Ask HN: 30, burnt out, with 6-10 months of runway. What would you do?

tthrowaway_30yo 1 day ago 5 comments

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After being let go from a small agency due to financial reasons, I find myself having at least 6-10 months of downtime for the first time in 10 years.

I am around 30 and feel burnt out from my tech career. I do not feel any interest or happiness towards building things right now. I chose this career mostly due to monetary reasons and pursued undergrad and graduate degrees in CS in Europe. After which, I worked as a product manager for a while in the networking/telco sector in internal enterprise systems.

I am really at a loss for what to do now or how to spend time. I was always interested in doing my own thing, but would not call myself a good engineer or as having deep skills in a particular domain. I am more of a jack of all trades.

I dread just getting the next job and continuing the corporate grind, but I really worry about what to do in the near future career-wise. If you were in my position, what would you do with the time?

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Discussion (5 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

jmathai•23 minutes ago

I would encourage you to explore professions that you might find more fulfilling. I had found myself in a similar situation as you.

Some ideas that I explored were working for a church or non profit, starting an interior design firm with my wife (she’s a designer), advising startups, etc.

2 years later, I’m advising a couple start ups, on the board of two non profits, and back in tech.

I’m not thrilled about being back in tech. But the other ways I’m spending my time help provide me balance.

ElijahLynn•about 1 hour ago

Start with getting excessive amounts of sleep, if you haven't already. I've found that burnout for me is caused by sleep deprivation. And when I get enough sleep, I feel really good and the burnout lifts greatly, even for things I don't like working on but it can take a week or two to actually catch up on sleep for me.

I can tell if I'm sleep deprived when walking up stairs. If I'm sleep deprived it just feels hard. And if I'm not sleep deprived I actually have a little spring in my step up the stairs.

There's a good video by levelsio and how he comes up with ideas for things he wants to work on.

I only have one month of runway and I'm working nights and weekends to build my first product now. So you are in a good position if you have that much runway!

redrix•about 1 hour ago

35. Almost the same position as you!

Personally, before doing anything else, I would take at least 3-4 weeks and have a proper break. It will take you at least 1-2 weeks to get out of “work mode”.

Stop thinking about work, ideas, the next thing, etc. Get off social media, HN, Reddit etc. Try and distance yourself from all of the things that may have contributed to the burnout in the first place.

I’d probably do some travel in that time - maybe a week or two going to a country I haven’t been to before.

Once I was back, I’d then start to consider my next move with (hopefully) a fresher and clearer mindset.

satvikpendem•about 1 hour ago

Go travel the world. Now is a perfect time since you have money enough and it'd last more in many other countries.

hyperhello•about 1 hour ago

Don’t have an existential crisis, because you’re thirty and it’s not the time. Right now you need to be recharged as much as possible so you can seem to walk up to any situation as a “likely yes if possible”.