Ask HN: Have you ever taken a career break or gap year to hack?

Re:Ask HN: Have you ever taken a career break or gap year to... by markmanx on Monday December 23, 2024 @09:07PM (#42499142)

I took 6 months off to work on a side project and build a business out of it. It was one of the best things I've ever done. The job I got straight after was a direct result of my side project. Although the business did not thrive, I learnt a lot about what not to do as well. 6 months is a long time, and I felt too comfortable taking my time with things like trying to make the code perfect. If I were to do it all over again, I would have focussed more on other parts of the business like marketing and creating value than writing clean code.

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Re:Ask HN: Have you ever taken a career break or gap year to... by SoftTalker on Tuesday December 24, 2024 @12:39AM (#42499934)

> 6 months is a long time

Wondering how old you are. 6 months, to me, seems like nothing. I'm in my late 50s.

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Re:Ask HN: Have you ever taken a career break or gap year to... by anytime5704 on Tuesday December 24, 2024 @01:08AM (#42500025)

I took 6 months at 29 and it felt like a lot.

At 34, it still feels like a lot, but I also wouldn’t consider anything less than that a “break.”

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Re:Ask HN: Have you ever taken a career break or gap year to... by shadowerm on Tuesday December 24, 2024 @06:38AM (#42501274)

I took off 18 months in my early 40s to study a few subjects that really do not have much economic value.

I would say it was ultimately a mistake. While I stormed out of the gate I got way too comfortable after a few months and ultimately lazy. The mistake was in thinking this wasn't going to happen for me. I would also say the subjective feeling of time was much too fast.

The upside though was that was my retirement basically and the realization that is not what I want from life is quite valuable.

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