zapperdapper

I agree that this "meaning" is a hard thing to put your finger on.

But you know it when you see it.

I think it's maybe not so much about the actual work as how you feel about the work. I have worked on side projects that are not too dissimilar to the day job, but have felt far more meaningful to me - it's sometimes hard to define exactly why though! I used to think it was about helping others, and it is true that does feel meaningful, but I think there's more to it than that.

His problem though is not with side projects is it? It's the 40 hours cranking out meaningless crap in the office that's the issue here.

I've had no problem finding meaning in my side projects - the job I do for money though always seems to degenerate into a daily grind.

haha - brilliant, and spot on!

Very much my experience too.

The only thing I found that worked for me in the end was what I call the "just work less" approach.

How?

Cut expenses to the bone, and then cut some more. Go contracting. Aim to work for money maybe three months a year.

I found the non-work portion of the year involved travel, reading, family, writing, and tech projects done for the hell of it. It worked, and my life felt much happier, and more in balance.

One of the biggest problems with the industry (aside from the generally meaningless nature of most of it) is the traditional 40 hour week. It just burns people out too fast.

Does it though? I've worked with a really fantastic team and manager before, but the utter meaningless of the work, day after day, got to me in the end and I pulled the pin on it.

I was in a similar position post divorce. Drove away from the family home with next to nothing and was sleeping in the car. That was actually not as bad as it sounds - I worked out and showered at the gym, and spent a lot of time in the office - sometimes sleeping on the sofa in the break room if I thought I could get away with it. I remember one guy came in one morning and joked with that old chestnut "you been here all night?" - I would laugh, but little did he know!

Then the company went bust almost overnight - VC pulled the plug...

It was then a lot tougher. I moved to Thailand and lived on my credit card. I got some remote work with a borrowed Windows laptop, and did some marketing work for local companies. I then moved to Malaysia and became a dive bum. Best time of my life. I was lucky.

All I can say is hang in there, things have a way of working themselves out...

The herd mentality is very much in evidence in the stock market. There's often no logic to it. By standing apart from the herd and sometimes running in the opposite direction you can often make a killing. Example : 2007 when the market crashed. A lot of people panicked and sold because the market dropped (because a lot of people were also selling).

> I'm wondering now if I should think about changing career completely, what can an ex-developer retrain into?

Been asking myself that question for 16 years - I wish I had the answer. My solution was to go contracting and take extended career breaks. It sort of worked. I would like to move out of the industry permanently, but always run into the "but what else would I do" question.

You are not alone!

Yes, I do think "overwhelm" is a huge problem in the industry. I recently started a new job and not been there 3 months yet and it felt like been caught up in an avalanche.

GTD can help. I get a sense of control from simply opening up my GTD spreadsheet and tackling the 'next action' for a project. If you chunk it correctly it really helps.

I can't help but chuckle when I hear management banging on about "agile".

Here's their reality:

1. It's all top priority. 2. It all needs to be done yesterday.

:)

No wonder we get stressed!

Absolutely agree - 3 months is really the minimum for a career break. I was thinking a year off in this case might do the trick. There could be other issues at play here though of course...

Also agree with your advice to do other things. Simply walking for an hour in the fresh air is vastly underrated in these days of back-to-back ultra-marathons.

Recently was in Philippines for a month and met a guy there who was a former software engineer who owns and runs a resort. He'd been there 7 years and was really doing well. Really nice Swiss guy. Resort was magical too - we had a cold spring in the back garden of our bungalow... sigh...

Funnily enough this can work - but you have to be careful you don't burn yourself even more.

If you find something that just captures your imagination then go with the flow.

By coincidence it was a video linked to here on HackerNews that gave me the impetus for the tech project on my last career break. It was the video of the guy who fixed a ten year old bug in Guitar Hero without the source code. It turned out to be a memory allocation failure. I found that so interesting I spent quite a bit of my 6 month career break investigating memory allocators, memory debug tools, and even wrote a couple of my own experimental allocators - absolutely fascinating stuff. Really miss those days!

Extended career breaks work magic for me too. I recently took six months away from work and it was sheer bliss. I was doing some techie stuff - but only things I really wanted to do and didn't force myself. I did a lot of sleeping, walking, eating good food and generally relaxing. Worked like a charm and I went back to work reinvigorated.

I do think though if you are significantly burnt out then a year off might be necessary in order to fully recover.

You would have thought so, but many of the people who are the first to stand up rarely get up and walk around during the flight. That's what I've observed anyway, and one of my hobbies is looking out for such oddities... :)

I once met a guy on a train, who turned out to be a multi-millionaire, who told me his investment strategy was based entirely around this very phenomenon. I still keep in touch with him from time to time. Fascinating guy.

More personally it annoys the hell out of me and I avoid doing it. It's the same of the train. I had a woman get very ratty with me the other day because I didn't stand up just because everyone else did (she was window and I was aisle). I wouldn't have minded but we were at least five minutes from arriving in the station!

There are probably all sorts of studies on this but I suspect the main reasons are 1) herd mentality 2) impatience. The levels of impatience I see on a daily basis are truly scary.

I'm not quite sure what you want to track but here are a few I use:

- Google Docs spreadsheet to track all aspects finances - Google Docs spreadsheet to track work projects using GTD - Pedometer+ (iPhone) to track steps (target 10,000 a day)

Perhaps you were more interested in time-tracking tools? I know that two-thirds of my time is typically working and sleeping. I don't do social media so no time wasted there.

There is an enormous list of time-tracking software (with ratings) here:

https://www.capterra.com/time-tracking-software/

The only one I have heard of is RescueTime, but there are tons more.

It's the things you can't predict that can mess up your schedule though - got home from a garden party Saturday and ended up having to deal with a swarm of bees that decided to come down our chimney...

Gilt-edged securities. Basically UK government bonds. Equivalent of US treasury bonds.

My savings rate is 74.95%. Yes, I am that anal about it.

I'm keeping a fair bit in cash right now (ready for the next crash). In terms of "stash" I guess overall I'm about 40% gilts and bonds, 30% equities, 30% cash. Not too spicy, but I sleep well. They reckon should should hold you age in bonds and gilts (55% for me). Total stash is equivalent to about 33.33 years of expenses.

Then there's property which I don't include in stash.

I would think seriously about the fact you have very little diversification in your portfolio.

You also are holding the typical amount in cash that is recommended for an emergency fund. I'm slightly more contrarian on that issue - I like to keep one to three years of expenses as cash - it varies depending on various issues.

Of course everyone has their own thoughts on investment and there is no "one size fits all".

All the best!

Electricity is £10 a month and I'm in credit earning 3% interest in the balance.

Heating oil is 500 every 18 months but depends a lot on weather.

Virtually nothing on petrol as I rarely use the car these days.

Slightly specialized I know, but I thought Randy Heit did great work on the ZDoom engine. Jaakko Keränen also did some really good things with the Doomsday Engine.

Very nice!!

Embedded is a BIG area - and even bigger now with IoT - so there are a lot of things you could learn - but what specifically are you interested in? You could for example take a look at some of the newer OSs like ARM Mbed OS, or Google Fuchsia.

Anyway, I'm sure you will fit in somewhere. Good luck!

Yes this question has appeared here too many times. :(

As someone who went through depression/burnout/divorce at 40 I really feel for what you are going through.

I wish there was an easy answer. The bottom line is don't go through this alone - get professional help.

That said, I've been through a couple of periods of burnout/depression (I'm coming up to 56 now), here's what has helped me:

1) Long walks in the fresh air every day (don't underestimate this one!). 2) CBT. 3) Taking six months off work! 4) Travel and a new hobby (scuba diving). 5) Friends and family, especially my awesome brothers, and my partner of 12 years.

Take it one step at a time. Good luck!

+1 for Your Money or Your Life - the book that changed my life. I have been recommending that book to everyone who will listen since 2006! :)

> online self-education is a delusion because passive enthusiasts and desperate folks do not just really need tools but a purpose or a market.

I believe you are accusing online education of giving people ("passive enthusiasts and desperate folks" in your words) false hope?

I would contend the world is a better place for having free online education. Removing that would not address issues around 'purpose' or 'market'.

The job market is definitely there, although I am not quite sure why you single out 'remote work'.

With regards 'purpose' that can be defined by, and depends on, the individual. For example, learning about art history online might help with that novel you are writing.

I think your bone of contention is more with 1) the job market 2) the process of being credentialed.

Free online learning resources were never intended to address these issues and in many ways they can never do so.

I think what is needed (and I believe there are some options already available) is an open degree credentialing system. The way this would work is there would be an open syllabus that could be downloaded freely, with various learning outcomes and expectations provided. Examination requirements would be clearly specified. The student would then study from any or all of the available resources, and when fully prepared would attend an examination centre to sit the exams.

In the UK you can do this already at GCSE and A level (there are some restrictions to this). You can download syllabus from the relevant exam board, example exam questions, recommended resources etc. You can study online resources, recommended text books and so on. You can even hire a personal tutor if you need to and there are some entities that will provide all the materials you need. What really needs to be done is for this to be expanded up to degree level and possibly beyond. So potentially the only thing you would pay for is to sit the exams. Of course this cannot address issues around market demand - that is more down to economic considerations, not the availability of online education.

So, I agree with you in the sense that free online education does not solve all problems, but then nor does a university education guarantee you a job or a purpose either!

Check my HN profile. From there you can find my GitHub (see the repo Website-Test that has everything), feel free to use my code if you so wish!

Oh I really like neocities. You can sign up for pro membership and have custom domains and so on but I've not needed that so far - I may do at some point though.

All the best!

Do you have to change your career to become a writer? I would focus on becoming a writer, and then if it works out change your career.

Also, it depends what kind of writer you want to become - some options are easier than others. For example, would you classify a journalist as a writer? Is technical writing "writing"?

Barry Eisler is a good example of a writer who broke into writing gradually. A former lawyer, it took him 7 years to get his first book published. He wrote in lunch breaks, on flights, after the kids went to bed. He had to re-write that first book at least twice based on feedback from agents/publishers.

Ted Chiang is an example of a technical writer who changed into science fiction writing.

I changed from teaching into technical writing.

How you will change into writing (which I assume is what you want) will depend on your starting point and how far down the road to becoming a writer you already are.

p.s. Have a read of "Big Magic" by Elizabeth Gilbert - I believe there's much of value in her suggested approach.

I love it. Check my website (see HN profile) or contact me if you want more info.