Any advice from those who have done it? Did you get bored? Was it worth it? Was it more expensive? Things you found helpful when preparing?
- "structure your time off"
- "Have goals and schedules"
- "Arrange ahead of time for a role to return to"
You are getting a very American perspective in this thread so far (possibly due to the time of day). I will counterbalance it.
Advice: You're overthinking it already. If you feel like a long break in between roles, take one. Book a one way ticket to a place you've always wanted to visit, and figure out your next steps once you get there. Many/most places in the world (including within the US) are very cheap to live if you don't need to live close to work.
Maybe you end up getting bored and returning to work in a few months, maybe you run out of money, maybe you love it and travel for a year or more, working hospitality jobs to get by. All of these are great outcomes, and you will learn something about yourself that would have been impossible to discover while heads down working full time employment.
COVID is a bit of hassle right now, but places are already opening up, and come summer you should have many more options.
But, a warning from experience: when you fly one-way to another country where you'll go through immigration, always pre-book travel OUT of that country as well, and have printed (on paper!) proof to show border control. Fortunately this doesn't apply between most European countries due to the Shengen area. Immigration is not the part of the trip where you want to wing it. Always make sure you understand the visa and border crossing rules in advance.
Weirdly, it's the land crossing to Canada that has always been most difficult for me. Once, after getting pulled aside to chat with an officer for 15 minutes or so, he eventually said, "so what you're telling me is that you're rich enough that you're not coming here to work in the oil field?" "Yes, exactly."
Luckily, the most skeptical country to enter as a "traveller with no plans" is the US, so if you're starting here you don't have anything to worry about. Many countries you can go through immigration without even talking to an officer these days (assuming you have proof of onward travel).
If you mean "individual healthcare in the US is expensive", I absolutely agree. Assuming you are otherwise healthy, catastrophic health insurance might be worth looking into (I have never tried it myself). Another option would be to travel internationally, because travel insurance (or even the cost of private care) in most other countries is going to be much cheaper than a domestic health plan.
There's unemployment and welfare for those who need it, not SWEs that don't want to work.
Don't work safety nets into your plans, they are for people in need, you are taking away finite resources from people who need them if you use social programs when you are able to work.
And remember, time off means time off. Dare to do unproductive stuff. Everything don't have to further your career, or even your life.
The one think you didn't mention was why you want to or need to take a break. If you are coming from a stressful environment, then your solution might be different. I went through some ecotherapy to destress and recover. If you just have enough money saved up to travel and want to have a fun adventurous time, that is totally different break :)
Whatever you do, have fun at it
I think it's less about getting away physically, and more about getting away psychologically. Traveling is one way to do that, but there are also many ways to do that without skipping town.
Parents can absolutely do this. Slightly more preparation is required, but much less than most people think.
> I think it's less about getting away physically, and more about getting away psychologically
Was not specified by OP. Getting away physically is by far the most effective way to get away psychologically. If it's not an option (taking care of sick family members etc), then sure - work within your constraints.
The first few weeks I did absolutely nothing but workout, read books, play video games, or just lay out in a hammock. But as soon as the stress started wearing off, I started feeling the itch to make things again. Because I didn't have anywhere to share what I was making, I ended up organizing a local meetup for Rust, which ended up getting me my current job doing shit that I love. Though when I accepted the offer I made my start date a few weeks out just to round my time off up to three months off. That was the happiest time of my life. I fully intend to take at least that much time off if I ever leave this job too. (Though I might even see if I can swing a three month long vacation/sabbatical without leaving once my project is released.)
My only advice: do it.
> The first few weeks I did absolutely nothing but workout, read books, play video games, or just lay out in a hammock.
But I did this for 3 years, never tired of it, and only got a job when I had 6 months of expenses left in easily accessible cash (could’ve held out longer if I had sold off stocks but didn’t want to do that).
I haven't been bored for too long since boredom is a trigger for getting some work. We are in a relatively inexpensive area to live which helps financially.
I would rather leave some money on the table and have more free time.
I enjoyed being off grid with even my smartphone mostly off and being used just as a camera. It just felt very relaxing and I was in the best of my mental state then. I got the chance to meet a lot of new people from different backgrounds and just have different experiences in different places.
I didn't regret it a bit but after a while I kind of started missing my computer as well, because I do really enjoy building stuff as well. So after five months, I started working on some ideas I had, sadly they didn't pan out and I joined a new job in some time after doing 2-3 weeks of interview preparation. In total, it was a break of about a year.
Since I mostly used to stay in hostels, tents and was mostly on foot or cycle, it wasn't expensive. But if you are used to a paycheck, it seems weird when you have to take money out of your investments. So, you start thinking about your long term savings after a while.
I am not sure what you meant by preparing, I didn't have an exact plan or budget. I just had some mental estimate of the rough expenditure and how much of my savings I was willing to burn.
It totally depends on you but if I do it again; I would plan it a bit upfront(at least the major checkpoints) and would keep my break between 3-6 months.
I think having the time and space to decompress, heal, and explore is really important and our culture doesn't really appreciate that fully. Whenever I told people I was taking time off they'd always say "oh, are you going to travel? what are you going to do?" and I always had to tell them — no, I didn't have a plan but I knew it was what I needed.
In terms of advice I'd say you should expect a period of at least a few weeks of decompression — laying around, watching TV, socializing with friends, not doing much of anything. This is something that they talk about in the homeschooling/unschooling communities after a child leaves school — it seems to take a bit of doing "nothing" to shake off some of the conditioning of schooling, and I've found the same to be true for jobs and careers and other transitions.
After that initial decompression, I'd say that many people struggle structuring their time when not in a setting that structures their time for them. This makes a lot of sense since most people have almost never had unstructured time. So I'd start trying to find ways to structure your time.
Good luck!
I did not have many goal-style plans and have some regrets about things not done, but (shrug) I think that's all of life. In my mind it's not so important to have specific goals as to have broader intentions -- e.g., following your gut, or heart, or pursuing something that's been in the back of your mind for a while.
Good luck!
With my paid job I sometimes got overwhelmed and sometimes felt a lack of purpose. At those times I found solace in side projects and would even try to sneak in working on them at my paid job. A few of those projects were successful enough to quit my paid job for a few years.
Since then I've turned to quitting my job first and then trying to start a side project. It's not the same and I haven't succeeded. When you have infinite time you stop to value it. You can always do it tomorrow or next month and the procrastination or perfectionism creep in.
My sister says that if you really want something done, you should give it to the busiest person you know. It seems contradictory, but the busy person values their time and they will get your task done as fast and as efficiently as possible.
This is too strong of a general statement. There are plenty of situations which may require longer than 3 months.
Personally speaking, I’m currently on month 7, and it will probably take a few more months before I’m ready to commit to any sort of formal work arrangement.
I think the most important thing is keep an eye on your runway, and if/when you need to get back into the work force, make sure you're still on top of whatever it is you do. For me, building this project has enabled me to stay in touch with tech trends in my field.
We are getting our health insurance through the US marketplace. If you are also American, the recent covid relief bill dropped the prices of plans by a good deal. Our premium is now 30% cheaper.
Now I am just going to be working part time, as I loved the balance that doing non-computer related work gave me. With proper budgeting, and a decent industry you will be surprised how little work one needs to do to live a happy and humble life.
It wasn't more expensive. I was paying for a COBRA health plan but I was eating out a lot less, and it mostly balanced out. Apart from securing health care, there wasn't anything I would have found useful to plan ahead of time. I do wish I had traveled to Europe or Asia, but that's my only regret. It's all "you time" and you can just trust yourself to know what you want to do once you go through the initial recovery from the stress of working. For me, after about seven months I realized I was ready to go back to work, and I was lucky enough to find a job that I've been at since then. I will likely take another extended break, but maybe just 4-5 months, and I will be sure to travel then.
I think the experience completely broke my willingness to return to a "normal" tech role again and I've bounced between short bursts of employment and long bursts of not working or semi–employment as a consultant.
I think it also saved my life.
Mistakes I made:
I didn't have a plan to structure my time off.
I didn't have any goals to accomplish in my time off.
I didn't arrange ahead of time for a role to return to.
Specific advice: structure your time off, set goals, try to accomplish them but don't punish yourself if you fail. Arrange ahead of time for a role to return to, even if it's time limited or isn't what you "really want to do".
I wrote longer about this previously but can't find it in my first few pages of comments.
Would imposing a structure and setting goals for your time off have helped or interfered with these (admittedly admirable) results?
Honestly (and this is ~20+ years in the past now) getting some sort of therapy after spending five years in the dot com craziness would helped as well. Sometimes it's difficult to realize you’re in a toxic environment until you’re well removed from that environment.
- It goes by fast. If you have a long list of things you want to do during that time, I would make sure to prioritize. If you just want to relax, that is fine too.
- Unless you are really in a bad spot in terms of finances, it is unlikely that you will regret taking the time off.
- Don't worry about the gap in your resume. Anyone who cares about that is likely not someone you want to work for.
- Optional, but think about ways to make the break work in your favor. I used some of the time to learn a new programming language, and the subsequent pay bump that I got after returning to work more than paid for the time off. As another hypothetical example, If you were hoping to cut loose and travel during your time off, and if you are currently working remote due to COVID. You could move out of your apartment now and get a jump start on the traveling, while still collecting a few more paychecks.
Alternatively, if you have a bunch of capital gains in stocks you could cash some of that out tax free if you have no income for the year (i.e. the Jan 2022-Dec2022 scenario).
Some other considerations in terms of timing are bonuses and PTO payouts. For example, I had a ton of PTO saved up (this was before everyone was doing unlimited PTO, which makes this issue irrelevant). My last day was in late December and they gave me a check for all of the unused PTO. Had I waited until January, that money would have been mostly tax free.
Probably not something you want to stress too much about. But if it works out you can put an extra $5-10k in your pocket which will take some of the sting off of losing the paycheck.
After I finish a project, I take 1-2-3 years off. During this time, I start working on personal stuff driven by personal needs and interests, and I explore stuff I wouldn't be able to otherwise. Eventually one of these projects turns into something more concrete that's useful to someone else, who then hires me for 1-2-3 years to bring it to production. And the cycle repeats.
I do think things through pretty thoroughly. Even though everything I do is driven by personal needs and interests, I always have a plan about how it could potentially serve someone else, and I always have someone concrete in mind for whom it could be useful. Although I almost never get involved with my original target, and even though what I do turns out to be useful in ways I didn't originally envision, this planning is absolutely critical. As Eisenhower said plans are worthless, but planning is everything.
Even though my projects span many layers of technology and abstraction, from firmware, to programming languages and up to pure math, I always have a very clear path in my mind about how they relate in some fundamental way. The lessons I learned in my previous project are always essential for my next one.
My time is very important for me, and I couldn't envision a life spent for someone else. This way not only I can achieve approximativelly 50% personal time, but by construction, when I work for someone else, I am completely interested and totally dedicated. Everybody wins.
Btw, when I say project, I don't mean a product, I mean a project in a very abstract sense, which can either be a product (rarely), a technology (more often), or becoming some expert in some niche.
I left a job of roughly 5 years with nothing lined up because the workplace was abusive and devastated my mental and physical health, and I felt I couldn't wait any more.
I was overconfident at how quickly I'd find another role and anticipated a max of 3 months unemployed. I quit shortly before the economic impact of the pandemic, so I wound up being off for 9 months between my old job and my current job.
The downsides were that I had to worry about my finances more, that my self-confidence took a temporary hit (I realized I tied my sense of self-worth to my employment), and that I constantly felt like I should be doing more.
The best preparation I made for myself, which echoes other comments here, was imposing the discipline of structure on myself, and giving myself actionable, manageable weekly goals to keep my forward sense of momentum going, even if that was something like "cook a dish I've never cooked before."
Edit: I would also add that it's important to manage your expectations. If you have a role to return to after, or if you know with certainty you will, this is less of a factor. If you don't, even in a great tech labor market, you should anticipate the possibility of not immediately landing the role you want and plan for that accordingly.
Doing this during Covid sucks because it limits everything, but, I wouldn’t have done it otherwise too so I am a bit thankful.
I think the one biggest thing that’s been helpful is to set aside free time every day with nothing planned. Just let yourself get bored for a bit! It’s amazing!
In this case the experience is a bit different only in that you separate from your day job AND everything else (wife, kids, pets, house, bills, commute... everything).
Aside from that it’s not as different as you would think and likely (unexpectedly) stressful for similar reasons: boredom, fixations on unimportant things, regrets, and so forth.
The best of those deployments was the one spent traveling around Afghanistan meeting interesting people, seeing the real world, and living life in a sleeping bag in hallways where I could find space. That was the most rewarding thing I have ever done. It was like a real life Life of Walter Mitty.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_Life_of_Walter_Mi...
If are going to take extended time off from work make it count, I mean REALLY count. What rewarding thing do you want to do that you will remember for the rest of your life? What are you willing to risk to improve yourself or somebody else?
-- My Story --
For my first two times, I had my next role lined up but took 2-3 months before starting. I spent this time travelling and learning/researching.
For my third time, I took a year long sabbatical offered by my employer. I pursued my own research and spent a lot of time with my child.
Right now, I am 7 months into a 2? year stint to pursue my own research and augment my child's learning.
-- Some Advice --
0. Honestly ask yourself if this is for you. If you have issues with self-actualizing, budgeting, socializing, etc, then maybe this isn't the right time in your life for this.
1. Try to be clear about why you want to do this. The time goes by quickly and it can be helpful to periodically reorient towards what is meaningful.
2. Don't expect too much from yourself. The time goes by quickly and you will make yourself miserable if you have some perfect dream of what this time should look like.
3. Be prepared for boredom and loneliness. Your friends are likely still working and there is going to be a huge disparity between your free time versus theirs.
Make sure you have your health insurance lined up, in case you have a hernia in Australia and get it operated on then... never know.
Have a better 'back to work plan' then what I had.
Have goals and schedules. Have some loose timelines. RE examine your goals, preferably with a trusted friend, to keep you intellectually honest. Do this on a strongly fixed schedule. Be it once a week, once a month, every other month. I would not recommend less often then every 3 months.
My first trip was a burnout fix. My second was because I could.
I would say make a detailed budget, but that depends on your plans and resources. I did not, but I usually have a good sense of what my finances are.
Do not go into debt for this.
2) have a budget. what can you spend per day? What is your current burn rate vs your new one vs liquid assets on hand? Are you OK with the difference?
3) when you start looking again what are your expectations? You now have put a hole in your resume. Remember companies like the idea of you can 'hit the ground running' so have a story for this. From their side of the desk you look like someone who can not get hired. They will use it as a filter. They have 200 resumes to look at and 199 have to go. Any dumb thing they can to kick you off that pile is one they will do.
4) do you have other obligations? For example car payments? Spouse? Parents who need help? etc? These may consume your time/money faster than you think or plan. As they will all say the same thing 'you are not working why dont you ....' Set boundaries.
I personally would not do it again. It was enjoyable enough. But the money anxiety I got was bad. Even not really having any debts or anything to worry about. It was just too much for me personally. I was not bored as I have plenty of projects I like to piddle with.
Yes, totally worth it.
Yes, totally got bored. That's a good thing, it's the polar opposite of creativity and we need to live there some of the time or we lose track of the value of creativity and come to think of it as the day-to-day grind instead of the fun adventure it can be.
It was not more expensive. With all that time I could make my own food and minimize the monetary friction of convenience to save time. Everything went much slower and more thoughtful.
Helpful prep? Have ideas for a project, something to accomplish on a day to day habit kind of process and another long term. Not stressful projects, nor necessarily productive projects. Maybe learning? Maybe more physicality? Me, I did more yoga and took classes at a local maker space. Worst thing you can do is leave all your time open and free. You won't value it. Well, 2nd worst thing is to expect you can do too much and kick yourself for not living up to your potential.
Relax.
Purely in terms of expenses, it was cheaper than the rent we had been paying on our apartment, although of course that does not factor in the loss of salary.
The cliche to use would be 'once in a lifetime experience' - I think it was, but I would encourage anyone not to limit themselves to one of those, and to make time for as many of them as possible.
In terms of preparation and planning; we wouldn't have attempted it if I hadn't gone a bit mad and suggested the idea, and we wouldn't have managed it if my partner hadn't been there to help out with the logistics of making it possible.
We met incredible and diverse people (both locals and other touring cyclists) throughout the entire journey, and that was probably the aspect of it that I enjoy thinking about most in retrospect.
Having now worked full time for almost a decade after moving to the US, I decided to take some time off earlier this year. Bit more complex with COBRA continuation health insurance in the US. It's been almost four months so far and I am not missing work at all yet. Figured I'll probably look for something new after the summer.
So long as you can afford it, only downside I can see to taking an extended break now that things are reopening again in the US is that international travel seems likely to remain limited for a while.
One thing to watch out for is judgement from others. Many people apparently do not understand the concept of voluntarily not working. Some will think there is something wrong with you. Some will think you are lazy and wasting your life. Some will try to help you find a job even after you explain to to them that you are intentionally taking time off.
In retrospect I wish I would have traveled or done something more with my time. Instead I just sort of chilled out a lot at home. I did try to get out more and go see live music, socialize, etc. Also I entered into a relationship which is still going on. So overall it was probably good for me, but my advice would be maybe to have a plan for what you want to do so you don't feel guilty that you are wasting time or being unproductive.
Make sure your finances are in order and that you have enough money to go for significantly longer than you intent to (in case of a bad job market, difficulty finding a job, unexpected emergency, etc.). I had two years worth of living expenses covered and had a plan to go for up to five years if needed at reduced spending. Don't forget account for health insurance in your budget since you'll need to either buy your own or pay the full COBRA amount.
It was extremely refreshing but while i planned for a full year i instead took 3 months off and couldn't not work. Not out of necessity, it's just something i totally missed.
But my only thing is make sure you have projects, that way you don't get bored. My issue is i didn't have enough on the backlog so i got through all of them, hibernated for a month and said, "enough is enough".
Then methodically figure out what you want to do in life and use the dedicated energy you have to create the plan to accomplish those things.
I can't advise you because I don't know your circumstances. I would do it again, but I cannot well articulate the advantages. I'm more deeply calm. I know my priorities. I learnt to play ukulele.
I was never bored, because before I got to that state I began working on a project. When I got bored with that one I worked on another
It cost me a year's income, but I keep my expenses low and live within my means, so it wasn't a terrible burden. To prepare, I kept my expenses to 25% of my income for over a year.
The immense focus, waking up and working on my thing. No pointless meetings, standups, or sucking up to people. I feel that I got a taste of what people that are financially independent always rave about. I started frequenting a local coffee shop, got to meet a ton of people from all walks of life.
Totally worth it.
Maybe it was worth it. It definitely was expensive, despite living cheaply. I didn't prepare at all, aside from my normal habit of living below my means.
I had 6 weeks off for paternity leave. It was magical. I was only getting 5 hours of sleep, but I was more well rested than when I was getting 8 hours due to not having any work stress. I was able to do a bunch of projects around the house too.
I could probably stop working for about 6 months if I pick a cheap country.
Running the channel is much more work than I ever did in tech, but interacting with a community of people who enjoy watching me play a video game is more satisfying than anything I ever shipped. To be free of the useless meetings, sociopathic bosses, degrading performance review processes, stupid politics, the egos, the dbags, the kool-aid, this is my giant FU to an industry that has royally screwed our entire society and congratulates itself for doing so.
I didn't go into this thinking I would succeed and I'm a long way away from financial independence. But I finally feel like I regained ownership of my soul. My advice is to stop fucking worrying about your leetcode score, your 401k, what color Tesla you should get, and anything else that is keeping you in psychological chains. The anxiety is how they want you to feel, so you will actually feel grateful for dedicating your entire life to enriching someone else. Just jump. Don't make a plan, don't fret, don't make excuses to yourself or your family. Just jump.
In 2016, I quit my job working at a small software firm in Chicago. I didn't think I would do it, I was afraid I would keep putting it off, so one day in the middle of the workday I just abruptly opened AirBnB and booked an apartment for two months in Paris, just like that, non-refundable, plus a flight, also non-refundable. It was 7 months in advance, to give myself plenty of time, but also to put a definitive date on the matter. I had never been outside the US at the time. I left at the end of July and spent all of August, September, and October in Europe, living off savings and just enjoying the sights, alone.
I have a mixture of extremely good and sad memories. I do not regret it in any way and am extremely glad I did it.
My place in Paris was lovely, right by Les Gobelins in the heart of the city. The weather was beautiful and I would just spend days walking the streets, visiting every museum and cathedral and café and restaurant. The best thing is that under such circumstances you aren't pressed to fit everything into a few days-- you have the freedom to do something every day or every few days, whatever pace you feel like. So you never end up feeling hassled or pressured.
I would pass whole afternoons sitting in the window of the bookshop across from Notre-Dame Cathedral, listening to the churchbells and reading books. I would spend many evenings walking the river. If I felt like it, I would take a train out of the city to a random village in the countryside and visit castle ruins. I did this many times. It's amazing what you can find sitting around in Europe, hundreds or thousands of years old decaying in a field. So much history there.
I rented a car and drove to Normandy, and to the south, and saw many more things. Eventually I flew to Italy, and then to Croatia. Croatia was the best part of the whole trip-- it's an unbelievably gorgeous country. It's not so well known as Italy and Greece and France, but it's as good or better.
A lot of this time was spent playing video games on my laptop in my airbnb room, being a little sad that I was on my own. That's the other side of it. Some friends flew out and spent time with me there, totalling two weeks, but the other eight weeks was just me in a land where I could only speak the language well enough to get by, but not well enough to get to know anyone meaningfully. It was lonely. And all the while I knew I had to go back and figure out what to do next.
I think it depends. You have to know yourself. Money can take away some causes of unhappiness, but it can't give happiness, only freedom, which isn't the same thing. Purpose is happiness, someone said to me recently, and I agree with them. Traveling on my own, I had freedom, but no purpose beyond seeing beautiful and ancient things that I'd never seen before. It was lovely, and I'll do it again soon. But I wasn't as happy as the times when I knew I was where I was meant to be, with people who needed me there and wanted me there.
I don't have a tidy conclusion. It's just food for thought I guess. My personal answer to OP's question. For what it's worth, the whole 3 months cost me <$6000. Staying in one airbnb for an extended block of time and buying groceries instead of eating out 3x a day makes a big difference, plus the trains are cheap in Europe.