Ask HN: Post Burnout Ideas

I have also suffered periods of technical burnout -- it's almost inevitable that the workload will exceed your capacity at some point in your career.

Contrarian opinion here - maybe it's okay to leave the side projects behind. I don't work for a FAANG, but have had several senior and lead developer positions at mid-to-large companies for the last 20 years. As I moved in my career I took on increasingly challenging projects at my day job, and quite frankly there was nothing I could do in my free time that would be close to the challenge or variety of some of the larger projects I have worked on. By the end of the week I just had no brain capacity for more tech stuff.

I have consistently spent 10% of my work time on new training (whether it was company policy or not) to ensure that my skills have kept up to date, and I use that to introduce new technologies to the company when it organically fit the companies needs.

I would suggest experimenting with some new hobbies (preferably something athletic to offset the office work) to see if anything interests you. You may have reached the point in your career where your day job is enough "tech stuff".

BTW, If you find that nothing is of interest to you, then you may be suffering from depression which can often happen after severe burnout. I would recommend seeking out some help if that is the case - there is no need to suffer in silence!

> Worse than that, I can't actually think of anything worth building, or even tinkering with, which is sad, as spending some of my free time on side projects was something I really enjoyed

I've felt this too. The most soul-destroying part was that as a maker and tinkerer, building is what gives me joy and fuels my engine.

If you're in the US, explore your company's FMLA policy. I was able to take two months of unpaid leave last year after being diagnosed with severe depression & anxiety caused by stress in the workplace.

I also started going to therapy once a week, which helped switch focus from short-term survival to long-term personal growth.

Towards the beginning, I felt at fault for allowing myself to grow cynical. Reading books like "The Truth About Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress" (Christina Maslach) helped me identity the stressors in my corporate environment and move away from these.

Other folks have covered the suggestion to treat yourself as a personal project for awhile. When you're ready, giving back to your community (or just random strangers) can be healing as well. I took the money I'd usually spend on tech side projects and started paying off people's credit card debt and buying books/groceries for perfect strangers.

https://twitter.com/simonsinek/status/1291124091710246912

Not everyone can be "fixed", especially via therapy. Sometimes, coping is all you can aspire to.

I don't care about making money in board games. If I did I wouldn't bother, there's not a whole lot of money in there unless you make multiple mega-hits or you one of a handful of publishers, and that's getting harder and harder to do with so many games being put out there every year (I think it's 700+ that debut each year at Gen Con alone).

But I would like to find an audience that enjoys playing my designs, and pretty much the only way to find an audience is to get your game published via Kickstarter or a publisher (there are other methods, like Print and Play and The Game Crafter, but the potential audience is a tiny fraction of other methods, especially since there's already too many board games released every year by publishers to keep up with. I myself have slowed way down in my game acquisitions and the number of games I try every year, I've run out of room in the house and what I do have don't get played enough to warrant keeping anyway).

Otherwise I'm just designing games purely for the hell of it, and I almost might as well be solving Sudoku puzzles or playing Chess instead.

Also despite it being easier to develop and test board games, I've had a super hard time getting any luck in the industry. I've had a meetings with several publishers, but only got one game signed in about 5 years of trying.

But It's a lot easier if you're a known personality. Like I'm friends with a few people that have made more progress in less time because they volunteer a lot of time in the industry and are pretty well known...one woman has a podcast, works for a game manufacturer, has helped run a few board game conventions, and has three games in the pipeline after in less than half the time I've been trying, but she is fully immersed in the world so it's easier, whereas I'm juggling it with other interests and a job that has nothing to do with the industry. I could be putting myself out there more, but I just don't have the energy for it.

Whereas back when I used to only make video games, I was usually knocking out one or two web games a year, just on my own, and some were getting played millions of times, no publisher needed. If you played Flash games back in the day, there's a chance you played something I made. I still run into random people that have played my Flash games. Two coworkers at my current job alone played them over a decade ago. It has gotten harder to get back into that now that I'm older, slower, and have a wife and two dogs that need my attention, though.

I've considered using Twine for some story-based games before. How are you using it for playtesting?