Brew beer. It is rewarding, (mostly) fun, non-trivial, and the result is surprisingly good.
Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
31–40 of 74 posts
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#32Are 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 assume you don't have kids. My wife can certainly function without me for a month but can you imagine your partner sending pictures of their trip all over europe while you are cooking, cleaning, getting the kids to school, to bed, etc?
Depends on age & a bunch of other specifics, which is why I added the qualification. There are myriad ways to organize families and, while I don't have kids (yet), I have good friends who agreed that they would always want to retain can identity as an individual, as a couple, and as a family. They bought a rather large house with two similar-minded couples and share such burden amongst six instead of two. It seems to be going quite well, with the children having input from a diverse set of adults (woodworking with x / literature with y...) while actually reducing the workload (cooking for 11 is less than 3 x cooking for 3).
(note I don't disapprove of the more common modes, just saying that I can indeed imagine such things).
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hobbies and skill building are the way to go. I just finished a 12-month sabbatical during which I learned scuba, sailing, skiing, surfing, and the R programming language. I also read 40 non-fiction books. Just lying on the beach gets boring.
Given that list I feel like you should have learned Scala instead.
Why is that? I think I'm ready for a new language.
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hobbies and skill building are the way to go. I just finished a 12-month sabbatical during which I learned scuba, sailing, skiing, surfing, and the R programming language. I also read 40 non-fiction books. Just lying on the beach gets boring.
Any book recommendations?
My favorites were Fooled by Randomness by Nassim Taleb and Walden by Henry David Thoreau.
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hobbies and skill building are the way to go. I just finished a 12-month sabbatical during which I learned scuba, sailing, skiing, surfing, and the R programming language. I also read 40 non-fiction books. Just lying on the beach gets boring.
Can I ask? How does one go on a 12-month sabbatical? Did you just save up a bunch of money at your day job, and then decide one day to take 12 months off and spend a chunk of your savings?
Worked for 10 years. Long distance girlfriend and I wanted to close the gap but didn't want stay in NYC or PHL. So we came up with Option C: sell everything and travel the world for a year. 1.5 years later it's worked out pretty well.
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hobbies and skill building are the way to go. I just finished a 12-month sabbatical during which I learned scuba, sailing, skiing, surfing, and the R programming language. I also read 40 non-fiction books. Just lying on the beach gets boring.
Can I ask? How does one go on a 12-month sabbatical? Did you just save up a bunch of money at your day job, and then decide one day to take 12 months off and spend a chunk of your savings?
[deleted]
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#37Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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!
Rouxbe is a great resource for learning how to cook from first principles.
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#39I 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.
As someone who has been living that life for 2 years, and can retire today, at 24, it isn't the utopia people think.
Re: Ask HN: What should I plan to do on a 6 month sabbatical?
#40Improve your health. I have never enough time for that while working.