Feeling stuck is a rat. It makes you wanna run away from your keyboard and leave everything behind... Sometimes you feel stuck, overworked, or bored. What about creating new exciting things? Where are the users of your side projects and what about collaborations on cool projects? You might be losing the fun of being an engineer to some rat's rut...
Sometimes it's good to take a step back, relax, disconnect completely from everything, and reset.
Other times, it's actually beneficial to double up, tackle new challenges, get better at what you do, or learn something completely new.
Actually, I sometimes come back doubling up on ideas and projects after a break. Or I double up on the spot.
No matter whether you'd like to chill out first or if you are hot for more, here are a couple of prompts of things that I started doing when I faced the rat:
- take steps to improve your body's health, mindset, and focus ability 🧘♂️
- writing about tech (blog, newsletter, book, booklet, course, zine, dictionary... whatever floats your boat) ✍️
- try to structure your thoughts by drawing diagrams, cartoons, and doodles 🎨
- talking about tech 🎙
- being around people who love software development as much as you (AKA community) 🏟
- getting to learn with and from someone 🧑💻👩💻
- creating something new from scratch 🔮
- extending one of your old projects (and see how much you have evolved as a dev) 🛠
- learn a new language, framework, or methodology 📚
- get a good book (also, if you do a reset, get yourself some good books in general, fiction, and non-fiction;))) 📚
- learn a new way to present what you learn on the way (experiment) 🪄
- checkout the job market 🔎
- do coding challenges, coding games, or coding puzzles 🧩
- track your progress in learning and creating ⏰
Treat the stuck rat for what it is: a signal for taking a break, kickstarting a change, and/or doubling up on your growth. In any case, embrace it and have fun with it.
Which one could you pick now and experiment with it to have more fun in the next 2 weeks?
