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Comment by sirn | Hacker News Reader

I can't say much about being motivated, but for me lack of opportunity to learn and try out new things can be very demotivating. Nothing stop me from doing so after work in a side project, but that still doesn't make the 'I wish I could use this in my day job' thought disappear.

(My current hack is to learn something that has no use in the day job after work.)

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I think that hack can be very good for advancing yourself. There are some people here that have said their companies encourage that and allow them to experiment with new technologies and learn different things. Maybe present the benefit of learning side projects or hackathons with the team and pitch it as team building to your company. See if you can get them to bite!

Sorry, I think I didn't worded it properly.

I think encourage learning and reward learning are a very different things that need to coexists with each other. The company can encourage learning (e.g. buying books), but without giving an opportunity to try out what you learn, the learning part can be demotivating because it has no effect. It's even worse when company has neither.

For example, when you believe what you learn can solve the problem the company is having but you're not allowed to do it. Even when the reason is understandable (e.g. the change does not worth the cost, or need to prioritize something else), it can still be very demotivating.

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