Staying motivated and focused

First, welcome aboard.

For staying motivated, you have to be excited about what you do and that comes from various sources, like appreciation from your boss, from your collegues, other developers from industry, by learning something new, participating at boards like dev-archive etc etc :), you must have to have a goal well defined that you want to acheive, identify varoius other ways to acheive it, and do realize well that some where down the road, you'll face extreme frustration, fatigue and disappointment, but by the end of the day, it doesn't matter that how you started things, what matter is, how you decide to end them ;) and thats what seperates you from others :thumb:

Recently I've been reading many books about this. At my job I do all the coding, network administrating, and tech work. It gets difficult to stay focused and motivated. Most these books will go over a lot of things that you already know or have heard of. But don't let that dissapoint you, read them if truly are un-focused or un-motivated. They will teach you how to re-kindle these habits of being focused and motivated. These books definately have helped me.

I haven't ever worked with recruiters, but I'd be really interested to know how that goes. I'm planning on a move and I'd like to see how that works out for you.

I'm looking to find a new job and am trying not to suffer from burnout. I do IT for a small-to-midsized company and spend all day coding. I'm really trying to bone up on my .net skills so I code that all evening and on weekends. Has anyone had a situation like this? How did you stay focused? All work and no play...

All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy...
I have suffered from a burnout recently. Everything I did or attempted did not work out, and I mean everything! It was as if it was the first time writing code, I forgot simple things such as how to copy a file (not with code, but with My Computer), I forgot the difference between an If statement and a For loop - and I'm a trainer!! So you can probably imagine how bad it was!. I am very serious now, and I'm trying to help you prevent that. It was not only my work that suffered, it was my personal life as well in many respects.

What I did was to rest (sleep, and just laze about). I plugged out my computer. I did not do anything technology wise. I did not study a new book. I just relaxed (I think I was absent from CG as well). By doing that, I could think about positive things, and about achievements - I could free my mind so to speak. I decided to take things easier, IOW, I will go to bed 12 AM instead of the normal 2 AM, I will leave my current projects at work over the weekends. I realised the problem was that I was "mentally tired".

Only after a few weeks, I had the courage to accept new and greater challenges again.
So all I can say is that every morning you wake up, you must tell yourself : "I am going to learn new things today", if you run into frustration, smoke a cigarette, or listen to relaxing music, or whatever to relax. But tell yourself then, "Nothing is accomplished without some form of frustration" Don't let things bring you down.

Sorry if I wrote in circles, and if I went on and on for too long about my own experiences, but I really hope you benefited from my comments!

Good luck! :thumb:

That must be tough cooler! Getting paid, and not doing much.

Have you spoken to your boss / project leader(s) Do they understand your concerns, and how you feel

My advice would be, to sit at the table with them, and talk to them about your feel. Explain to them that you need to & want to want to be more involved with their projects , anything! Does the company do any consulting

Or, you can perhaps take a day or 2 off, and try to clear your head. Think about your situation, perhaps consider your options. If you remain stagnent, I mean, who knows what's going to happen ! :eek:

That's all I can say at this stage, but I really hope my advice was helpful to you, cooler! :)

Good luck!

I think if you fall(or make fallen) in finacial crisis you will be motived all the time as the hunger will eat stone if he founds nothing .

Yes thats true

For being and staying motivated you need tasks on table

And under pressure we do become efficient thats true but also a danger that
too much pressure ( exploitation ) may lead to more harms likes
missing deadlines rather than to finish work on time

My case exaclty opposite very less / no work , so i m facing the danger of loosing motivation

I do understand that in software services there could be situations , of being on no-project for sometime , but being no-project for months , i m getting crazy

i m thankful that sites like dev-archive exist in which we can spend time usefully

Thanks for the replies guys! I've been working with vb.net in my spare time for a few months now and feel very comfortable using it. Next I plan on taking on C# or ASP.NET as I've gathered they are the most in-demand (at least here in America) coding languages employers are looking for. Do you agree with that consensus?