2022 - A Review on Burnout

TLDR: If you feel yourself burning out, take a break and try something different, be that related or unrelated to what you currently do.

I've been trying to figure out what I've actually been doing these past two years since the last review, which was in 2020!

At the end of 2020, I set out with this:

"I have many long-term goals. Eventually, I would like to try VueJS and Express. But going into 2021, I will be building more APIs using Django and getting better at integrating them on the front end."

Did I accomplish my goals in 2020?

I am happy to say I did a lot of Vue that year. It's nothing crazy, but there are a lot of test sites. I am trying to figure out whether I prefer writing code using the new composition API or if the options API is the way to go. I've got to say I have been mixing between the two since lots of Vue3 libraries give you demos using the composition API.

A lot of my time in 2021 was taken up by A-Levels. Namely my final project for Computer Science. I spent over a year working on a timetable application for my school. You can read about that here.

The first half of 2022 was taken up by my final year in sixth-form college. Lots of exams and a lot more stress with university applications. Due to COVID, we had many more exams than we normally would. Hence, the time I had to code was very minimal.

By the time I was done with exam submissions and university applications, I had been working incredibly hard and learning different things; hence, I was incredibly burnt out. I had no desire to do anything productive. I spent a lot of time with friends before I had to leave for a different city and move to university inevitably.

I got my first University offer at the end of 2021!! I accepted a place around June once all the other universities had decided.

However, I had no desire to do anything related to web development. I started to play around with Haskell. It was a bit of a change of pace, but it was fun and something different to do when I felt bad about not doing anything.

Even though I wasn't doing much programming myself, I watched a lot of different Twitch streamers make different apps and software. I think this helped keep me interested without burning myself out more. I liked watching Tsoding on Twitch; he does many different bits with many different languages and was a good source of inspiration and motivation.

Starting University

Between August and October, I had a lot of administrative work for the university. I had to fill out countless forms for enrollment, accommodation, etc...

October 2022 was my first semester doing Computer Science at University. For the first two months, it was about settling in. The only code I wrote was what I had for my programming modules. Taking the 3-month break from code helped put a different perspective on things.

Once I felt the motivation come back slightly, I challenged myself to redesign my portfolio from scratch in the span of a week. This was a really fun challenge because I meant I couldn't really procrastinate from doing it. I wanted to make it simpler and less of a hassle to maintain. So, I opted for Next JS (the link is below). I also made a custom new tab screen with all the commonly used links for my university.

• Portfolio

This brings us to December of 2022. With a newfound interest in lower-level programming, I decided to spend more time learning C and improving at Haskell while completing university work.

2023 and Beyond

This year I want to keep reading books on Haskell unitl I really become comfortable with it. I want to do more low-level programming, maybe messing with x86-64 assembly. Some books I would recommend are:

• Programming From the Ground Up - Jonathan Bartlett
• Real-world Haskell
• Learn You a Haskell

I also have a goal to build everything from scratch at least once. At the moment, I want to make my own programming language with a compiler and, hopefully, a browser. I would also like to do the Harvard CS50 course.

I hope to apply to some dev jobs this year to do alongside university if that works out, but more importantly, I am soon moving to the final semester of my first year, so getting through uni is my top priority.

Summary

I appreciate that this article was a little over the place, but if anything, it reflects my life these past two years. Ultimately, what helps me most with burnout is taking a longer break from everything and trying something different to see what else might interest me. ❤