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by axlprose 4322 days ago
Step outside of your domain and learn something new entirely. If your job takes up too much of your time with 'busy-work', find another one that emphasizes a better work-life balance (it's worth taking a pay cut for this). Or alternatively, gather some savings and go on a sabbatical. Just do whatever you can to go off and study music/painting/writing/photography/design/cooking/whatever, and then take on a totally different branch of programming (like games or front-end work) to explore some new challenges, or abandon programming as a career altogether and save programming only for stuff that you're actually passionate about.

Starting a business is also an option (like others have pointed out), but while it isn't exactly 'boring', it can become grueling if you're not passionate enough about the specific idea you're working on. But whatever you do, make sure it is a major shift -- don't expect that just changing where you do the same 'dull-work' will suddenly make it feel like 'awesome-work'.