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Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

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Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#41

Post by jackyinger »

Sounds like disappointment over perceived lack of progress on big ambitious projects is a reoccurring theme.

It can certainly be frustrating to be confronted with a big gap between vision and execution; I know it well.

Two suggestions:

1. Specific to making progress, have self appreciation for any progress you do make. Even if the progress is battling annoying boilerplate. Even if the results appear to be a failure in the moment. Reward yourself for any action towards your goals. If you undertake a persistent campaign of rewarding any progress, no matter how small, and forgiving any perceived failure you will almost certainly get beyond your current state of mind.

2. In the bigger picture, sounds like you need something to center your life around. I spent 6 months meditating weekly and exploring Buddhist philosophies from a secular perspective. This was very helpful to me. There’s lots of videos and writing on the web that you could start with if this sounds appealing, and once the pandemic is over visit a local meditation center and try group meditation, the vibe of compassion is awesome. There’s all kinds of things, find something that speaks to you. It could be as simple as a hobby.

Back to big projects, you are just one person, love yourself for your ideas, accept that projects may take a long time to get done as an individual, and that pursuing your projects may lead you somewhere different than you thought. It is definitely worth seeing where things go.

Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#42

Post by apache909 »

This can be a result of burnout or frustration with the industry. This happened to me with infosec/hacking. Used to love it then felt so over it. Take a break from it atleast in your personal time with side projects take a break. Try get yourself up and healthy again.

Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#43

Post by binarymax »

As others note you may be suffering from burnout, but there's another possible diagnosis: coder's block.

Heed the warnings of burnout and depression, but if that's not the case, then try something else entirely for awhile. For me, it was getting away from the screen and setting up a small woodworking workshop in the garage.

If you work all day in software while also surviving 2020, then do what you can to get away from devices every day. You sound like a creative person, so do something in the physical world.

Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#44

Post by drcongo »

I have mild depression that comes and goes in long waves and this is a perfect description of how I feel when I sit at the keyboard during the downs. One tiny way I've found around it is to focus on coding things that will help me in the future - ie: some very small feature of the project I'm working on - make it as portable and good as possible, so that when I next need to do something similar it's 99% done. What works about this is a) the focus on a small thing helps distract me from the big thing that my brain is feeling overwhelmed / uninspired by, and b) every time I achieve one of these small things, it gives me a little lift. Plus as a bonus I have loads of helpful code written for future projects.

The only other thing I can suggest is find a creative outlet that you enjoy, and isn't the thing you do for your job. I went back to making music for the same reason. I'm not very good at it, but then being good at it isn't the goal - just the satisfaction of creating.

Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#46

Post by wwweston »

Feynman's story on how he lost the spark for physics and got it back might be instructive:

https://www.mymoneyblog.com/richard-feynman-fighting-burnout...

If I were translating that, pick small interesting projects. If you start to worry that you're not going to complete it, break it down into a set of smaller interesting subproblems and only commit yourself to 1-2 of them and then re-evaluate when you finish.

There is also the possibility that you're at the point where pursuing something other than programming might be more meaningful to you.

Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#47

Post by AlwaysRock »

Rooster61 wrote: post #26
cvhashim wrote: post #16

Have you thought about getting in to an architect or customer facing role? These roles are just as crucial to a business as programming is.

I was just about to type this. I've noticed as I get older both literally and career wise, I enjoy guiding where the code goes and letting more jr members work towards those goals while helping to improve their programming/soft eng practices. It's very rewarding.

God bless you. When a senior engineer is willing to help us early career folks it really helps.

Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#48

Post by rad_gruchalski »

Hey, cheer up. I went through this a couple of times and I’m in the industry for 20+ years. The last time it happened, it lasted for weeks. Weeks of not knowing how to put focus on simpliest programming tasks which would normally take 5 minutes. Sleeping all day, mood totally down.

The best thing to do is to accept it. Don’t fight it. Ignore the feeling that things „have to be done”. This only creates additional stress and spirals out the problems. Go out (if you can), watch tv, play video games, talk to a therapist. Do something different. When the stress regarding software comes, tell yourself that it does not matter, it’s normal and you are ignoring it is for the better. Don’t force yourself because that leads to a burnout. The process of getting to a better state of mind can take weeks. Or months. It’s okay. You will come out stronger.

Don’t cross off talking to a therapist. A talk to someone who doesn’t know you and is qualified can be a miracle.

Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#49

Post by Koshkin »

Programming/software engineering is just work. In the grand scheme of things, I feel that it is some kind of privilege that few occupations give you, to ask such a question. “I have been a construction worker for twenty-five years, and I am bored. What now?” “I work as a nurse in a hospital, but I lost interest in this line of work. What now?”

Re: Ask HN: Losing all interest in programming, what now?

#50

Post by agency »

balabaster wrote: post #5

This sounds like the beginnings of burnout or depression... do you find joy in anything else? Does anything motivate you? I went through this for about 3 years after my divorce. I couldn't find motivation or joy in anything. I turned to helping other people solve their problems because at least I was helping others to get through what I couldn't figure out how to get through myself. There was a lot of time spent in r…

I’m in a similar boat myself. I told myself I didn’t have any energy for things outside of work because of my job, though I never found the workload that overwhelming. I could get lost in the puzzle of the technical work and I’m good at it, but I ultimately found the work to be meaningless. At some point enterprise SaaS feels so abstract that even if in some sense it’s improving the world (helping companies work more effectively or what have you) I just can’t connect with it. Finally I quit and I’ve been fortunate enough financially to be able to take a long break. I found that even without a job I had no energy to do much and spent the better part of 2019 doing squat. Did a little freelancing at the beginning of the pandemic but was feeling the same old frustrations sink in (I can only learn so much from working on Node-backed web applications over and over).

Still figuring it out. I’m dipping my toes back in to programming a little learning Rust and embedded programming and it’s nice to feel the thrill (and frustration) of being clueless. I’m trying to get in touch with my creative side more with music. But mostly just taking it a day at a time, hiking a lot, cooking, and trying to find peace in the day-to-day rather than trying to push myself to be “productive” (whatever that means).

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