I understand the family commitment, but could you travel for a shorter amount of time? Even spending one month somewhere else can have a profound affect.
Have you travelled much outside of your home country before?
Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
11–20 of 74 posts
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#12Get involved with a local community organization, even if it's temporary. Whether it's the local homeless shelter, the local Rotary Club, or a religiously affiliated organization, the thing that recharged me the most during my brief 3-week break between jobs wasn't the hikes, the long drives, or extra gym time, it was spending time helping people who had a lot less than I did.
Now that I'm settled into my new job, it's the one thing that I'm still doing more regularly than going to the gym or going on hikes.
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#13Are you American, or similarly to only have two and a half free days (yes, hyperbole) when you return to work? Then I'd recommend traveling anyway. I'd recommend either Europe or Southern Africa, three or four weeks if possible.
(if you're not essential for childcare or similar at home, and more important if you have not seen the world before).
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#14- Learn a new skill/craft. If you are in tech, maybe something more physical, cooking, woodworking,etc. Six months is a good amount of time to build a base. - Learn a foreign language, again 6 months is a perfect amount of time. Highly rewarding. - Work on holes in knowledge, build a self-course around it. Algorithms, dbs, whatever. - Pickup an new programming language. - Build a side project, doesn't have to be comm…
> If you are in tech, maybe something more physical, cooking, woodworking,etc.
Second this. Spend vast amounts of time in front of a screen, woodworking provides much stress relief, even when you screw things up.
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#15The greatest part is doing whatever captures your imagination in the moment. Lists and project plans are important even for personal projects, but the freedom to follow my thoughts for days and weeks on end is amazing.
I'm wrapping up a self declared sabbatical right now. Most of it was traveling and reading history books on the country I was in. There were a couple career inspired prototypes (web and mobile). Now I'm on a a coursera and reading kick for stats, probability, and ml.
Enjoy the "break"!
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#16travel, read, and work!
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#17I recently had a 2.5 month break between jobs. I, too, wanted to make the most of it. These opportunities don't come that often in life.
During my break: I learned squash (so much fun - can't get enough of it, and it's so good for you), studied Spanish (lovevto travel in Latin America), learned a bit of Scala (not really that much, to be honest), took some salsa dance classes (tough, but so much fun. Met lots of new friends), and did some Lynda courses on video editing (for making fun travel videos). I also spent a week and a half doing a road trip through southern France and Italy. Read a lot of books that were on my "someday" backlog - almost 0% TV!
As someone else mentioned, the quasi-unstructured time in the day was so refreshing. I loved just doing some random boring errands, bumming around the coffee shop talking to people, taking a long walk in the park with the dogs (I live in NYC)
I'll tell you: I'm 2 months i to my new job (technology job at a startup), and I really miss the feeling of this unstructured "regular life", or whatever you want to call it.
Cherish it, but don't overdo the planning, as it'll stress you out!
All the best!
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#18Are you American, or similarly to only have two and a half free days (yes, hyperbole) when you return to work? Then I'd recommend traveling anyway. I'd recommend either Europe or Southern Africa, three or four weeks if possible. (if you're not essential for childcare or similar at home, and more important if you have not seen the world before).
I'm curious why you recommend Europe or Southern Africa. I haven't been to Southern Africa so I can't comment on traveling there, but these seem somewhat arbitrary to me.
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#19- Learn a new skill/craft. If you are in tech, maybe something more physical, cooking, woodworking,etc. Six months is a good amount of time to build a base. - Learn a foreign language, again 6 months is a perfect amount of time. Highly rewarding. - Work on holes in knowledge, build a self-course around it. Algorithms, dbs, whatever. - Pickup an new programming language. - Build a side project, doesn't have to be comm…
> If you are in tech, maybe something more physical, cooking, woodworking,etc. Second this. Spend vast amounts of time in front of a screen, woodworking provides much stress relief, even when you screw things up.
This is a key goal for me. Cooking more is on the list already as is something as mundane as fishing. Keep the ideas coming!
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#20I recently had a 2.5 month break between jobs. I, too, wanted to make the most of it. These opportunities don't come that often in life. During my break: I learned squash (so much fun - can't get enough of it, and it's so good for you), studied Spanish (lovevto travel in Latin America), learned a bit of Scala (not really that much, to be honest), took some salsa dance classes (tough, but so much fun. Met lots of new…
Unstructured regular life? Do you mean retirement?
Pretty sure your best shot at happiness, true happiness, is to retire early. Not so you can be lazy, but so that you can freely pursue endeavors which inspire, and motivate you. That would be an amazing life.