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I’m going to miss you, but I am taking a sabbatical

kottke.org

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Re: I’m going to miss you, but I am taking a sabbatical

#71

Post by mkr-hn »

>> "What good is a blog without a thriving community of other blogs?"

This is something I feel every time I think about getting back into blogging. A post wasn't quite the scream into the void it is now. Back then you'd at least get a few views and a comment or two if you wrote something compelling. Sometimes a lot of views and someone you don't even know liking your words enough to share them.[0]

I don't know if it's the context shift or the fact that newsletters are ascendant but drafting a newsletter doesn't feel as useless as drafting something in WordPress. Even with 0 subscribers.

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4719730

Re: I’m going to miss you, but I am taking a sabbatical

#72

Post by MontyCarloHall »

astroalex wrote: post #57
MontyCarloHall wrote: post #34

Jason posts a handful of cool links each week and occasionally writes a few paragraphs about them. He also sometimes produces a podcast. As far as I can tell, this is the full extent of his job. It’s really hard to imagine getting “burnt out” from this. It sounds exactly how many people actively enjoy spending their free time: surf the internet for fun and take a few minutes sharing a couple cool links with your frie…

I disagree. Firstly, I believe you underestimate the amount of work Jason does and the amount of stress he is under. I've read Kottke.org since I was a kid, and it's the only blog I still regularly read. There's a reason it's the only website I've looked at everyday for the majority of my life : consistent excellence. Anecdotally, whenever Jason has a guest writer come on his blog, I can tell before I even read the b…

I didn't say his sabbatical is unwarranted; he can spend his life however he pleases. I simply said that I think it's extremely tone deaf and sneeringly privileged for Jason to describe his current state as "burnt out." This is a very strong term referring to a state of extreme mental anguish induced by an unreasonable and inescapable level of overwork that applies more to people forced to work 60+ hour weeks at minimum wage than to people whose livelihood is posting cool links a handful of times a week. As I said in another post, it would be equally tone deaf for a millionaire to unironically describe themselves as being "impoverished" due to a small cut in their yearly bonus or an underperforming investment.

If Jason simply wrote that he's sick of maintaining his blog and wants to try something new, that would be perfectly fine.

>I imagine it takes a huge amount of work and thought to successfully curate The Whole Internet into something that people actually want to read for 24 years.

I disagree. Plenty of prolific Reddit and Hacker News posters do the same thing in their spare time.

>Anecdotally, whenever Jason has a guest writer come on his blog, I can tell before I even read the by-line. It's just not the same quality.

Isn't that because they usually post more long-form original content (e.g. https://kottke.org/tag/Tim%20Carmody) than cool links?

Re: I’m going to miss you, but I am taking a sabbatical

#73

Post by dhosek »

thecrumb wrote: post #43

Must be wonderful to actually have the luxury to step away... I'm living the American dream - to work a non-rewarding job for no other reason other than health insurance. How do people manage these sabbaticals? Are they just wealthy enough so they don't need income?

I take 1/6 of every paycheck¹ and put it in a CD ladder. This enables me (in theory) to take every seventh year off. I would be taking next year off except I ended up taking an unplanned 6-month break last year because of Covid, so I'm going to wait until 2025 for my next sabbatical. One key thing is to live a far below your means as possible.

⸻ 1. I also put half of any “extra” income that comes my way and if I slide money that I don’t use into that fund as well.

Re: I’m going to miss you, but I am taking a sabbatical

#74

Post by nocman »

MontyCarloHall wrote: post #56
santoshalper wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really feel like you're reading too much into the term "burned out". You can get sick of doing anything and lose the spark. I've never managed to do anything consistently for half as long as he's run his blog. It's kind of amazing to me he lasted this long. I just get the sense that his interest in it is waning, and he doesn't want to just "check the box" every day. It's his right. Just because some people live in…

I agree with everything you wrote. This is the crux of my annoyance: >I'm curious, would it have bothered you as much if he'd just said: "I'm sick of this blog and I'm quitting it?" because that's basically what he did, except he promised to come back (I wonder if he'll regret that promise in six months). Yes, this is exactly how he should have phrased it. "Burnt out" is a very strong term that refers to a state of e…

While I see where you are coming from, that's your definition of "burnt out", but it is not the only valid one, and many obviously don't require the condition to be as extreme as you do for the term to be valid.

I don't know anything about Jason, so I can't make an informed call on whether I think he is overly exaggerating things by using the term.

I do think there is at least a version of "burnt out" that just means you are really tired, because you have put a lot of effort into something for a long period of time, to the point that you are questioning whether it is worth it to you to continue doing it.

However, yeah, some people probably say "I'm so burnt out on 'X'" because they've spent over a half hour on it, and it still isn't done. That doesn't qualify, in my opinion.

Re: I’m going to miss you, but I am taking a sabbatical

#75

Post by dahfizz »

reggieband wrote: post #62

I watch a lot of YouTube and a fair amount of Twitch. Sooner or later every creator talks a bit about their anxiety working in that content creator grind. On Twitch, taking a day off may mean losing hundreds of subscribers. Streamers are cautious about taking bathroom breaks since they can lose thousands of viewers during a short break. YouTube ruthlessly punishes creators that don't upload on a consistent schedule.…

If you're a streamer large enough to be receiving hundreds of subs a day, and so many viewers you could lose thousands during a bathroom break, you're a multi millionaire. It's hard for me to be sympathetic about how stressful their job is when they could retire comfortably at any point.

Re: I’m going to miss you, but I am taking a sabbatical

#76

Post by mwidell »

reggieband wrote: post #62

I watch a lot of YouTube and a fair amount of Twitch. Sooner or later every creator talks a bit about their anxiety working in that content creator grind. On Twitch, taking a day off may mean losing hundreds of subscribers. Streamers are cautious about taking bathroom breaks since they can lose thousands of viewers during a short break. YouTube ruthlessly punishes creators that don't upload on a consistent schedule.…

Youtube does not punish you if you are not consistent. That is simply a myth. There are plenty of very successful youtubers who only publish occasionally or irregularly.

Re: I’m going to miss you, but I am taking a sabbatical

#77

Post by nickelcitymario »

waynesonfire wrote: post #65
reggieband wrote: post #62

I watch a lot of YouTube and a fair amount of Twitch. Sooner or later every creator talks a bit about their anxiety working in that content creator grind. On Twitch, taking a day off may mean losing hundreds of subscribers. Streamers are cautious about taking bathroom breaks since they can lose thousands of viewers during a short break. YouTube ruthlessly punishes creators that don't upload on a consistent schedule.…

Quoted post unavailable.

Please be sure to publish a confessional post the next time you're struggling and need a break. I'm sure we'd all like to give you the same love and respect you're affording Mr. Kottke.

Re: I’m going to miss you, but I am taking a sabbatical

#78

Post by giraffe_lady »

tylergetsay wrote: post #45
thecrumb wrote: post #43

Must be wonderful to actually have the luxury to step away... I'm living the American dream - to work a non-rewarding job for no other reason other than health insurance. How do people manage these sabbaticals? Are they just wealthy enough so they don't need income?

If a knowledgeable person on your team is burnt out and considering a new job, a long (paid) vacation can be advantageous for all.

I'm sure it would be but I've never heard of that happening.

I once went to my manager saying I was worried about burning out bc of pushing so hard on a project with a legal deadline. Asked him to consider/look into options for me to take a month off unpaid at the end of it.

He said he'd talk to leadership about it and get back to me. I got fired the next day.

Re: I’m going to miss you, but I am taking a sabbatical

#79

Post by lastofthemojito »

I see myself in Jason Kottke's writing about burnout. I used to occasionally marvel that I got paid (and paid pretty well!) to solve problems in software. The past few years I've felt mired in Jira/Agile hell, working on machines slowed by corporate-mandated anti-virus and whatever other spyware, building software that is often thrown away due to unrealistic requirements or just plain bad requirements gathering.

I've also become a father, which is obviously a time-consuming and stressful endeavor.

Oh, and there's this pandemic going on, so I didn't get to see much of my Mom while she was dying, but I did feel like I saw some extra ugliness in society in general.

I'm not sure which of these (or other) factors have contributed more or less to my feeling this way. I've been starting to think about taking some time off, although I'm not sure how much I'll be able to swing. But if there were a clone of me out there, and I could press a button to approve a 6 month sabbatical for him, I'd definitely do it.

It's easy to look at the superficial and think, "man this Kottke guy had an easy gig, he doesn't deserve a 6 month break", but if he's feeling similarly to me, I don't begrudge him. Like the Chinese expression says: Only the wearer knows where the shoe pinches.

Re: I’m going to miss you, but I am taking a sabbatical

#80

Post by manquer »

mwidell wrote: post #76
reggieband wrote: post #62

I watch a lot of YouTube and a fair amount of Twitch. Sooner or later every creator talks a bit about their anxiety working in that content creator grind. On Twitch, taking a day off may mean losing hundreds of subscribers. Streamers are cautious about taking bathroom breaks since they can lose thousands of viewers during a short break. YouTube ruthlessly punishes creators that don't upload on a consistent schedule.…

Youtube does not punish you if you are not consistent. That is simply a myth. There are plenty of very successful youtubers who only publish occasionally or irregularly.

This is the same as between making tv series of 5-6 episodes or one of 24 episodes/season or a soap opera doing 200+ episodes a year.

YT as a platform works for all kinds of producers , but as a content creator you are the in the space of high volume low quality content then yes publishing frequently is a must.

However if you are high quality low volume creator who is almost guaranteed tens of million views you could do only infrequently, however each video is going take a lot of time to produce.

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