This is a first for me. I’ve got some personal projects I want to work on, and I really enjoy programming. Normally first thing in the morning I’ll spend an hour waking up, drinking coffee, and writing some code.
I’m a professional software developer, and software development is a passion and hobby. But I felt like I needed a bit of a reset so I’ve made an effort to not write any code at all during the Christmas/New Years holidays (about 3 weeks).
Honestly I don’t feel like I’ve missed out, but I’m definitely looking forward to getting back into it and I think I’ll benefit from it. Ill be back at it again next week.
I know 3 weeks isn’t a huge amount of time in the grand scheme of things. Have you found yourself taking a complete break from coding? How did you find things when you had to start up again? Felt like it benefitted you or ended up losing the trail a bit?
I only wrote code for !advent_of_code@programming.dev which is so different to my usual tasks that it feels like a break.
Not a bad idea really. Though if there is a problem I can’t solve within the hour, I tend to dwell on it and work through it in my head until I can get back to it. Thought just going cold turkey (so to speak) for the holidays might be better this time around.
I stopped at Thanksgiving. As an indie dev, I am running into all the boring parts of finishing a game and each of the remaining tasks is painful, non-programming related (like art, UX, and publishing and marketing), and im working out of my own pocket (in my free time).
I want to be done with this project, but other facets of my life got bigger during the holidays. Im socializing more online, rediscovered old games, and found more satisfying things to do with my free time.
I miss just coding.
As they say, the last 20% of a project takes 80% of the time. Thats where all the boring stuff lives or the stuff that you’ve put off over and over again.
Get through it and you’ll be able to get back to the stuff you enjoy again.
I’ve been pretty depressed after my burnout few years ago and have been unable to enjoy programming ever since. It’s my profession though so I still do it, but outside of the professional stuff I’ve only had a 1 month this year where I could enjoy sitting on a computer at home and to do some actual coding. Outside of coding there’s a lot of pondering, designing, and analysing related to development that I still do and enjoy, but it’s exhausting after working.
I personally did 1 godot tutorial and that’s all I’ve learned this break
Same. I’ve been off a few weeks and I’ve been drinking cocktails and making mead. Been so nice not to see a screen. Well, one with code on it; I’ve watched a ton of shows.
Probably would have, but a few scripts of mine broke after distro hopping, so I had to fix those.
Then I found out about Pomodoro timers, so I wanted to test them out. So, I fixed up some scripts with it.
I haven’t started any new projects yet, though.
I’m so tired of coding for work, even though I always liked the thrill of just exploring where a project would take me. I’ve been neglecting my personal projects and, over time, stopped feeling bad about it. I have plenty of opportunities at work to learn about new things, it’s okay if I do something unrelated in my free time.
LLMs gave me some relief with work and I’m now able to at least think about programming other things for fun, but haven’t done any actual project yet.
I might try walking away from the screen for the whole weekends as my new year resolution (for different reasons). My eyesight is starting to fail and I think a 2 day break from the screen every week could help.
It slowly started happening in the last few years. And then I got a burn-out. I haven’t really written code in months now. I don’t think it’d really stress me out, but honestly I just don’t really feel like it most of the time. I try to spend most of my time away from a screen
I always feel like I lose the trail. I barely ever even take lunch. I recently moved to a tech lead role and I barely have time to look at actual code. I still feel like taking time off is hard because I have to keep constant track of everything or I will completely lose the thread of everything that’s going on.
I did get Friday off to drive back home from a working vacation. It felt great. The vacation was stressful as hell because I had family stuff and work stuff intermingled. I literally was in my car fixing an issue with a deployment one minute, boarding an airboat to look at alligators the next, and an hour later I’m in a forgettable meeting in the back seat of the car as someone else drives home.
It wasn’t ideal but the vacation was booked before I had to change jobs and I went from being forced to take that week off to having to cover for 80% of my team. I’m definitely getting too old for this shit, but I enjoy it.
I’ve found myself in similar situations. However I haven’t taken full three weeks off; I think my longest has been about 10 days.
I’ve always relished getting back to it with a clear mind and often a well thought out plan and it feels like the features flow faster from the fingertips.
Never fight taking a bit of time off, it grants perspective and lets you decompress, don’t think that can ever be a bad thing (given there’s nothing you really need to be doing in that time to make sure you’ve got a steady income)
If I feel like I am stuck while doing something either discussing it with someone else or doing entirely something else for a while (couple weeks) helps me get out of that local optima.
I have written code this holiday, but I was afk on vacation for a month in November. That was a good reset too. But tbh I like programming, the reset is more for the other circumstances of my work.
