Ask HN: Burnt out by my side project, yet unable to step away. What to do?
6 points by ahmedfromtunis 13 hours ago
I've been solo working on this side project for over four years now, and I officially launched it two years ago.
I am deeply passionate about the problem space and the positive feedback from the users continues to be a huge source of motivation and validation for me.
I even took a full-time sabbatical for a year to work on it, which helped establish it in a small niche.
When commuting, doing chores or running errands, it's the only thing I can think of. I even created detailed plans for easy to build features that users requested.
YET, every time I sit down in front of my computer, I freeze up.
I know exactly what to build and how to build it, but I spend two or three hours trying to maintain focus for more than 30 minutes in a row. (And, no, Pomodoro didn't work either.)
I feel like a spring that can't wait to jump somewhere else.
I've tried working on it after my day job and before work. I quit social media and try to spend my free time consuming long-form media to avoid ruining my attention span because I keep thinking that's the cause of my strife. But the result is the same: zero energy for execution.
Worse yet, I can't even enjoy my time away from it. The guilt of not being in front of my computer working on the project completely ruins my evenings, weekends, and social time. Stepping away feels impossible because the guilt makes relaxing more stressful than trying (and failing) to work.
How can I escape this cycle?
(And, yes, I wrote this while trying to do some work on the project.)
Jennifer Senior wrote a great piece back in 2006 about burnout [1] titled "Can’t Get No Satisfaction". It's worth reading the whole thing. Here are some fragments that stuck with me:
> we think of burnout as the gap between expectations and rewards
> happiness equals reality divided by expectations
> level of caring couldn’t be sustained in the absence of results
How have you been framing your side project? Is your side project intended to be a business? If so, what outputs is the business achieving (revenue, profit, your effective hourly wage as the owner operator)? Dispassionately, is it doing well enough commercially that it makes sense to continue to pursue this business?
In the case where this side project has not been achieving sufficient commercial results, and has been falling short of your expectations and the goals you set yourself, is it possible that your resistance to continuing working on the side project is because subconsciously your body has decided it is not a good use of additional time and energy?
It could be beneficial and healthy if you could give yourself a long break from thinking and focusing on your side project, to get your brain out of this habit of focusing on the side project and give it the opportunity to think and focus on some new things, or just to rest.
From my experience (not with side projects but with job related burnout) consider taking a holiday from it, get lots of sunlight and exercise, spend time with friends and family, pick up a new hobby or resume an old hobby that gives you some immediate enjoyment in the moment. It may take months for your habitual thinking patterns to adjust, but once your thinking patterns change you may have a very different perspective on the situation.
[1] https://nymag.com/news/features/24757/