Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

news.ycombinator.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 288 posts

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#21

Post by perlgeek »

I used to have one or more side projects going on all the time.

With work and family, I currently don't really have the energy to make consistent progress, so instead I do very small things, mostly not software.

Like, baking a sourdough bread usually spans two days, with not too much work on each of these days. Will it be The Next Big Thing? Well, only at our next meal :-)

That's the scope of projects I can manage these days.

And that's totally fine, the world cannot sustain the same number of Big Things as there are people, so I'm fine with most of us never having one, including me.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#22

Post by Swizec »

I’ve always liked Viktor Frankl’s take on this:

There is no meaning. But humans need meaning. Create your own! Absolutely anything will do as long as you find it meaningful. Just pick a goal/meaning and go for it. It’s okay to change what you find meaningful as you go through life.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#23

Post by CrypticShift »

You can spend unlimited time working on yourself. I see no unhealthy unbalance in that as long as you have no inner need or outer pressure to produce (or you are able to control both).

Personally I find it tricky, though. Am I doing nothing for this long because I am just getting lazy (-> need resolve) or depressed (-> need real help)? It does not seem to be your case, so just take your time. Take your time.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#24

Post by thierrydamiba »

zemvpferreira wrote: post #3

I'm working on things. Just, things I subconsciously devalue because they're not new/hard/valuable enough. So when people ask me what I work on I often answer 'nothing much' back even though those same people would find what I'm actually doing to be as hard as most jobs - which is not that much but enough. Enough is what I should answer, and maybe you too. Everything will work itself out, these years will turn out to…

This is also the curse of expertise. To most people in tech, uploading a weather dataset for one zip code and making a site that spits out predictions for the weather the next day is trivial.

It would not be an impressive project to people in industry and it would not impress most hiring managers. To quote you, it would be “nothing much”. For most people who aren’t in tech, this project sounds pretty cool and is very much something.

Easy to get lost in the sauce when you spend all day soaking in it.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#25

Post by itsgrimetime »

I think it’s super normal to have fluctuations in your interests and curiosities. Life would be pretty boring if we did the same thing for its entirety. I also think that focusing on yourself is something that always pays off - and will likely give you more mental and emotional capacity long term. Whenever I have periods like that I find my curiosity and drive comes back naturally if I’m patient and don’t try to force it.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#26

Post by slowhadoken »

I’m inquisitive so I keep my eye on the regular stream of hype and trends to find what’s actually good. My focus is math and computer science. Most of my mind is in the theoretical and pops up occasionally to do brief soul searching and give people advice. I don’t care about careers.

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#29

Post by iamwpj »

I had a period like this, I even stopped playing some games because it just was there anymore. My wife and I took a long road trip in 2021 and it gave me time to be peaceful (national parks helped a lot with this). I started grad school in 2022, it has really helped me with perspective and forces me to engage in my interests when other things are often easier. There’s drawbacks, but overall I’m happy to have motivation. In short: try something new!

Re: Ask HN: Who else is working on nothing?

#30

Post by codeptualize »

> I am working on something, but that something is myself.

Great way to spend your time. It takes a lot of time and energy so it's not really surprising that there is little bandwidth left to spend on other things. I totally recognize that.

Sometimes boring and steady is good if you need that energy to work on other things, but if you think the "boring" is part of the problem, it might be time to change things up.

If you have the means/access, therapy might be helpful to figure out where these feelings come from and what to do with them.

> Everyone seems so busy building or learning the next big thing

I think this is also not per se a realistic view of what's going on. There are plenty of people who do their job and that's it, but you won't see them post about it.

Things are only a problem if you find them problematic. If you are happy doing nothing that's great, if not then you might need to take some action.

I've had times where I did absolutely nothing, now I am building a company haha, things change, lots is possible.

Post reply on HN