Yes! The most important bit of this comment IMO is the "about two weeks" part. There's a trough of uselessness in vacations – 14-21 days is the minimum in my experience.

In week 1, I'm annoyed by my vacation. I don't care about sitting on a beach, I'm bored, I want to get back to solving problems.

In week two, I'm aghast at the mundane routines I've fallen into, bullshit hangouts, errands, and reddit.

Something weird happens in week 3 where all the books you read, all the ideas you have, start to take on this new lightness and optimism and interestingness. Hang out in that vacation mode for as long as you can afford to.

I wish I had more insight into that last state, but it's a very rare day that I take more than a month off work.

For me at least, vacations under 3 weeks are somewhat useless from a "recover your health" standpoint, and I'm much better off spreading a week or two of vacation around in a way that makes many 3 day weeks, giving room to run errands and make non-work life more relaxed across the board, rather than oscillating between tire fires and mandatory relaxation.

> There's a trough of uselessness in vacations – 14-21 days is the minimum in my experience

Can confirm. I haven't had more than two weeks off in one block in the last ~20 years, and the results have been exactly what you'd predict.

This Onion article from 2013 is depressingly accurate:

https://www.theonion.com/find-the-thing-youre-most-passionat...

Probably what most people need to read rather than what they actually read :)

that link is great, thank you lol

Weeks 1 and 2 sound like how I am when I'm taking my ADHD medication but have nothing productive to work on.

At first it's irritating that I have nothing to do; then the irritation goes away and is replaced by enthusiasm toward the meta-work of fixing my life/habits (so I can be ready to be more productive later.) It takes quite a while of being in that "mode" before my mind is willing to switch gears into enthusiastic pursuit of a hobby.

I'm guessing that, for some people (people who are always a little bit hypomanic), this might be every vacation day for them.

For me, though, all I have to do is to not take those meds... and I'm instantly in a comfortable+complacent "vacation mindset", where my hobbies/passions seem like the only thing I could ever get excited about.

As such, a proposal for anyone having this problem: if you take any stimulants (e.g. caffeine), try laying off them the instant you go on vacation. Maybe you'll relax sooner!

Same for me. In weeks 1-2 I usually know what I want to do, and instead of doing it, I pick up a bad habit. Like obsessive news-reading. In weeks 2-3 I usually give up, and suddenly the bad habit is gone and I'm productive doing some great other thing instead.

> Hang out in that vacation mode for as long as you can afford to.

Negative. After about 4-6 months without outside pressure, stimulation or feedback, my creative drive goes away. It comes back after I start working again, and then goes away as I realize that I'm burning myself out if I continue doing this in addition to work.

> Negative. After about 4-6 months without outside pressure, stimulation or feedback, my creative drive goes away. It comes back after I start working again, and then goes away as I realize that I'm burning myself out if I continue doing this in addition to work.

I’m very similar with this regard. I strongly suspect that the „creative thoughts” while at work are just my brain trying to escape the pain of the job, by convincing me I should quit and pursue this interesting thing instead. However, when I quit, I’m overcome with doubt about financial viability of the path I had in mind, I pursue it only half-heartedly for only a couple months, and ultimately I end up finding myself another job. Once I’m there, the sneaky creative thougts come back and I inevitably end up quitting again some 9-18 months later...

This cycle goes on for 7 years now, and my conclusion is that I’m just super-conservative when it comes to money and I will only be free from my worries when I FIRE. My other conclusion is that it’s possible that I really don’t want to do those projects, and they are 100% fantasy I conjure up when sitting in a boring job. I’ll find out if that’s the case when I finally retire.

I am also like this. So far around 18 months things stop being interesting, and start being boring. Im starting to think its just working on s project for an extended period of time that is boring.

I bet 18 months put you in the upper engagement retention decile. Good on you.

This cannot be overstated. I've been working on a professional thesis of sorts, a capstone if you will, for YEARS.

I'm on a sabbatical now and in the past month I feel like I've gotten more done on the capstone than in the past 3 years.

In September I was so burned out that when my client abruptly ended our contract (meh, it happens) I didn't look for a new one. I've been coasting on my cash cushion for two months now. It was a little scary at first but in my downtime I sold a bunch of short-term high paying gigs that begin in the new year.

I'm SO. GLAD. I. DID. THIS.

Here's my 20/20 hindsight. Fuck working in your spare time and getting little to nothing done on your side projects and taking time away from your family and your health. Figure out how to make as much money as possible and spend as little as possible so that you can take a few months off at some point. Maybe you can game your employers leave policy, maybe do some contracting on the side, maybe don't buy that new car or house and instead put that money into a sabbatical fund. I don't know what will work for you. We all have very different lives and options.

I wish I could have back most of that "spare time" I wasted getting little to nothing done.

Also, read Deep Work by Cal Newport. If I can't change your mind on how to approach this, maybe he will. Maybe you'll understand why you're not getting anywhere with your side thing and realize it's not you, it's your situation. Once you understand that, you can know what to do to rectify the situation. Seriously, this has been a game changer for me.

Oh, and don't be surprised if for the first month of your sabbatical you get absolutely nothing done. That's because you're burned out and you didn't take care of yourself for all those years. That's the price you're going to have to pay before you can sprint again. Knowledge workers are like athletes. Rest and recovery is as important as exercise.

Nice projects. I remember "Websites in 2018" showing up on here not too long ago.

I just came back from a two week "stay-cation", and I found something similar. Sure, for the first couple days I wasting as much time as I possibly could - happily so - and then I started knocking out all the major house projects I had pending (insulating the crawlspace, fixing annoyances, etc).

Around the two-week mark, my mind was swirling with ideas that I've been wanting to implement in my free time. And then it was time to fire up my email and slack and get ready to get back to work. It works out well for me And my clients as I'm refreshed, excited to get to work, and my house is warmer, but I would have loved to dedicate that energy to something of my own for at least some stretch of time.

Two weeks wasn't enough. It was an excellent start and I highly recommend two consecutive weeks of non-travel time off. But it's not enough.

> Sure, for the first couple days I wasting as much time as I possibly could - happily so - and then I started knocking out all the major house projects I had pending (insulating the crawlspace, fixing annoyances, etc).

It's amazing how many people in this thread are echoing similar sentiments. It's clear that the 2-day weekend doesn't seem to proffer enough time off for people to get "in the zone" so to speak.

Or maybe we've become accustomed to the 2-day weekend such that we don't value it's time as much. It seems like these "mini sabbaticals" some of you mention (2-week staycations) are the way to go.

But I know I have a lot of little projects I want to work on or explore, but knowing I won't have enough time or I could do something else (the opportunity cost), I often likewise waste time on nights and weekends.

So cumulatively, these nights and weekends add up to a greater time-length, but because they aren't in a contiguous block like your staycation, I end up with worse results than with the mini-sabbatical model, despite having more time overall.

I feel like three-to-four weeks may be a better minimum, but also clearly a luxury that most can't afford.

Not only are we accustomed to the two-day weekend, but there's also the rest of life to squeeze into a couple hours a day and then two days every week.

Due to strange sleeping habits, I have an extremely flexible schedule. I still put in an average of 40 hours a week, but sometimes it's nights, sometimes days, sometimes all within a couple days.

Even if I have four days left for a "weekend", I still have to account for all the things living in a modern society entail: paying bills, buying groceries, doing laundry, washing dishes, managing accounts, maintaining my house and car, mowing the lawn, shoveling snow, buying toilet paper and paper towels, etc. Sure, I can automate some of these things by way of a dishwasher, laundry services, and grocery delivery, but there's still attention required†.

Of course, and more importantly, there are the things I _want_ to do, like spend time with my wife, see friends and family, make fancy bread, tweak my home automation, sleep, and so on.

Even without a commute, all of these things fill my entire week. I think this is the source of time going by so quickly with age. The responsibility of maintaining a happy and stable life takes a good deal of maintenance. Add to that, the fact that I now require 6-8 hours of sleep when 4-5 used to be plenty for me, and the fact that we want to start a family, and I don't think 2 days a week will _ever_ cut it.

> I often likewise waste time on nights and weekends

Although it wasn't clear in my wording, I don't actually feel this time is truly wasted. The brain and body require time off and I'm more than happy to oblige.

† I have a note on my Instacart account that says "please use your best judgement - never call me unless you can't get to my front door"

Saying a 2-week is a mini-sabbatical reads like satire no matter how many quotes are around it. A term like that could work from the 3-month mark or something like that though, since it would be rare for even extended vacations to last that long.

I think taking this kind of sabbatical needs to become the norm in our field. I recently did so and, while I didn't end up with anything as viable as what you made, I'm 100% glad that I was able to make the effort and not have to deal with the 9-to-5 grind for a while. No. Regrets. It's also eye-opening how most people have difficulty comprehending the idea of quitting voluntarily to do something of personal interest.

Working on projects "on the side" was damaging to my health. I sacrificed way too much of my "recharge" time after work sitting in front of a computer doing more work, rather than going to the gym, hiking, cooking and relaxing. Most of the time, it's just not worth it to sacrifice those things.

Great advice. Side note:

To humor you, I clicked the bloated web expecting to see how large the web had grown with unimportant projects and whatnot.

After clicking through to disable adblock, I thought to myself, "What the FUCK is this guy on about!?" and then realized the point of the website.

Sincerely, almostWhooshGuy

> https://2018.bloomca.me/en

You almost got me at the notifications bit. I was about to close the tab but something told me to give it one more chance.

Brilliant.

If you can afford it, get a less intellectually demanding job where you can automate your work; freeing up even more of your time.

This is one of products of this lifestyle: https://theymadethat.com

I worked in e-commerce marketing one time and I can confidently say 90% of my job could be automated or sourced.

What are some examples of jobs you can automate?

Everything Excel related. It's also a nice way to uncover niche opportunities depending on your industry

Edit: For anyone wondering what differentiates my project from crunchbase and Wikipedia: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18545122

Change that list from code to regular text (no 4 space indent) so we can click them!

the experience you have described that occurs after about 2 weeks is a very distinct state of mind. I find that I can to a certain extent reliability reproduce it (1) whenever I have a deadline and I'm procrastinating, (2) occasionally after smoking some marijuana (3) and on long distance runs.

4) after extended meditation

I wonder if there is a word for this state of mind. Kind of a relaxed, unhurried creative state. I think John Cleese referred to this as the 'open state' but it almost seems more of a subset. Perhaps the buddhist texts have a word for this, although I'm thinking of a more general state of mind, not necessarily just after meditation.

It's a dawning of mind, grateful state. It's like peeling one layer off the onion.

Give me 6 weeks or 2 month spare time and I will not even start because I know it's just holiday and my job awaits me.

Working on weekends with a plan helps me getting things done.

what do you do with insurance if your employer doesn't cover it while you are on sabbatical.

Get EU citizenship somehow and move to a civilized country?

Which EU country? In Germany, if you quit, you have to pay insurance while you get a new job (unless you're in unemployment benefit, which you don't get for a few months if you just quit)

> Get EU citizenship

I am from the 'third world'

You can get short term insurance. I’m not too familiar, but I have a few friends who just quit their jobs and move out to where I am to take some time exploring and find new jobs here, and they both have temporary insurance. I don’t know what the costs are or any details beyond that, but it exists.

Even if you subscribe to the viewpoint that private health insurance is the way to go, why dont they give people the money and then let them buy their own insurance? For the reason you just mentioned - people need a way to be free of an employer even if it costs them a lot in insurance bills.

Can you pay for it through COBRA?

Dollars are effective to purchase goods and services in human civilization

COBRA, last time I checked, can be activated up to 90 retroactively.