Ask HN: How can I find something worthwhile to do?
I've been a decent mid-level dev professionally for a long time now but been in a sort of rut for about as long as I can remember. Outside of work (which is going fine), I just don't have anything programming related to do. I keep myself busy playing with new tools and languages when I can be bothered but if I really think about it, I just don't have any problems to solve with these tools.
I could lock myself in an empty room for days and come up with nothing. I've been waiting for an "idea" to hit me for nearly 10 years, I don't use any open source software that I could contribute to at all, and I lack the creativity to come up with "just for fun" projects. I feel very stagnant and I just don't know how to move forward anymore. Am I just hard-wired to be mediocre?
111 comments
[ 15.2 ms ] story [ 186 ms ] threadThink back to a time before you knew about computers and software. What were you fascinated by? It might lead you to consider a sport, hobby, past-time that you would gain pleasure from.
Sometimes these non-computer/software areas reveal ideas for fun projects.
Personal experience, I took playing tennis. Decided that having a clock faces based scoreboard would be a good idea, spent several months building and perfecting the project. Turned out electronics don't like being in the hot sun, so I gave up on the idea. But it was a certainly a fun project and I learnt quite a bit about embedded systems, etc.
It’s making me rethink what kind of hobbies I want to try because I feel exactly what the OP describes.
This is software that solves problems I have. I don’t care if anyone else sees it. I don’t need the admiration of others.
I'm in the same boat tbh, I don't find interesting things with programming anymore, maybe when I did it was just that I had less other stuff to do. I'd rather learn something new now e.g. last year I started doing some home music recording/production. What is your goal - if you want to upskill for your career or to start a business, fine, if not find something else to do.
Getting a hobby is orders of magnitute easier.
Takes less time than getting good at a hobby really.
(I’m a 35 year old childless married man)
Look for a job not at an IT FANG company. Look at jobs on offer in machining, in mining, in agriculture, in energy, in surveying, geophysical data aquisition, drill logging, etc.
There are quasi unskilled jobs galore for field technicians to assist with all manner of things you've likely never done before.
If you've got the time, freedom and cash then maybe take a vacation on an Australian cattle station, or some South American ranch.
You're now somewhere new surrounded by things to learn and it's likely that will either stimulate you afresh to do the old stuff or suggest something that mixes what you can do with what new (to yourself) people need.
If you can't scratch your own itch anymore perhaps find others with an itch they need to scratch.
Some things I’ve done —
StreamSwitcher for turning Apple Music links to Spotify links —https://apps.apple.com/us/app/streamswitcher/id6450388510
Cancel your gym membership online — https://byebyefitness.com
Step by step translations of the Dao De Jing with beautiful artwork — https://apps.apple.com/us/app/daily-dao/id6465685578
If you can just write some basic software, you're probably in the top 1% for computer skills in the global population. There are people in every niche of the world crying out for such help. Find something you're passionate about, and volunteer your time. I help my local political party run a website, do code clubs and Scouts.
Also, I'm part of a woodworking club. I'm rubbish at it, but it's fascinating just to watch and listen to other people who are much better than me. I've built a couple of things myself which I'm proud of.
It's possible you're placing too much emphasis on the type of problem you need to solve. You might be trying to think of a problem that many people experience, or a problem that others recognise as important, and getting frustrated that you don't have any ideas.
If this is the case, I'd recommend making something for one person instead. Make something stupid, that only a single person in your life will enjoy. Programming doesn't have to be Amazon or Netflix. Programming can be a knitted scarf.
Yeah I think so as well. With as much experience as OP has it’s unlikely, if not impossible, to not experience problems or friction in terms of tech.
Sometimes they are completely unsolved, but much more frequently they are just solved poorly. “I wish it was easier to…” is an extremely good starting point. Personally I get these feelings from being lazy - I get annoyed when things are slow, tedious and most importantly complicated. I’m more of a “I can’t believe in 2024 it’s still hard to…”.
Conversely, the enemy of this mindset is “it’s just me being slow/dumb/lazy”, “a lot of smart people have already tried” etc etc.
I've never understood why you should do the same things in your free time as you do at work. I personally don't and know a ton of programmers and non-programmers who don't as well. Find other hobbys, they are worthwhile too!
I'd advise them to broaden their horizons. Take music lessons or a creative writing class or a welding class or drawing lessons. If there was a subject you wish you had more time for in college, maybe dig back into that.
Or maybe broaden your horizons a little more literally: take some time off and travel.
I'd recommend joining some kind of club where you get to spend your time with other people. In my experience, anything social is much more rewarding than even the most heureka moments achieved by myself in some room.
I've spoken with a few municipal managers of low-income housing, and they love the idea. Then they say, we could probably get it approved in 2 to 3 years.
jfcoar...
I know this is practical because New York State had a design competition and has two window mount heat pumps that run off of 110. They are expensive ($2000), but I expect that price will drop with volume and when Chinese manufacturers say, "Oh that's a wonderful idea, let's steal it"
Induction hot plates are available today for $50-$70 retail. I think they are fairly primitive as cook temperature is controlled by pulsing the induction magnet. I have one in my kitchen, and when I'm making a one-pot meal, I use it in preference to my gas stove, especially in summertime heat.
Balcony Solar exists, and there are approved inverters with safety cut off if the line goes dark. These inverters let you plug your system directly into your wall outlet without any worries about giving a lineman a nasty surprise.
The pieces are there,
Do you have any good examples on the software side? (Not saying the other things aren’t important, just outside my wheelhouse)
Honestly not worth forcing yourself to do what you don't truly love. I don't hate programming but there's so much more to do out there, even learning foreign languages or picking up some art stuff and make something with your hands sounds better than fighting with python/node and dependencies in my free time
most of programming languages and tooling are open-source these days, even the more enterprisey stuff. Or, at least, they have Open Source alternatives.
The other thing to do is to find a girlfriend, marry her and have kids. THAT will take a LOT of your time.
I play tabletop games and lacked a good tool to plan dungeons as a DM. So I wrote a dungeon planning tool. ( https://h4kor.github.io/dungeon-planner/ )
I like blogging, so I wrote my own blog software ( https://github.com/H4kor/owl-blogs ) as I disliked WordPress and static sites were too limiting for me.
Lots of us have ideas that we simply never entertain because we are too good at quickly shooting them down when we spot small difficulties, before we've even let the idea out of our heads.
People who are good at ideas are also good at getting them out there, in an imperfect state, and letting other people assess whether those difficulties are dealbreakers, or whether in fact they could help mitigate them.
For example a lot of startup ideas are discarded because of fear of process/legal/regulatory stuff, when actually what you need is to know someone who can help with that. Getting your ideas out there in an open, deliberately naïve way can help.
Find something you deeply believe is worthwhile. Something like volunteerinfor homeless, helping war victims, religion. Make this your anchor point.
I'd recommend to keep looking into things that you find interesting, just for fun. I've really enjoyed messing around with graphic shaders recently, which I have no use for. But the more tools on the bag the easier it is to find opportunities to do useful things.
I still try to find useful things to do though, maybe one of those weekend projects can grow into a larger project, it would be really cool. But I don't see much point into trying to come up with something just for the sake of it. I'm reminded of that guy in Spain building a cathedral by himself. Not that there's anything wrong to building a cathedral by yourself if that's what you want, but pretty much the only reason to do it is that, because you feel like it.
Games were already mentioned, and I share this recommendation. Those are usually fun, and you have the whole spectrum of tiny to huge, simple to very advanced, touching also basically the whole stack, almost the whole field of computer science, and beyond, as much as you want it.
Otherwise, maybe some electronics? Robotics? Machine learning?
Or think about your daily routine, at work or also privately. Isn't there anything you wished would exist or improved, which would make your life easier? I have countless of small little utilities which evolved with such motivation over the time.
It gonna sound somewhat esoteric but I think you need to completely let go to get to the good and fun ideas.
Have you considered the possibility that you're actually clinically depressed? Working on the assumption you are male, I think a lot of guys don't realise that low-grade depression looks like this for a lot of us. Especially getting towards mid-life.
One thing I would suggest is to embrace boredom. Cover up your television, delete your streaming video apps, cut back on social media as much as is possible, stop gaming if you game. Stop avoiding boredom with low-energy solutions.
Get really, really bored. Then see what your brain wants you to do. Boredom is a precursor to a creative state.
Another thought: consider if your "worthwhile" is actually helping other people do theirs? If you can learn new tools and languages easily, could you help others? Could you teach?
I need this change in my life too, and this is the direction I hope my life is heading in.
Please. Having a mental disorder is stigmatized enough already. Please don't play into it by implying it's not real.
Personally it all sounds very familiar. So familiar I'd admit I'm mildly depressed. But I do still have a pad of good ideas that I add to.
Also very interesting is that yes even with ideas I'm not good at doing them - but the suggestion that their thing might be the enabling others to achieve theirs really sticks out for me. I'm definitely at my best helping others to do better.
All in I'd say it was a good response.
I didn't say "you are depressed". I said "have you considered that you might be...". When did that become diagnosis?
FWIW I said "clinically depressed" to draw the specific distinction between colloquial use of the word "depressed" meaning "down", and the medical notion of depression that covers this sort of stuff -- long term loss of direction, low self-esteem negativity etc.
It's just a suggestion to consider the whole picture and maybe seek advice.
I didn't diagnose. I made a suggestion. Full fucking stop. I didn't imply a diagnosis.
I suggested the possibility (I even used that fucking word). That he might want to think about it. Because the entire tone of the OP's question suggested it to me. Based on my own miserable lived experience of the last two years, for what it is worth.
So fuck off with this po-faced internet warrior shit.
Ideas:
Build the scaffolding for an idea. Then when one hits you just add the domain bits. You might trigger something along the way.
Think about who you would like as customers or even just users. What problems are there for those users that you might help with? Focus on them, not your lack of idea. Just ask them questions or read their reddit posts to look for pain points.
Start something directionally right. Just move in a direction and see how it fits.
Put your toe in the water. Try something today, no commitment to continue.
The focus here is to practice starting. Build a few things. Try connect to people and see what they need.