Ask HN: Those who have taken extended time off, any advice?

I'm also planning on doing this. I fervently want to live in another country for at least a few months.

I could probably stop working for about 6 months if I pick a cheap country.

Try to take 3 months off maximum.

With my paid job I sometimes got overwhelmed and sometimes felt a lack of purpose. At those times I found solace in side projects and would even try to sneak in working on them at my paid job. A few of those projects were successful enough to quit my paid job for a few years.

Since then I've turned to quitting my job first and then trying to start a side project. It's not the same and I haven't succeeded. When you have infinite time you stop to value it. You can always do it tomorrow or next month and the procrastination or perfectionism creep in.

My sister says that if you really want something done, you should give it to the busiest person you know. It seems contradictory, but the busy person values their time and they will get your task done as fast and as efficiently as possible.

I have done it twice. The first time I spent about 3 months riding my bicycle around the US. Then spent a few months looking for a job. It was not a good market. The second time I spent 7 months in New Zealand and Australia. Half the time biking. Took only 2 months to find the job I had before I left. I was trying to get one in a different city.

Make sure you have your health insurance lined up, in case you have a hernia in Australia and get it operated on then... never know.

Have a better 'back to work plan' then what I had.

Have goals and schedules. Have some loose timelines. RE examine your goals, preferably with a trusted friend, to keep you intellectually honest. Do this on a strongly fixed schedule. Be it once a week, once a month, every other month. I would not recommend less often then every 3 months.

My first trip was a burnout fix. My second was because I could.

I would say make a detailed budget, but that depends on your plans and resources. I did not, but I usually have a good sense of what my finances are.

Do not go into debt for this.

I did it after my first job. It was a break of about a year and I spent the first 5 months just backpacking around and climbing mountains.

I enjoyed being off grid with even my smartphone mostly off and being used just as a camera. It just felt very relaxing and I was in the best of my mental state then. I got the chance to meet a lot of new people from different backgrounds and just have different experiences in different places.

I didn't regret it a bit but after a while I kind of started missing my computer as well, because I do really enjoy building stuff as well. So after five months, I started working on some ideas I had, sadly they didn't pan out and I joined a new job in some time after doing 2-3 weeks of interview preparation. In total, it was a break of about a year.

Since I mostly used to stay in hostels, tents and was mostly on foot or cycle, it wasn't expensive. But if you are used to a paycheck, it seems weird when you have to take money out of your investments. So, you start thinking about your long term savings after a while.

I am not sure what you meant by preparing, I didn't have an exact plan or budget. I just had some mental estimate of the rough expenditure and how much of my savings I was willing to burn.

It totally depends on you but if I do it again; I would plan it a bit upfront(at least the major checkpoints) and would keep my break between 3-6 months.

I retired at 32 and its been about 5 years. Its pretty fucking cool. One thing is everyone else looks super retarded. I missed out on all this Me-Too and covid and social justice insanity, so thats cool. But man, it really makes everyone look really insane if you are not a part of it.

I don't think I could go back at this point. Also, I tend to give less of a shit about social pressures if you are not always worried your boss or whoever might see something to say or type.

Overall I feel bad for people that have to live the life of working.

The most surprising thing I discovered was that it took me 3 months to lose a jittery “I.SHOULD.DO.SOMETHING.NOW” feeling. Only after 3 months did I feel truly relaxed to pursue whatever interest-driven nerding project and at the same time letting go of a sense of achievement or progress. 2021 was supposed to be a “me” year until an interesting project came along. I said yes. Taking time off is hard.

My wife and I retired in 1998 and moved to the mountains (Sedona AZ). Since then I have worked onsite at Google and Capital One, otherwise did occasional consulting gigs remotely and worked briefly for two companies remotely. I feel like I have had large extended time off periods, except I am always writing a book (BTW, shameless plug: I just published my "Practical Artificial Intelligence Programming with Clojure" book today - grab a free copy from my web site https://markwatson.com)

I haven't been bored for too long since boredom is a trigger for getting some work. We are in a relatively inexpensive area to live which helps financially.

I would rather leave some money on the table and have more free time.

It wasn't boring. I made my 4th and 5th kids, grew a big garden, maintained procps, added features to Tux Paint, and messed with reusing CVS's silly single-use video camera.

Maybe it was worth it. It definitely was expensive, despite living cheaply. I didn't prepare at all, aside from my normal habit of living below my means.

Took 3 months off. Amazing stay-cation, I already have a laundry list of things that I wanted to do, so I did not have too much time to get board. Great for mental health, as I was getting close to burnout after a number of person live issues.

Now I am just going to be working part time, as I loved the balance that doing non-computer related work gave me. With proper budgeting, and a decent industry you will be surprised how little work one needs to do to live a happy and humble life.

I've done it several times.

Yes, totally worth it.

Yes, totally got bored. That's a good thing, it's the polar opposite of creativity and we need to live there some of the time or we lose track of the value of creativity and come to think of it as the day-to-day grind instead of the fun adventure it can be.

It was not more expensive. With all that time I could make my own food and minimize the monetary friction of convenience to save time. Everything went much slower and more thoughtful.

Helpful prep? Have ideas for a project, something to accomplish on a day to day habit kind of process and another long term. Not stressful projects, nor necessarily productive projects. Maybe learning? Maybe more physicality? Me, I did more yoga and took classes at a local maker space. Worst thing you can do is leave all your time open and free. You won't value it. Well, 2nd worst thing is to expect you can do too much and kick yourself for not living up to your potential.

Relax.

Took 9 months off after I quit my first job. I was working on a startup, pitched it around town, and it failed pretty miserably. Even so, it was probably the happiest time of my life.

The immense focus, waking up and working on my thing. No pointless meetings, standups, or sucking up to people. I feel that I got a taste of what people that are financially independent always rave about. I started frequenting a local coffee shop, got to meet a ton of people from all walks of life.

Totally worth it.

I took a three month leave of absence at the end of a six year run of 7x24 days in the dot com era, totally burned out. I extended it another three months as I entered the initial last month as I didn't feel "ready" to return.

I think the experience completely broke my willingness to return to a "normal" tech role again and I've bounced between short bursts of employment and long bursts of not working or semi–employment as a consultant.

I think it also saved my life.

Mistakes I made:

  I didn't have a plan to structure my time off.
  I didn't have any goals to accomplish in my time off.
  I didn't arrange ahead of time for a role to return to.

What I did do: learned basic Mandarin, established a relationship that has lasted 20+ years, read many non CS / non-technical books, focused on getting healthier and fitter.

Specific advice: structure your time off, set goals, try to accomplish them but don't punish yourself if you fail. Arrange ahead of time for a role to return to, even if it's time limited or isn't what you "really want to do".

I wrote longer about this previously but can't find it in my first few pages of comments.

Copy pasting my comment from a previous thread:

In 2016, I quit my job working at a small software firm in Chicago. I didn't think I would do it, I was afraid I would keep putting it off, so one day in the middle of the workday I just abruptly opened AirBnB and booked an apartment for two months in Paris, just like that, non-refundable, plus a flight, also non-refundable. It was 7 months in advance, to give myself plenty of time, but also to put a definitive date on the matter. I had never been outside the US at the time. I left at the end of July and spent all of August, September, and October in Europe, living off savings and just enjoying the sights, alone.

I have a mixture of extremely good and sad memories. I do not regret it in any way and am extremely glad I did it.

My place in Paris was lovely, right by Les Gobelins in the heart of the city. The weather was beautiful and I would just spend days walking the streets, visiting every museum and cathedral and café and restaurant. The best thing is that under such circumstances you aren't pressed to fit everything into a few days-- you have the freedom to do something every day or every few days, whatever pace you feel like. So you never end up feeling hassled or pressured.

I would pass whole afternoons sitting in the window of the bookshop across from Notre-Dame Cathedral, listening to the churchbells and reading books. I would spend many evenings walking the river. If I felt like it, I would take a train out of the city to a random village in the countryside and visit castle ruins. I did this many times. It's amazing what you can find sitting around in Europe, hundreds or thousands of years old decaying in a field. So much history there.

I rented a car and drove to Normandy, and to the south, and saw many more things. Eventually I flew to Italy, and then to Croatia. Croatia was the best part of the whole trip-- it's an unbelievably gorgeous country. It's not so well known as Italy and Greece and France, but it's as good or better.

A lot of this time was spent playing video games on my laptop in my airbnb room, being a little sad that I was on my own. That's the other side of it. Some friends flew out and spent time with me there, totalling two weeks, but the other eight weeks was just me in a land where I could only speak the language well enough to get by, but not well enough to get to know anyone meaningfully. It was lonely. And all the while I knew I had to go back and figure out what to do next.

I think it depends. You have to know yourself. Money can take away some causes of unhappiness, but it can't give happiness, only freedom, which isn't the same thing. Purpose is happiness, someone said to me recently, and I agree with them. Traveling on my own, I had freedom, but no purpose beyond seeing beautiful and ancient things that I'd never seen before. It was lovely, and I'll do it again soon. But I wasn't as happy as the times when I knew I was where I was meant to be, with people who needed me there and wanted me there.

I don't have a tidy conclusion. It's just food for thought I guess. My personal answer to OP's question. For what it's worth, the whole 3 months cost me <$6000. Staying in one airbnb for an extended block of time and buying groceries instead of eating out 3x a day makes a big difference, plus the trains are cheap in Europe.

At may last gig, I was super burnt out, it got to the point where I'd go into the office, but spend my time mostly dicking about. Maybe doing an hour of work in a day. After six months of that (and having no one actually notice, that was probably the worst part) I decided I couldn't take it and quit without a plan.

The first few weeks I did absolutely nothing but workout, read books, play video games, or just lay out in a hammock. But as soon as the stress started wearing off, I started feeling the itch to make things again. Because I didn't have anywhere to share what I was making, I ended up organizing a local meetup for Rust, which ended up getting me my current job doing shit that I love. Though when I accepted the offer I made my start date a few weeks out just to round my time off up to three months off. That was the happiest time of my life. I fully intend to take at least that much time off if I ever leave this job too. (Though I might even see if I can swing a three month long vacation/sabbatical without leaving once my project is released.)

My only advice: do it.

Its interesting to see 3 months coming up a lot. I think it sounds like a lot of time but growing up I got 3 months off from school every year for summer break. We really torture our selves to work.

- "Try to take 3 months off maximum"

- "structure your time off"

- "Have goals and schedules"

- "Arrange ahead of time for a role to return to"

You are getting a very American perspective in this thread so far (possibly due to the time of day). I will counterbalance it.

Advice: You're overthinking it already. If you feel like a long break in between roles, take one. Book a one way ticket to a place you've always wanted to visit, and figure out your next steps once you get there. Many/most places in the world (including within the US) are very cheap to live if you don't need to live close to work.

Maybe you end up getting bored and returning to work in a few months, maybe you run out of money, maybe you love it and travel for a year or more, working hospitality jobs to get by. All of these are great outcomes, and you will learn something about yourself that would have been impossible to discover while heads down working full time employment.

COVID is a bit of hassle right now, but places are already opening up, and come summer you should have many more options.

Yep. Took a year off.

I can't advise you because I don't know your circumstances. I would do it again, but I cannot well articulate the advantages. I'm more deeply calm. I know my priorities. I learnt to play ukulele.

I was never bored, because before I got to that state I began working on a project. When I got bored with that one I worked on another

It cost me a year's income, but I keep my expenses low and live within my means, so it wasn't a terrible burden. To prepare, I kept my expenses to 25% of my income for over a year.

I’m about 5 months into my first big break (after 10 years without one) and I didn’t really start to recover until about 3 months in. I’m still not quite recovered but have recently started coding again, which I think is great progress.

Doing this during Covid sucks because it limits everything, but, I wouldn’t have done it otherwise too so I am a bit thankful.

I think the one biggest thing that’s been helpful is to set aside free time every day with nothing planned. Just let yourself get bored for a bit! It’s amazing!

Took 1.5 years off. As others have said -- got bored, was expensive, was worth it. I would take stock of your finances before you take time off and play out a few scenarios of how long you can afford to not work. I would also advise getting a therapist or another specific life-advisor person with whom you can have scheduled time to dish -- I found it invaluable to have someone with whom I could process the disconnect that came from being unemployed when most of my friends were still on the grind. I would also advise finding time-locked habits to ground you -- e.g., always going to a farmer's market on specific days, always going to a certain gym class or other meetup. Things that you commit to doing, which are somewhat social, where the schedule is out of your control.

I did not have many goal-style plans and have some regrets about things not done, but (shrug) I think that's all of life. In my mind it's not so important to have specific goals as to have broader intentions -- e.g., following your gut, or heart, or pursuing something that's been in the back of your mind for a while.

Good luck!

I took a 5 1/2 month break to recover from burnout and find a job I didn't hate. After a couple of months or so, my brain stopped associating my skills to my previous job, and I was able to learn some new stuff that paid off later on. They key to recovery for me was finding that sweet spot where I was being productive again without putting too much pressure on myself.

If you have the funds and you're certain you don't want to be at your current role, I couldn't recommend it more. It was perhaps the best thing I've ever done for myself. I came out of that period not only with a plethora of new skills, but with a greater understanding of my resilience and capability, a more refined understanding of what I wanted out of life that enabled me to choose a job rather than take whatever would put food on my table, and I also ended up with a deepened relationship with my loved ones.

I left a job of roughly 5 years with nothing lined up because the workplace was abusive and devastated my mental and physical health, and I felt I couldn't wait any more.

I was overconfident at how quickly I'd find another role and anticipated a max of 3 months unemployed. I quit shortly before the economic impact of the pandemic, so I wound up being off for 9 months between my old job and my current job.

The downsides were that I had to worry about my finances more, that my self-confidence took a temporary hit (I realized I tied my sense of self-worth to my employment), and that I constantly felt like I should be doing more.

The best preparation I made for myself, which echoes other comments here, was imposing the discipline of structure on myself, and giving myself actionable, manageable weekly goals to keep my forward sense of momentum going, even if that was something like "cook a dish I've never cooked before."

Edit: I would also add that it's important to manage your expectations. If you have a role to return to after, or if you know with certainty you will, this is less of a factor. If you don't, even in a great tech labor market, you should anticipate the possibility of not immediately landing the role you want and plan for that accordingly.

I have done this 3 times previously (~1.5 years) and am 7 months into my current stint. It can be very monotonous and requires a great deal of self-discipline. I am fortunate that my spouse earns enough for our needs.

-- My Story --

For my first two times, I had my next role lined up but took 2-3 months before starting. I spent this time travelling and learning/researching.

For my third time, I took a year long sabbatical offered by my employer. I pursued my own research and spent a lot of time with my child.

Right now, I am 7 months into a 2? year stint to pursue my own research and augment my child's learning.

-- Some Advice --

0. Honestly ask yourself if this is for you. If you have issues with self-actualizing, budgeting, socializing, etc, then maybe this isn't the right time in your life for this.

1. Try to be clear about why you want to do this. The time goes by quickly and it can be helpful to periodically reorient towards what is meaningful.

2. Don't expect too much from yourself. The time goes by quickly and you will make yourself miserable if you have some perfect dream of what this time should look like.

3. Be prepared for boredom and loneliness. Your friends are likely still working and there is going to be a huge disparity between your free time versus theirs.

I've been privileged enough to take several extended times off between things and they've always been very important and meaningful for me. I wrote about one period like this when I switched from a technology to a psychotherapy career: http://glench.com/WhyIQuitTechAndBecameATherapist/

I think having the time and space to decompress, heal, and explore is really important and our culture doesn't really appreciate that fully. Whenever I told people I was taking time off they'd always say "oh, are you going to travel? what are you going to do?" and I always had to tell them — no, I didn't have a plan but I knew it was what I needed.

In terms of advice I'd say you should expect a period of at least a few weeks of decompression — laying around, watching TV, socializing with friends, not doing much of anything. This is something that they talk about in the homeschooling/unschooling communities after a child leaves school — it seems to take a bit of doing "nothing" to shake off some of the conditioning of schooling, and I've found the same to be true for jobs and careers and other transitions.

After that initial decompression, I'd say that many people struggle structuring their time when not in a setting that structures their time for them. This makes a lot of sense since most people have almost never had unstructured time. So I'd start trying to find ways to structure your time.

Good luck!

I am approaching one year off right now, and will probably take all of 2021 off. I really love it, but I'm also very introverted. I am working on a dream project, basically before I die I want to build something cool, that's important to me.

I think the most important thing is keep an eye on your runway, and if/when you need to get back into the work force, make sure you're still on top of whatever it is you do. For me, building this project has enabled me to stay in touch with tech trends in my field.

We are getting our health insurance through the US marketplace. If you are also American, the recent covid relief bill dropped the prices of plans by a good deal. Our premium is now 30% cheaper.

I took a year off after my first job. I got bored after six month and tried to start a company with friends. That did not go well.

Make sure your finances are in order and that you have enough money to go for significantly longer than you intent to (in case of a bad job market, difficulty finding a job, unexpected emergency, etc.). I had two years worth of living expenses covered and had a plan to go for up to five years if needed at reduced spending. Don't forget account for health insurance in your budget since you'll need to either buy your own or pay the full COBRA amount.