The right ideas will slowly come to you, but getting some perspective is essential and that's not going to come from sitting in your apartment staring at your laptop. The two things I suggest are:

* Exercise. Mens sana in corpore sano. Lift some weights. Run, cycle. Anything. Be yourself, only better (as seen on a t-shirt). You will not believe how much regular exercise will change your state of mind.

* Travel. Get out of town. Get out of your hole. Get some perspective. Even if you just go to stay with some relatives in another city for a few weeks. If you can afford the flights, go somewhere warm and cheap and bask in the sun like a lizard. Meet some strangers. Make friends. Talk to girls. Read, eat, drink.

I wish you the best of luck, and please let us know how you get on.

Edit: I also really, really recommend reading Siddhartha by Herman Hesse. It will definitely help shape your thoughts, and it's a very quick read.

Correct on all counts -- nothing tying me down, and my rainy day fund can keep me fed, clothed, and sheltered for years.

I actually get a decent amount of exercise -- minimum 40 minutes per day, I'd estimate. It certainly has plenty of benefits, but the energy seems to evaporate once I get down in front of my keyboard again.

I definitely can go out and change things, but I think my mindset is holding me back. It's almost like I would be doing with the expectation that this would "fix" me, and that anything short of that would be a waste.

Yes, yes, I know I'll regret the things I didn't do. But I fear that I'm setting myself up for failure this way with unrealistic expectations.

I was significantly reinvigorated, and I'm very much the 'sit at the computer' type of person. So yeah, I recommend travel.

Also because when else are you going to get the chance to spend some serious time travelling?

The internet is a great tool to avoid self-reflection.

Generally, if something saps your energy whenever you use it, that's a good sign to use it less.

> I think my mindset is holding me back.

Only one person can change this, and it ain't any of us on HN :)

> It's almost like I would be doing with the expectation that this would "fix" me, and that anything short of that would be a waste.

Try letting go of this expectation - they just set you up for failure. Go get away from your keyboard (travel) and enjoy yourself, and trust that perspective and insight will come.

Ow. That hurt. (But thanks, I'll definitely use that quote in the future!)

Peace and good luck.

Try travelling to China without a backpack/suitcase, only what you can fit in your pockets (toiletries left pocket, camera/passport/wallet right pocket). Buy other things when you get there, just liberate yourself from most things you would've taken with you.

If you are the camping type, hitting the parks can be great (Yosemite, Grand Canyon, Yellow stone, Carlsbad, Grand Tetons, Etc.) If you are more inspired by cultural endeavors hitting the museuems, music festivals, cultural celebrations are good. The goal of any good walkabout is first to empty yourself, which is to dump all the day to day things that wear upon your consciousness and get back to a place where your true passions can be sensed.

Let your curiosity take you down different roads. Learn a new language, explore a new culture. Recapture the wonder of learning something knew for the sake of learning it.

Remember that when you are aged and contemplating the end of your days, you probably won't be thinking "I wish I spent more time at work." :-)

I ended up at Esalen for almost 6 months in their work/study program

http://www.esalen.org/workshops/workstudy.html

I worked in an organic garden overlooking the pacific picking/planting food that we ate the same day for 32 hours a week.

And had cheap access to incredible massage/yoga/healing programs, and the support of intelligent and conscious people who were also trying to find their center again.

Best thing I ever did, and I highly recommend it.

My advice: Give yourself time. I believe we are all fundamentally good and have the will and energy to work and express ourselves in the world. Sometimes, it's ok to rest and step back, and find our grounding again. Give yourself that permission.

The second one (8 months), I tried a startup but didn't get far. (I am not the type for a large solo project.) I spent two months in Turkey. I wrote a third of a novel (that I'm still working on.) I worked on learning Turkish.

Honestly, I'm not ashamed that I didn't do anything of major value. I found true love, that was enough for me. :)

  did nothing of importance

The reason you can't re-factor the pile java in front of you is because you don't really care about it. If its a startup and something you own, something you create then its likely to be easier to get yourself to work on it. And the code will be new and not carry all the horrible baggage that old java tends to.

You discount yourself too much, you clearly are smart, and you clearly are a hard worker(otherwise why would your boss let you go for a year) and you clearly know a thing or two about things you care about. Get out and do something, anything -you- care about.

I've discussed my problem with a fellow procrastinator recently and we agreed that this feeling of "I won't finish what I start anyway" was a major contributing factor.

Granted, some things on your list sound easier than others. Namely the bicycle thing. I suppose you need some planning for such a big project. On the other hand, if you just jump into it, you'll probably figure out quickly what you need. If you have some money left, you can always just stop at some bicycle gear shop by the road and get what you need.

And even if you fail (take a flight home), it doesn't seem like such a catastrophe.

You could combine the bicycle thing with the grassroots protest by simply claiming that you are "cycling for cause X" (I never understood those, but lot's of people do that and it seems to work). Hm, maybe I could eat chocolate to help save the whales?

A startup could work, if you chose something else than Java. But it might be more beneficial to do something entirely different than your day job.

1) Your problem will be there for a few days but will most likely be forgotten in weeks.

2) Bring a notebook, write your journeys in detail. The food you eat, the tea you drink.

3) Observe local culture.

4) Take a lot of pictures.

Basically, try to forget your day job.

If you travel, I'd suggest you to go to Asia (Japan, Korea, China, India, and SE. Asia countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia). Go to a place with rich culture. Spend a few weeks or even months there.

Those pictures and stories would hopefully make you feel better on your gloomy days.

I've been living in North America for almost 10 years (in particular Vancouver) and the cities get boring quickly. Lack of personality and culture. Asia is completely different; more vibrant.

More importantly: change your perspective on how to live life.

I still plan to leave but now am at a point where things are more manageable so I have time to plan what I'll change my career to. Whereas 1-2yrs ago, I was feeling very low, totally tired all the time, quite depressed etc.

Here are my 2 cents and what helped me:

• Try and find a girlfriend, online dating can be useful. Failing that a female travel partner. This is a big one and made a huge difference for me. The first girl I meet was really not right for me, I mean we had nothing in common but it didn't matter. It's all experience. I regret now not taking opportunities to meet girls earlier when I could have, just because I was scared.

• Travel is good, yes your problems will be with you but you will be seriously distracted, forced to look at new things, experience new things and gain new perspectives. I personally don't think it matters where you go. If it were me, I'd go to a few different places with a rough idea but try to avoid planning too much (like me, that probably goes against your nature!).

• Give the computer a break.

• Exercise is all good and necessary but not the key in itself. Though I can reccomend surfing - I started to learn and even though I totally suck, there is something about it. The message is: if you can find a form of exercise you really enjoy, so much the better,

• Don't be afraid to party sometimes, perhaps you don't have the sort of friends to do this with right now. But if you get the opportunity to go out, have a good time and get drunk do it (occasionally).

• Meditation: yep, mindfulness. Try getting some books on Zen, Adviata or by Krishnamurti.

I have two things to suggest. I hope they help. If I'm being blunt, I apologise.

1. Simplify your thinking.

If you have a habit of overly abstract thought, you can make problems more complicated than they need to be. You could say it's a bit like spiritual java programming.

For instance, aims such as "become a virtuoso musician" don't mean anything. They lack concreteness. "become ascetic monk on mountain top". Also intangible.

You say you recognise them as daydreaming. But your whole way of thinking is daydreaming - "What I think ..", "What I fear ...", "doom", "failure". All abstract daydreaming. Do something about it. Stop daydreaming.

Make a promise to yourself: you will reject thoughts that don't have a tangible aspect you can act on immediately. They are tiring you. Let your brain rest awhile. And if you have to think about problems, think about other peoples' problems not your own.

That means real, tangible people. It could be anyone. This is not a moral injunction. It's practical - if you look to see how you can help other people it requires empathy and if you develop empathy you start to see other patterns of thought. It may help you see different ways of thinking and get you out of your rut.

Only think a few days in advance. Reject all thoughts of the future for a while.

2. Tone down the ambition.

You imagine a virtuouso musician or some epic bike journey, some massive startup. Therefore anything you actually you do seems crap in comparison - attempts noodling on the piano or going for a small bike ride around the neighbourhood seem silly. Trivial. Pointless. Why bother? Stop comparing yourself and your life to your daydreams (see point 1).

I write this because this is what helped me. Please ignore it if it doesn't feel right.

Best of luck, I wish you all the best.

That said, I did give a very long and audible sigh when reading your post. It feels like a cop out, but perhaps one day I'll have to accept my own mediocrity.

I hazard a guess that it's failing to live up to what you imagine. And then you feel like a failure. Mediocre. And when you give up, you feel like it's a cop-out.

It seems that you interpreted what I wrote through a filter of that sort of thinking. When I suggested that you give up on your current pattern of thinking you tell me it feels like a cop-out. It's the same pattern, as far as I can tell.

What you're dreaming up are intangible, speculative things with no basis in reality. That's fine if you feel good about it. But I don't think you do. You seem to be rejecting it on various levels.

What I am saying is link your thinking to tangibles. Test your ideation against reality. Stop pondering monks on misty mountain tops for a while. If you could imagine those monks with any clarity, you would already have had the experience. Instead - go and talk to monks. Go and visit mountain tops. Fill your mind with new experience.

Don't ponder this any further. Just take the first steps to seeking out new experiences.

Hopefully that makes some sense.

Again - all the best.

To me it seems like you have a Mastermind personality (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/INTJ), one which is pretty hard to deal with. Execute your plans, not your imagination.

How I've found that people (myself included) get into burnout is that they work their hardest on things with no positive emotional feedback. (such as completing a physics phd or dare I say programming for a startup pre-launch) Its not about toughness or anything here, that "some people just cant cut it." What is going is that the people that stay afloat have family, friends, hobbies and fun to keep them going.

What I would do is the following:

1. Identify the things emptying your gas tank (programming is extremely taxing after long periods of time)

2. Identify the things filling your gas tank (... as I said earlier ... friends, family, hobbies and fun with them)

3. Make sure you are working out, eating right and sleeping decent hours. (if your body's hormonal systems are going to be a help not a hurt they need to be taken care of)

4. Work on adjusting your balance much towards the fun stuff for a while and less from the draining stuff.

5. Slowly integrate some more draining stuff making sure the filling stuff isn't coming in faster on average.

I've burned out before, and this is how I got out of it. I wish you the best of luck here and hope to follow your way out.

http://www.slowmovement.com/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slow_Movement

2. Meet a lot of new folks. Find meetups happening that have nothing to do with your field. Buy lunch to one new person everyday and have long conversations. Go on a road trip maybe to meet and connect with all your old college friends.

3. Read good fiction. Read magazines that have nothing to do with your interests.

4. Travel. But without fix leaving dates. Slow leisure travel.

5. Eat healthy. Exercise. Sleep well.

Inspiration for this post taken from the quote:

"There are four ways to know much: live for many years; travel through many lands; read many good books; and converse with wise friends." - Baltasar Gracián

I'll definitely have to try that more often! (Though there's a good chance it'll be stars rather than clouds...)

They might look and feel different though.

For ideas (and possibly even inspiration) of what might be possible in a few sabbaticals: I took a year in Denmark between high school and college, learned Danish, how to paint, and toured Germany with an orchestra playing the clarinet (which I had also just learned). I also developed a taste in music by going through an entire library's worth of records in alphabetical order among other adventures, including backpacking on my own for some months.

I took a year between my undergrad and my Master's, in which I worked for a software project I was passionate about, traveled the Middle East, taught programming in Jerusalem to Palestinian high school students, and studied Arabic and Topology at Harvard.

I took a year between my Master's and beginning my PhD, in which I worked as an astronomer in Switzerland, founded a startup in the bay area, and did a ridiculous amount of traveling stateside.

In addition I've taken a few month(s) here and there... moved to the Arctic to work for a startup, to Egypt to scuba dive and study Arabic, etc.

Think positive and big! Best of luck in your adventures! BTW I am not rich or independently wealthy, just was very creative out of necessity at finding external funding sources. All of the above were self-financed in this manner.

How did you make money? What tips do you have for people who are about to do this? How did you deal with the loneliness of solo travel? Or is this just in my head?

For my second gap year I got two companies with great projects in a bidding war, negotiated a signing bonus and a later starting date to help me make my choice, then traveled on the time and the bonus.

Other ones have similar stories, finding some scholarships, funds, loopholes, using one project to fund another etc.

I didn't always travel alone, although I've done my fair share of travel on my own. I deal with it by mixing it up and being pretty self actualized. Denmark was the toughest, I've been watching the Big Bang theory recently and having some flashbacks to how socially awkward I used to be. I'm still awkward but going through lots of traveling, meeting new people, etc has made me a lot more of a well rounded person.

My biggest tip is to think holistically, this will help with not only financing but using your time well. For example, when I decided to move to Egypt on no funds I first made a mental list of why and what I wanted to do there. One of the things on the list was to learn Arabic, and my funds eventually came from a scholarship directed at that, although I used the funds to finance everything on my list.

A wise friend once told me "If someone else can do it, you can totally do it."

I resort to physical work, it still requires me to keep my focus but it doesn't require me to think nearly as much, in fact I'll find myself zoning out completely. I hand wash dishes and it gets me into the same zone where I don't have to think for 30-minutes.

If you've got property and you'll have no work commitments I would suggest learning how to maintain your property, there's lots of physical work that will release your mind and keep you away from things (IE technology) that will keep your mind in that exhausted state.

Build a shed, you'd be surprised how difficult it is to actually get it to sit level. You'll have to work the ground, then frame it and then side the walls and shingle the roof. It can be especially daunting if you've never done this sort of work, but it may be worth it to learn because not only is there economic benefits (IE you can do the work yourself rather than pay the 6x mark up companies charge from the cost of materials for this work) but 5 years down the line when you start recognizing you're feeling a bit burnt out you could use the skills you've learnt to put up a fence or something.

Physical work also has the added benefit that it helps your diet and metabolism, both of which can contribute to that burnout feeling. I'm not saying your diet will improve, I'm saying you're likely to end up eating more protein and fat, which certainly helps me. I always get into that burn-out feeling when I start eating more carbs.

Athletics - Pick something that is so far out of your reach that it doesn't make sense why you would do it. For example, I just signed up for a double-marathon without having ever done a marathon first.

Anyway, good luck. I bet you won't know what you want to do with your time until you've had some time to decompress first, so maybe just start with no plan.

For example, this advice tells you to do something out of reach. So you will have no chance in succeeding and failure will be to be expected. And so what? What is the problem with that?

The point here is not winning. So I second the advice and tell you to do it. You need to fail and overcome your fears seeing that it's not that big deal. You have to free yourself from the burden of fear of failure.

Not sure whether I can post recommendations here (I'm not affiliated), but since it was already recommended here at HN and just in case you want to check it out, it's called "The Now Habit: A Strategic Program for Overcoming Procrastination and Enjoying Guilt-Free Play" by Neil A. Fiore, and it seems to have helped a lot of people.

Is it your own beliefs and attitudes about work? If so, changing jobs won't help. Are your work responsibilities so large that you don't have time or mental energy for other things in your life? If so, changing jobs would help. Is your diet messing with your brain chemistry? If so, changes in your diet would help. If the causes of your burnout are in the circumstances of your job, then the sabbatical will only help temporarily. Coming back to the job will reintroduce the causes and you'll see the effects of burnout again.

If you are able to diagnose the causes well, sometimes only small changes are needed to ameliorate the problem. If you don't diagnose well, you may end up making a large change without much positive effect.

For the past two years I've been in the habit of tracking my mood every half-day along with a short sentence or two of what was going on. This process has been great in getting me in touch with what tends to stress me out or make me happy. I'd recommend starting a habit like this.

Also, I was a homemaker for a long time. I didn't join the "9 to 5" club until relatively recently. Go do something with a different relationship to time. It can be very mentally and emotionally freeing. I think that is part of the theme of your "escapist fantasies": A completely different kind of schedule/lifestyle/relationship to time and the world. Those can very much be good things.

Good luck with this.

One thing that might help here is to understand that motivation generally follows action. If you wait until you feel motivated to do something you might end up waiting a long time, or until some external pressure forces you, or you will fall into the trap of only doing things that give you immediate pleasures. So once you've taken care of your immediate physical needs, make some kind of longer term goal - do that bike ride, do some charity work, start a small project, it can be anything but do something.

Do NOT do anything remotely close to your profession, there more to life than picking up a new programming language to learn.

I spent the next two months traveling through Spain, Italy, France, UK, and Ireland. I met some of the most amazing people in my life and I still keep in touch with them. I went running with a bull in Valencia, scuba diving for the first time in my life in Nice, had the most amazing pizza in the world in Naples, and got my geek on with Roman history.

At the same time, this cured my burn out. I didn't think it would, but when you start using other parts of your brain to communicate and live with people who don't speak your tongue your mind opens up.

I also wrote about every city I visited on my blog as a travel log of sorts and as a way to show my friends what I was up to. I started in Boston which you can read here: http://paydrotalks.com/posts/103-boston-clam-chowder-pigs-an....

I wish you the best of luck. Being burnt out is a horrible state to be in, but it's awesome that you're taking yourself out of work to treat yourself.

What I'd suggest is learning to surf the ocean. I don't do it personally, but a lot of my good friends are surfers from Victoria in Australia.

There is a good perspective amongst surfers. They may wonder who the fuck you are at first, but once you've wormed your way into their scene, they are most welcoming.

Good luck... you need to chill out, have some wild parties and come back refreshed.

The only caveat I'd say is that 'travel the world while you're free and single with no-one to tie you down might sound great, but.... In personality tests I tend to come out as an introvert but I'm fairly sure I'm actually an extrovert with poor social skills (and hey, self awareness is the first step to improvement...) - I know I need others around me and that that takes more time in a new environment than for some. For me, the 'travel the world, see the sights' advice would make me lonely and miserable in all these beautiful places I'd spent a fortune to see. Make the most of the opportunity to do things you wouldn't otherwise get a chance to, but be honest with yourself about what it takes to make you happy; don't press on regardless with the 'opportunity of a lifetime' if taking it will cause you greater pain elsewhere.

And thats where you're going wrong. There's nothing stopping you from doing a single thing on your list besides you. Sometimes being naive about what it will take to accomplish something is actually whats needed to do it.

Not to mention most of the things on your list, while amazing experiences, take little more than minimal finances to do so. Pack a backpack, fly to vancouver and buy a bike and just start riding. Plan as you go. You could be biking across Canada by Tuesday and $1500 later if you wanted to.

Just because you don't donate money or pick up litter doesn't mean you can't go volunteer. There's plenty of organizations online you can look up, most of them will plan your trip from start to finish, you just put up the cash. Go teach english somewhere, provide medical assistance, build a school.

Stop focusing on what you are(n't) doing now, and have(n't) in the past. It takes little more than an idea or goal and the drive/desire to do it to make it come true. Clearly you feel that who you _think_ you are right now limits you to who you can be. That's not true at all. Do what you have to do to be the person you want to be. You only live once, don't let anything hold you back from being the person you want to be, and experiencing the things you've always wanted to. Live your life with no regrets. Every day you spend thinking "if only..." is another day wasted.

The good thing about this is you realize where you're at now and you're actively taking steps to improve your situation. Be strong, follow your dreams and dont get intimidated. Try and take a small step forward every day and in a few months you'll feel like a totally different person and in a way better place.

No. He needs to practice riding and get in better shape for a month or three first. But he can start doing that tomorrow.

Don't go riding cross country without some practice first, some fitness, and some knowledge of things like patching a flat tire.

I disagree. He can bike as far as he wants each day, at whatever pace he chooses. You don't forget how to ride a bike, he may be wobbly for the first few minutes but he'll be cruising soon after.

Practice and fitness aren't needed. All you need to do is be able to ride. He could start off biking 5..10...20KM per day if he wanted to and slowly build up as he gets in better shape as long as you plan your route accordingly to make sure you have a place to stay.

> and some knowledge of things like patching a flat tire.

This is true, but nothing you can't learn at a bike shop and a few patch repair kits can't help with.

There are also some changes to the diet that may help you (started with vitamins and eating some meat - helped to alleviate my symptons. May help with you, may not).

But that is just a first step. You must then strive to find the causes of your problem, only then it will disappear. Usually, heavy meditation does the trick. If you train martial arts, your teacher may know something about it. If you don't find anyone, there are lots of books on the subject.

Please note that whatever cure you're offered, you'd better not believe it at first. Test it, and if it works, stick with it.

I hope what I wrote helps you. Feel free to contact me.

Starting wit traveling is a very good option. This is also what I did. Go to a totally different place. A different (non-western) culture. Not to help or work, just to be there. A lot of people go to South-East Asia. I did that too and loved it. My thinking and problems were reduced to what to eat, where to eat, where to sleep and what to see next.

You can do this for months. Then you may start to miss your work, you may start to have ideas again. You'll probably miss thinking and you will find out what to do during the rest of the leave.

Otherwise, the suggestions to exercise are great. Travel is also a great idea, but I'd say go somewhere and stay there for a week or month, get a sense of natural rhythm and pace. Also, try and just hang out and talk with some people, without any goals.

Good luck.

I find a meditative activity to be of some help. I enjoy rifle marksmanship, gardening, and washing dishes.

I'm convinced the only way to really "cure" burn-out is to change scenery and time. It sounds like you've got both, so go do something, or do nothing at all. It doesn't matter too much.

I know you have lots of things you're thinking about doing now, but start your sabbatical anyway. It only takes a couple of weeks of doing nothing until you're ready to plan -- anything -- to get out of the boredom.

Take the time, do nothing, and then decide.

Not sure how many people are in the world like me or us. I'd like to know how they cope.

* Lost ~80 pounds starting in February a few years back. 200->120. Hovering at a healthier weight, or so the wife says. * A few years back, I had a consistent contest on one of my projects (hostjury.com) where we'd give out ipods once a month. I hand-delivered one of them ~6,000+ miles away, by car. * The next year, I got a motorcycle. February. * The next year, I moved to Vanvouer. February. * The next year, I put ~80,000+ miles on my car. February through June. Anywhom.. * Found a wife, the next. She's put me under some new limits but we're probably moving to San Diego or *.in.cali. soon. //February, again. Uhaul is cheap ;)

There isn't anything inherently wrong with having sudden desires or your mind screaming at both your body and soul that it's in a rut. I too would highly recommend getting some exercise.

Try doing the grouse grind a few times a week. I used to live right up at the top of the mountain and would make my way up there each morning. It's a beautiful way to start the day, and is a fantastic starter workout. My time was about ~35 minutes once I got into the habit, but initially it was 1.5 hours -- so keep that in mind.

Start small. And hey, changes of scenery don't hurt either. Take a trip, wield your vacation pay. Change your personal life, your work life will follow suit.

In the meantime, eat a bit healthier & get some more exercise. Oh, and get a bicycle. Steed cycle is on the North Shore & that's where I bought mine. Put ~40miles a day on it in Vancouver and loved every minute of it.

I recommend reading Vagabonding: An Uncommon Guide to the Art of Long-Term World Travel.

Traveling can be extremely enlightening. If for no other reason than it will give you plenty of time to think. If you find yourself thinking about different startup ideas (like I do when I travel) then you know you are probably in the right line of work.

You will also open your mind up to a million other things that you probably weren't aware of before.

After seeing the sites in Moscow, head west to St. Petersburg, then through Finland to Sweden, down to Denmark, Germany, across to the Netherlands, through Belgium to France and get the Eurostar to the UK from Paris. After a bit of time in the UK, get a flight from the UK to Halifax, Nova Scotia.

You are now ready to ride a bicycle to Vancouver if you so wish.

In all seriousness, anything you do even tangentially to your work will affect your recovery from burnout. Of the escape fantasies the travel ones are the best. Try to find something with experiences, these are things that money can't buy. It doesn't matter where you go as long as you have fun and experience new things.

And if you aren't, get some more sun, by your comments, your body is probably wanting a shift into earlier hours? Get up early and hear the birds chirping without having to rush into an office. I think the same thing happened to me from 28-ish to 31-ish. I went back to school and finally entered the game industry and focused on less, just being good at that. Is there a field you want to get into that you haven't really tried? Just do it, start now in small goals.

Also, set some lower goals for yourself in smaller tasks and get them done quickly. Sometimes you are tied to bigger projects that make the rush of accomplishment numbed from the pain of larger projects if they are longer and less driven by smaller accomplishments/releases. Control some of these on your own.

Also, play some Red Dead Redemption or your video game of choice. They can really help reduce stress and provide escapes to clear your head after a day of work or when you need to shift to relax.

I've learned several -- it's just by circumstance that Java happens to pay the bills at the moment, though I can't say I was substantially happier when I wasn't writing Java.

And if you aren't, get some more sun, by your comments, your body is probably wanting a shift into earlier hours?

But it's so awfully cold in the morning! (cue the criticism about lack of willpower)

Also, set some lower goals for yourself in smaller tasks and get them done quickly.

Will do. I've tried a bit of this recently but the level of satisfaction felt disproportionately small... but that could just be my mental filter.

Also, play some Red Dead Redemption or your video game of choice. They can really help reduce stress and provide escapes to clear your head after a day of work or when you need to shift to relax.

As a former video game addict, I'm terrified of a relapse.

- On day one I was a new person. I suddenly had 8 work hours of extra energy. No need to set aside time for relaxing (it'll quickly get boring).

- Work on a farm. Getting up early, and really sweating for your food is fantastic. There are general applications forms here: http://www.transitionsabroad.com/listings/work/shortterm/far...

- Travel. Everyone else has already said it, and they say it for a reason. I pretty sure your problems won't follow you. Personally, I prefer travelling with couchsurfing.com or airbnb.com. You meet great people there.

- I travelled to friends around the world. Some of the greatest moments were actually pair-programming with those who wanted to. It extremely fun and social. None of the projects were ever completed, and it doesn't matter. :)

If you ever travel to Norway, let me know, so I can show you around.

- Drop all timelines for recovery.

You didn't go into burnout overnight, so you're not coming out of it overnight. I saw the warning signs of my "batteries" getting low in early 2009, but I kept pressing on at full speed because I wanted to get ahead of the workload, and kept hoping that relief would come.

The relief didn't come, the workload increased, and my mind essentially shut down. I felt like a zombie some days -- a zombie too down to even chase after brains.

- Change your scenery.

I tried to cheat by doing all the little things and hoping for immediate results.

There were days I'd spend 8-10 hours biking through Manhattan and Brooklyn. But my mind would wander back to work ("I'm only X blocks from work, I wonder if building security will let me bring my bike through the lobby, so I can work on this bit of code that'd improve operations... wait, what the hell am I saying?")

I moved from one apartment to another. Granted, certain things about my original apartment (and neighborhood) were annoying me, but not as much as I thought they were. The move helped put me closer to where I wanted to be mentally, but there was still a long way to go.

I resigned from my job in June 2010, even though we both wanted to make it work. I was just too far into the abyss. I considered a sabbatical, but I wasn't sure that I'd be willing to return at the end (plus there was word that someone else had did the same -- left and didn't return, so I told myself that my 1-year request would probably be denied).

I spent the next two months throwing parties, going to parties, catching music acts, traveling to visit friends and family, and doing new and old things (photography, skydiving, sailing, etc).

I didn't set a travel itinerary or any schedule whatsoever -- I would just randomly look at air/bus/rail fares and weather forecasts, say "that seems reasonable", and book my ticket.

- Don't work during your recovery.

During my traveling downtime, I'd do some consulting work for a few clients. I enjoyed working with most of them, but out of the latter bunch, there was one over-demanding client that threw all of it into chaos.

In my burned out state, I desperately tried to make it work with this client ("if I just try harder..."), but no, it just reversed any progress I had made at this point. And affected the other clients I really liked.

- Don't beat yourself up.

I had all the same fears you currently have, and the biggest one was not having a plan. I felt like crap that I let myself deteriorate to this state, and that it was affecting people around me.

Eventually I made one plan that I'd stick to no matter what: to get better.

- Keep at it.

In September 2010, I legitimately started feeling better and began at a new job, but I continued to travel (weekends, 3 day weekends, holidays). Kept doing the things that made me happy, and my recovery kept progressing.

With this new job, I made a rule of not working at home -- only in the office, except for emergencies, until I could find a better balance. Sometimes, I felt like I was coming close to max capacity, so I'd ease off the throttle. Just being aware of what your limits are is a big win.

For a while I was starting to hate tech, and consider my options as a farm or construction worker (a la "Office Space"). But I'm back to twiddling knobs and some hacking -- I've probably written more code in the last two months than I have in the last year.

Here I am in February 2011, and I'm in the tail end of this thing. To put a number on it, I'm probably at 95% and as long as I keep at it, I'll be better than ever.

* The most important thing out of this is you have to take the time out to recover. You cannot try to multi-task/juggle/whatever because you will fall right back into the rut you were climbing out of. *

Hopefully this helps you all shake off some rust, and better yet, avoid the dark road I went down for almost two years.

One more important tip that I'd like to add:

After all those years of stress, I had basically retrained my body to be chronically hyperventilating, something I didn't directly noticed when I was trying to recover.

Basically everyone has this idea of hyperventilation with someone holding a paper/plastic bag and gasping for air.. but it doesn't have to be that way.

You can be hyperventilating all the time, feel tired as h#ll, dizzy, stressed, anxiety etc.. without really noticing that you're breathing too fast because of a retrained/'stuck' breathing center!

Really, I was breathing like 20-25 times a minute in rest ..crazy, it's like riding a bicycle at >20 KM/h all day long!

It's very easy to check your breathing though. E.g. via the 'Control Pause' test from the Buteyko Method:

http://knol.google.com/k/buteyko-control-pause-cp#

It takes determination and time to learn how to breath properly again and unwind all that stored stress.

Currently back to breathing 6-14 times/min. at rest and already feeling sooo much better, happier, more energetic, sleep is much much better etc.

Proper breathing is wayyyyyy underrated. Every GP seems to follow the "you're stressed out? psychosomatic complaints? here have some $neurotransmitter_modifying_medicine" route without looking at the _real_ cause(s).

I can't think (memory still goes and comes..it sucks) of the famous ancient Greek who said it, but paraphrased:

"You cannot fix/heal anything if you don't know the underlying cause."

The rest is just the suppression of symptoms..

Thanks for the hint.

One side-benefit of the absurd working hours I put in over the years was that it took away all my time and broke my obsessive gaming habit. I suffer withdrawal symptoms from time to time when I see other people having a nice time at their battlestations, but I like to think I've learned some self-control.

after that week is over, maybe report back?

i would not make any life changing decisions just now.

So I re-read your post, but you don't really tell us what your problems are.

So, what's the problem, really?

non-profits are always grateful for someone who wants to help, beyond the token one day of service

1. Travel is overrated. I hate the airports, taxis, traffic, annoyances, inconveniences, etc when I'm trying to relax.

2. Get a dog?

If you fancy a pint or two - I'll buy. But you have to make it to Edinburgh first!

but then that's good even when not on sabbatical

I took time and founded a startup but it wasn't until a week ago (9 months from the start that I really found the right niche)

It sounds like your in Vancouver, I am as well let me know if you want to grab a coffee and have a more in depth discussion. Also, have you spoken to your doctor about SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder)? Around Feb/March of every year is when I want to make drastic changes to my life, I've sort of chalked it up to SAD and have made a point to get outside during the sunshine more often.

The ideas that you think are crazy are probably whats going to snap you out of your funk. Think of doing something crazy as making yourself available for new ideas, opportunity and inspiration. I can tell you that if you bike from Vancouver to Halifax you're probably going to meet some very cool people doing interesting things. Those interactions will probably drive your next idea. It will flood your head with experiences and environment that few other people have. I just wouldn't start any big new projects until you've given yourself a month to evaluate in a de-stressed environment.

> I'd ride my bike across the continent from Vancouver to Halifax (I don't own a bicycle and haven't ridden one in years)

I can recommend a long bike trip. I rode from Canada to Mexico between September and November 2010. I've been a 'cyclist' most of my life, but don't ride all that far nor often. Take it slowly and build up the miles gradually. I had never done more than a two day bike-camping trip, and met several people with zero bicycle touring and negligible general cycling experience.

I would buy a good selection of maps and, if it's feasible in the areas to be crossed, an Internet-connected device. Couch surfing would be ideal, since it keeps costs down and provides precious social interaction. Canadian camp sites are expensive.

Also, bring an iPod stocked with audio books, courses, or something else to engage your brain (I found a "This American Life" collection invaluable). Music is nice, but when you're grinding up the tenth hill of the day at 3mph, it's nice to let your legs do the work while your brain focuses on what you're listening to.

If you are genuinely interested in this and have no idea where to start, let me know. I think you could get all your touring needs together for $2,000 or less.