Lookup "Steal my ideas". There are people all over the place sharing interesting to implement ideas. Most of us don't have enough time in the day to implement them all. Enjoy!
Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?
91–100 of 112 posts
Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?
#92> You have 80,000 hours in your career.
This makes it your best opportunity to have a positive impact on the world.
80,000 hours is a non-profit dedicated to helping you find such a thing.
Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?
#93Go do something to help people. Volunteer somewhere. Talk to real people and help them with their problems in a low tech way. Engage with your local community.
If you don’t have any ideas after doing that for a few months, then you are screwed.
Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?
#94>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
> i enjoy programming and would like to do more of it
The two timeless answers are (A) make your own language, or (B) make a game. Whichever feels more exploratory, experimental, open-ended in potential ideas to tinker with to you.
Another avenue would be to take something in widespread adoption and currently only offered in Electron-or-equivalents, and make a fully compatible, fully up-to-par "native-r" version. Make VSCode but as a TUI or GTK/QT. Same config file formats, same NodeJS-based Extension Host, same Extensions API, just not itself made in JS & DOM.
Or, make an LSP SDK generator toolkit that spits out full-protocol LSP clienting and serving code in any language it supports (using LSP's metaModel.json), where over time you add one language target after another. Whoever is making languages, in whatever language they're making them in, will be eager adopters.
Frankly I'm surprised this thread isn't dumping more ideas on you, since you're out of them. There's so many "would love to do|have this but not enough time given my other stuff" ideas in most everyone's head. Mostly developer tooling admittedly. But at least in that realm, there's just no limit to how much better things could be =)
Dev, and gaming — the two areas it's where the existing stuff is by definition never just "good enough". Good enough to use, sure, but not good enough to cease all further development, exploration, experimentation..
Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?
#95[dead]
Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?
#96After programming for 40 hours a week, it's normal not to have the motivation to work on more programming things. It's not mediocrity or clinical depression.
My passion for software development died with my first full time job and returned as soon as I changed fields.
Go touch grass, find new hobbies.
Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?
#97> 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…
just wanted to say actively trying to get bored is some of the best things that i've done for myself as an adult in a dopamine-driven world (exercising aside). i'm not saying to do nothing at all, but trying to be bore yourself whenever you're off work. some examples are like instead of scrolling your phone whenever you're in public transit, just do nothing.
Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?
#98I’ve been really enjoying Rick Rubin’s “The Creative Act: A Way of Being” because of how he reframes creativity and the act of creation. Don’t wait for creativity to happen. Cultivate it. Make it happen. > I lack the creativity to come up with "just for fun" projects I disagree, primarily because I felt this way about myself for many years and later realized how wrong I was. My issue was that I had misconceptions abo…
This book is definitely something that I'll keep forever.
Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?
#99Thank you for this post, I though I was alone in this, I used to love study and learning during my free time, but recently I feel the same as you do, I sort of feel like I "need" to come up or code some project, but I really don't know what to do and what do I "want" to do, that's when I realized that I probably need to take a break for now during weekends, so I went out trying some other stuff, maybe one day I'll find something meaningful enough to me that makes me wanna code again, maybe not, either way it's okay, and I still try my best for my job, that's all it matters, hope you find a way to deal with this, cheers!
Re: Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?
#100There's more to life than what can be done with computers. Think back to a time before you knew about computers and software. What were you fascinated by? It might lead you to consider a sport, hobby, past-time that you would gain pleasure from. Sometimes these non-computer/software areas reveal ideas for fun projects. Personal experience, I took playing tennis. Decided that having a clock faces based scoreboard woul…
I built a set of ikea drawers last weekend and couldn’t believe how much I enjoyed following repetitive instructions then making something real.
It’s making me rethink what kind of hobbies I want to try because I feel exactly what the OP describes.