Using Habits to Get Over Burnout
Part 2 about my sabbatical
I always thought it suited me better to build my own company rather than working in one. I started making things as a teenager just for fun to learn how to code. With time though, I forgot about the fun and playful aspect. I still kept pushing trying to make different projects, pivoting from product to product. It wasn't working for different reasons and I burnt out. I wasn’t even sure if this is what I wanted anymore.
End of 2021, as my introspection phase was kicking in, I started noticing a light feeling of motivation to make things. When I felt lost and burnt out in the past, I felt incapable of connecting with this drive. But when I felt great, my enthusiasm would come back. It was happening again, and I thought it was worth exploring for a few reasons:
I wanted to know if this was something I still wanted to do or if it was a teenage dream. As we grow up, we change and so do our priorities. This could be the case, or it could be the past burnout clouding my judgement.
I needed to prove to myself that I could give it a good try. I never felt I was able to put my heart and soul into building something. And, more importantly, be consistent enough to even give it a chance. I still have some leftover resentment that I wasn't able to make the most of my previous sabbatical.
Even if it turned out it wasn't meant to be, I would develop great work habits and learn a lot in the process. Whatever may happen in the end, I was confident it would push me to be a better version of myself.
I decided I would find a bit of time each day to focus on coding, research and writing. My goal was to once again find the fun in creating. Starting a new habit is hard, and I recently cracked the code by reducing friction in a way that worked for me. So I set a few rules:
No expectations. I want to make things for the fun of it. No creation needs to become anything. They are all going to be toys.
Explore ideas that indulge my curiosity. It's okay if there's no clear use for them as long as they seem cool to me.
Try out new technologies. Each experiment can have a completely different tech stack. I now have the freedom to try out different tools and enjoy playing around with them.
No deadlines. I'm trying to get over burnout, so I must limit the stress factor.
Specify when an experiment will be considered finished beforehand. No limits tend to amount to nothing. I don't want to grow attached to any specific project nor do I want to dabble endlessly in it. I wanted to get used to shipping and sharing what I was making.
Last week, I discussed the trips I went on these past few months. While I had a great time on all these adventures, a big priority was to create this habit of working every day. I started with 30 minutes each day, and slowly ramped that up.
So, what have I made with these short daily coding spurts? I started out with a 3D museum for your Solana NFTs. I recently showed it on Twitter:
My biggest interest is in communities, as I outlined in this post. Most communities currently live in Discord. I thought it would be fun to see if adding in DAOs and virtual worlds could be useful. I went through the whole process of setting it up. I also built a Discord bot to bring it all together.
Now I'm finishing up a way to make 3D presentations and view them in VR. I'll show it in the next few weeks. And I still have a few more ideas I want to try out.
I've also started being more active online. It's been a struggle these past few years due to both burnout and imposter syndrome. I'm treating this as another habit to work on. I hope it leads to higher confidence and less overthinking about what others may perceive. In the end, people don't care that much. This post is part of that effort.
I'm not going as fast as I'd like. One reason is that I'm playing around with new technologies and that comes with a learning curve. Also, I've been limiting my time to create the habit sustainably while prioritising travelling.
I have been successful at creating this habit with good momentum. I've been increasing the time that I spend working and I've been consistent for many months, longer than ever before. I've even wondered if burnout was an excuse to run away from certain fears. Either way, by using habits I've built up confidence in myself and I still love exploring new ideas.
Now I wanted to take it full-time for a few months and see how it goes. I'm back in Madrid with no further travels planned. I want to use the extra time to iterate faster, increase my online activity, and get to research more.
This is my focus until Spring. I want to make a decision on my next steps by then. The decision is multi-faceted. On the one hand, I'll decide where to pour my efforts professionally. On the other hand, what my living and travelling situation will be (maybe NYC?). Whatever the future may hold, I'm glad I did this. Having the space to find oneself and learn, and then use that knowledge to push our limits is immensely valuable. I'm grateful for the opportunity and I will continue to make the most of it.