Ask HN: I want to do exceptional work, but I'm in a rut

I started programming when I was young and learned a lot in a very short time (qbasic -> client side web -> perl -> php) within a year. As I've continued learning my pace has slowed. I'm sure it's a function of age as well, but going from intermediate to advanced is a much longer journey than the initial part of the learning.

After losing my last job, my internal motivation train jumped off the tracks and now that I've secured employment elsewhere I can't seem to get back on the rails. There's a mental fog that is making it tough to connect my day to day actions to the long term plan. Maybe I'm just out of practice.

But whatever the case may be, I'm sure others have gotten into a similar spot before. I'd love to hear any stories and accompnyning advice.

Don't overthink it. Scratch your own itch and create something. Since you have some perl background, create a useful utility and get it up on github. Do it again tomorrow, and keep going.

No utility is too small. You want to get into the ecosystem of reusable code and just getting out there. At some point (soon), your learning will go exponential.

From a Lincoln biography:

"Speed (Lincoln's friend) recorded the dramatic exchange that began when he came to Lincoln and told him he would die unless he rallied. Lincoln replied that he could kill himself, that he was not afraid to die. Yet, he said, he had an 'irrepressible desire' to accomplish something while he lived. He wanted to connect his name with the great events of his generation, and 'so impress himself upon them as to link his name with something that would redound to the interest of his fellow man.'This was no mere wish, Lincoln said, but what he 'desired to live for.'”

Exactly! If it's not worth playing, it's not worth doing on your free time. When you learned Perl and Php, wasn't that kind of play also? Maybe it's the Php rotting your brain.

Now, learn some new programming language (see some options at http://rosettacode.org/wiki/Language_Comparison_Table) and start playing again!

Also, write down ideas for projects that you would like to do. It might wind up longer than you excepted very fast... and as bonus, you'll get to learn new algorithms, programming paradigms and so on.

Hah. PHP brain rot. But alas, I do know many other languages. I'm a professional programmer. I was just using that as an example I felt meaningful at introducing myself to other programmers. Your suggestion is a good one though-I do need to start playing more with my coding time.