[muzani]

I don't plan to retire. I had a nice half year break after selling my company. It's not that great. Productive engineer = happy engineer.

I'd like to be a kind of tech monk. Someone who goes around on the bare minimum needed to survive, be away from the distractions of society, and polish my skills day after day.

Every now and then I'd leave my monastery to rescue a half billion dollar project somewhere or to take down an evil tech giant with open source. Then I use my loot to continue another few years of peace and solitude.

[jackgolding]

I have had 2 involuntary 3 month breaks between jobs and even though I was strapped for cash I really hated how much my mood fell apart without having the structure of work. I told myself I want to move away from having so much of my life's meaning defined by what work I do (while it's software for any enterprise anyway.) I'm at the stage now where I'm hoping to take off at least a month for travel next year.

Are there any learnings you had from your half a year break like this?

[muzani]

It wasn't great. There's a lot of anxiety watching my bank account go down with no plan at all. Resting seems even more unproductive, it resulted in a lot of bad habits forming.

I find I am much happier working 14 hours/day than resting 24 hours.

I did have an extremely productive remote work era during that period for a side project, but unfortunately the team fell apart.

[dennisgorelik]

> it resulted in a lot of bad habits forming

What kind of bad habits did "resting" form?

[muzani]

Well things like needing more rest. I ended up "resting" 3 weekdays a week. Or things like taking 3 hours to prepare for the work day, via meditation, clearing up my workspace, getting exercise, and so on. I wouldn't say it's laziness, but having too much time makes you bad at time management.