Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 112 posts

Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?

#61

Post by piva00 »

You don't need your job to be your hobby.

Programming was one of my main hobbies, I started quite early when I was about 9-10 years old, as a hobby it stayed with me until I was about 25-27, after working professionally for about 10 years.

After that I don't have the lust for programming that I had during those first 15 years. I have ideas but nowadays I also have the experience to know those ideas will demand more effort than I'm willing to commit to come to fruition, I found other things in life that fulfill me much more than sitting down and coding a solution for 1-6 months.

The remnants of programming as a hobby to me are scattered through areas I had never the chance to work professionally: embedded systems, electronics projects, DSP, and other fields which feel fresh and at the same time somewhat approachable after 20+ years of experience. I just don't work on them in any terms related to financial interests, it's purely interest based, and if the interest starts waning, and a project becomes dreadful I just abandon it for a while. If it's interesting enough I will pick it up as a hobby again at some point.

Working with electronics is a lot more joyful to me than programming yet-another-compiler, yet-another-library, yet-another-API. It gives me some connection from code to the real world, lights blinking, things moving, positions in the world becoming data, etc.

You'll only be stagnant if you stop being curious, if you stop adapting to the inevitable changes that happen in this field. Apart from that you gotta find the things that give you joy, not necessarily glory, or even to not be "mediocre" as if everyone is bound to something great.

Just don't stop caring completely because from my career that's when I see programmers really going down the spiral of not only mediocrity but also leaving a trail of issues in their wake for others to fix...

Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?

#62

Post by yungporko »

thfuran wrote: post #60

>Outside of work (which is going fine), I just don't have anything programming related to do. I don't know of any other field where people so regularly aim to be doing more work outside of work. Why is it a problem to have hobbies unrelated to work?

it isn't, but i enjoy programming and would like to do more of it

Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?

#63

Post by andoando »

Ideas do not come from nowhere. They are the conglomoration of thoughts and feelings obtained through experience. If you lock yourself in a room having done nothing you will be left thinking about how you're locked in a room doing nothing.

Go do something else entirely, you have no idea what will grab your interest or what will come out of it. You could for example start going to music shows, end up really interested in playing an instrument, and end up wanting to create algorthithmic music, or creative visuals. But don't do it this for the end goal of wanting to program something, there's so much more to life.

Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?

#64

Post by simne »

I think, closest to answer is scientific marketing. It will answer to two questions: first, what people looking for now, second, are these people ready to pay for this thing. I believe, I should not prove you so obvious things.

Many famous people claimed, they don't use scientific marketing (most known example Jobs), but when insides leak from their closed circle, all people ho learn marketing clearly seen, they do almost same as classic University marketologist, just name things other names.

Sure, you could save about 100$ on classic marketing research and do things yourself. It is even possible, doing things yourself, you will got more clear and more reliable data on your case.

BTW exists many books on how to stay small in business, and have good enough economy (everybody don't need to become Google to succeed).

Any way, most powerful business heuristic - Just do it, don't wait, don't procrastinate, do not doubt, do and calculate results and only then think on results.

Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?

#65

Post by tomrod »

I hit this point after a few years working. I realized that outside of my day job, which at the time felt very much aligned to the stylized "Bullshit Jobs", I felt like I was just a consumer of things others made.

I got into woodworking, and I started building up new skills in anticipation of hanging my own shingle in the Data Science / Development space.

Its been almost a decade since, and....

- I got into exercism.io to really deeply learn languages I was using, and learn others besides. The same set of problems but new languages. Learned Python and C much deeper, then got to play with nim, rust, java, C++, and more. Super helpful to learn.

- I started looking at open source projects I use all the time and seeing where I could possibly contribute.

- I started getting into my hobbies. Woodworking where I can (I prefer hand tools to power tools), exercise, teaching kids (my own and others in neighborhood) strategy games (usually starting with chess), starting a garden where possible (we've moved a few times)

- Working towards cloud certificates. I haven't come across a need to actually get them or keep them up to date as a data scientist or (now) executive, but being able to plan solutions with cloud resources is super useful

Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?

#67

Post by karmakaze »

It seems you've exhausted ideas within software. Try hardware but not on its own, first get a hobby. For instance mine since covid lockdowns has been to practice playing music and learn basic theory with synthesizers. It's been a long path of learning both about music but also about how to connect and control gear. There's a shortage of 'connector accessories', or the ones that do what you want cost way more than they should. Watch some maker youtube videos in an area that you might want to dabble.

Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?

#68

Post by rickydroll »

doctorhandshake wrote: post #18

Climate! Listen to the Volts podcast ( https://volts.wtf ) … I’d say about half of the episodes make me want to quit what I’m doing and beg the guest for job at their startup. Climate solutions is a wide-open field, jammed with entrepreneurs and scientists going head-on with tough scientific, engineering, sociopolitical, and business problems, with pretty much everything on the line. The stuff people are working on r…

This! Especially climate tech. One idea I've been noodling around with is a package of components for low income housing. Specifically, a low-cost easily repairable inductive stove to replace gas stoves. A window mount heat pump to replace steam or standalone gas heaters and, balcony solar plus battery. Note the battery would probably be built into the induction stove to handle the extra current induction stoves need one running full tilt.

I've spoken with a few municipal managers of low-income housing, and they love the idea. Then they say, we could probably get it approved in 2 to 3 years.

jfcoar...

I know this is practical because New York State had a design competition and has two window mount heat pumps that run off of 110. They are expensive ($2000), but I expect that price will drop with volume and when Chinese manufacturers say, "Oh that's a wonderful idea, let's steal it"

Induction hot plates are available today for $50-$70 retail. I think they are fairly primitive as cook temperature is controlled by pulsing the induction magnet. I have one in my kitchen, and when I'm making a one-pot meal, I use it in preference to my gas stove, especially in summertime heat.

Balcony Solar exists, and there are approved inverters with safety cut off if the line goes dark. These inverters let you plug your system directly into your wall outlet without any worries about giving a lineman a nasty surprise.

The pieces are there,

Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?

#69

Post by jimbomins »

h2core wrote: post #38
ecjhdnc2025 wrote: post #30

> Am I just hard-wired to be mediocre? Have you considered the possibility that you're actually clinically depressed? Working on the assumption you are male, I think a lot of guys don't realise that low-grade depression looks like this for a lot of us. Especially getting towards mid-life. One thing I would suggest is to embrace boredom. Cover up your television, delete your streaming video apps, cut back on social me…

can we stop diagnosing unknown people based on a 2 paragraph post on HN? the obsession with finding a label for all sorts of mental states is crazy. I agree with the rest of your post though

I wouldn't call it diagnosing. Just suggesting they consider it.

Personally it all sounds very familiar. So familiar I'd admit I'm mildly depressed. But I do still have a pad of good ideas that I add to.

Also very interesting is that yes even with ideas I'm not good at doing them - but the suggestion that their thing might be the enabling others to achieve theirs really sticks out for me. I'm definitely at my best helping others to do better.

All in I'd say it was a good response.

Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?

#70

Post by jimbomins »

andoando wrote: post #63

Ideas do not come from nowhere. They are the conglomoration of thoughts and feelings obtained through experience. If you lock yourself in a room having done nothing you will be left thinking about how you're locked in a room doing nothing. Go do something else entirely, you have no idea what will grab your interest or what will come out of it. You could for example start going to music shows, end up really interested…

My variation of what you say is read lots, look at what people are doing, then make sure you have a big space that lets you stop thinking. Once I'm in that "hey I'm not distracted by a million things" space ideas and solutions just pop to mind as I manage to focus on one thing.
Post reply on HN