A year of rebuilding - six months in
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Back story
An ambulance trip last year helped me to step back from day-to-day thinking and realize I needed to make some changes. After exploring what were previously “dream roles” at work, I realized I wanted to consider even bigger changes. So after almost 14 years at Facebook Meta and for the first time in my ~25 year career, I was going to take a sabbatical to figure things out.
I was incredibly fortunate that my career afforded me confidence I could be rehired, explore lateral career moves, step back from big tech and senior positions to explore a less intense career, or even consider leaving serial full-time employment behind.
Taking charge
Almost everyone who’d taken sabbaticals or made major career changes warned about losing their sense of purpose when they stepped away from work. A workplace provides external structure for purpose, validation, and a feeling of belonging and contribution to a community. Over time your ability to maintain your own structure can atrophy.
Even those who could afford longer breaks usually returned to work within a year, driven by needs that work fulfilled beyond salary.
Most work decisions have understandable constraints that narrow your options. That wasn’t the case here—weighing the opportunities and challenges of my options with so many unknowns was overwhelming.
Experience with burnout had taught me that taking charge is key in making progress seem achievable. So I sketched out a rough plan to build my own structures for purpose, identity, and motivation—useful no matter what I ended up doing.
The rough plan
I needed enough time to give it a real shot. I committed to a year off from full-time work and six months from any sort of “work” with expectations. Like many taking career breaks, I was burnt out, and needed space to recover and break any bad cycles and patterns built over 20 years of my career.
I needed a clean break—avoiding charged topics that triggered old thinking patterns and limiting contact with recent colleagues to prevent work-focused discussions.
The advice on rebuilding was consistent: be deliberate about spending your time, have a set of concrete activities that satisfy different needs, and don’t try to do too many things at once.
Rebuilding (~2025 Q1)
The rough plan still left a mostly blank slate, so I set some minimal high-level priorities for 2025 Q1. I chose specific activities week by week. This left plenty of space for whatever else I discovered I needed or wanted to do.
One priority was to evolve my routine to replace work’s structures. Another was to get comfortable with publishing more of my thoughts—something I’d done a lot of at work and that helped me to figure things out.
Publishing weekly summaries ("weeknotes") on my website supported both these priorities. These notes would help me remember what I was doing and feeling over time. Reflecting on the progress, highlights, and amusements would motivate me to maintain and evolve my routine.
I convinced myself to sign up for some woodworking classes I had serendipitously noticed. Besides rediscovering my enjoyment of woodworking, the classes turned out useful to provide a light external structure—regularly getting me out of the house, interacting with people, and making progress on a project. This insight led me to joining a nearby maker space and signing up for more classes.
Making progress (~2025 Q2)
After a few months I felt I had a good foundation, but I was worried I’d be unhappy if I didn’t increase my productivity. Since things were largely working well, I decided to focus on improving what I’d already started.
The woodworking classes reinforced my identity as someone that builds things and helped me to recognize that this core identity’s foundation was shaky. Growing seniority in big tech meant I’d spent more time planning, coordinating, coaching, and reviewing rather than directly building. My inner critic was pretty harsh about how much I theoretically know how to do but don’t actually do.
I worked on over 20 projects for making my home office and garage workshop more functional. Starting and maintaining these projects took considerable effort at first, but eventually I enjoyed the momentum I was building. Instead of trying to convince myself, it just made sense to move forward.
Another priority was reducing the overhead of the routine I’d developed. I eliminated steps that no longer added value and leaned into automation. Tooling for my weekly summaries and weeknotes reduced the effort from several hours a week to around half an hour.
Challenges
I still often procrastinate on things I’m not excited by but could easily complete. For most things, this just means doing them later than I feel best. But for others it’s a hard block. Nothing important has been missed yet, but it does make me feel bad when I think of it.
Getting back into my routine after being sick took much longer than I’d hoped—one challenge with routines is restarting them after extended breaks. Building up a backlog was demoralizing—I felt guilty about pushing things back or delivering at a lower-than-usual quality.
I’d hoped to make some progress on a sense of contribution and community by being more outgoing and attending meetups and classes. I know regular engagement forges community, but I’m uncomfortable trying to manufacture it. I need a new plan here—it won’t happen by itself.
Next steps for the sabbatical
My routine is starting to happen almost by default, and I don’t yet miss any structure that came from work. Things will inevitably ramp up to larger, more complex, projects so this will remain a priority for a while.
I still recognize the patterns of burnout. I could push myself to do the work I procrastinate on, but I worry that’s what fed my burnout before. Until the work becomes urgent, I’m paying attention to that resistance and trying to understand its source. And trying to be kind to myself about this.
Part of me remains unhappy with my overall productivity. I recognize this part will never be satisfied, raising the stakes until I’m sprinting and neglecting other things. But jumping from small project to small project does avoid learning to persist through challenges. I hope bigger projects going forward will appease this part of me.
Looking further forward
That wide array of options of what to do after this year has narrowed somewhat. I don’t think I’ll be back to the grind of serial full-time high-stakes employment—although that doesn’t rule out spending a few years in the right role on the right project.
I’m increasingly confident that I can be fulfilled whatever direction I choose, as long as I have systems in place to regularly reassess what I need.
My recurring joke about eventually retiring as a continually-failing solo indie game developer makes more sense now. It wasn’t about game development—it was a yearning for the freedom to choose projects rather than putting work’s demands before my own priorities. While the core insight applies more broadly, I’m fortunate I can spend some time away from work making this freedom less of a fantasy every day.