. Linux and Framasoft are not terrorist organisations but I'm not sure about any other.

I'm working on nothing. I want to do something but I have no ideas and I'm also laid off so I have the time but no mental motivation.

Here. I'm just lazy. An excuse I tell myself is ehh that probably has no monetary future so I just don't do it, but its probably just laziness.

I feel less hopelessness, but I’m also just working on myself. Getting into a routine, cooking, working out, making tomorrow better. Work can come next.

You have to die a few times before you can really live.

Yes.

I am taking the appropriate time, now.

For everything.

Still building, but building correctly, and less often, trending-toward-never, at the expense of my health.

I hit a bit of a wall with my main project and just never really moved on. still in limbo.

Only thing Im working on is learning the lbum "Pollinator" by Cloud Rat on guitar.

That and working on calisthenics.

Im honestly at the point where seeing a computer makes me a little quesy. Im so sick of tech

It's your problem with not finding out the problem you want to solve.

> If not, why not?

Burnt out, trying to get into this. Why do you think lol

I've been working on two things:

1) method acting

2) being on the run for a $5 taco thief

I am dead serious.

I was doing constant things in my spare time until I had kids.

I mean, I still do, just not a lot of it involves learning something technical. Controlling a hoverboard motor is maybe the biggest hobby project I have, other than that its been MTB:ing, working out, and lately I got the genealogy bug. And I realized that for some reason I love that kind of work. I remember being 4 years old or so, and being fascinated with phone books! I mean really, really fascinated over all the names, and all the people they represented.

How old are you?

Not exactly, but close.

When the pandemic hit, my big outlet at the time was rock climbing, mostly indoors. That went from "3 days a week" to "zero" immediately, and when things opened back up it just never recovered for me.

I started spending more time and mental energy on software, even though that's my day job. I've been at this for nearly 19 years and I really care about doing it well. The problem is that seemingly no one else does. I've bounced from company to company (7 jobs since 2019) and they've all been nearly wall-to-wall incompetence. It's just baffling how the industry can be in such dramatically worse shape than when I started in it.

Anyway I have been working on a few things, but just for myself. If my employers don't care about doing anything right I guess that's their problem, but I have problems of my own I'd like to solve.

I wrote a SQL formatter, just for myself, because all the ones out there are terrible. I don't care one tiny little bit if it ever has any users but me. It's not "done" (never will be) but it's stable, and I get to use it now, and I enjoyed writing it over 2 years or so. It has been a purely positive presence in my life, and continues to be.

Now I'm working on a SQL IDE, because again the stuff out there sucks. It will be weird, and built just for me and the way I work. I doubt anyone else will ever use it and I don't care. It will probably take me much more than 2 years to write and that's fine. I try to spend 2 hours a week on it, sipping a coffee in my favorite cafe. That's enough.

And lately, for [reasons], I've gotten back into [politically incorrect hobby]. I gave it up in 2015 for [other reasons] and I've missed it. It has such depth to it, and it just animates my curiosity and drive for mastery. Once upon a time it was what my life-outside-of-work was dedicated to and it can be that again if I want.

I still think about work sometimes on my own time, but I try to minimize it. I let it happen when it's what my brain really wants to do. Otherwise there's just no return on investment. Software companies that will hire me just don't care to leverage my skills, no matter how badly they need them, so I'm sick of fighting for it. If they want to choose failure I'll heat up some popcorn and watch. Maybe someday I'll get a chance to really work on something good again, with good coworkers who also give a shit, but I'm not holding my breath. Until then I'm just gonna do my own thing. No leetcoding. No cloud certifications. No home k8s lab. Fuck all that shit.

Best of luck to you, I really mean that.