It’s 11 PM on a Tuesday. You just wrapped an 8-hour coding day. Your brain feels like mush, but there’s that side project sitting in your GitHub repos, untouched for two weeks. You know you should open your laptop. You know other devs are grinding right now, shipping features, building their portfolios.
But all you feel is... nothing. Just guilt. And maybe a little bit of dread.
The Hustle Culture Trap
The software development community has this weird obsession with the always-shipping mentality. You know the type, the developer who codes at work, then codes on side projects at night and weekends, constantly learning new technologies and building portfolio pieces. They’re always posting on Twitter about their latest project, always contributing to open source, always doing something.
And if you’re not doing that? Well, you start to feel like you’re falling behind.
This hustle-cultural narrative creates a toxic relationship with programming. It turns what should be a sustainable career into an exhausting performance. A never-ending audition where you’re constantly trying to prove you deserve to be here.
Here’s the thing though, stoicism offers a healthier path. It’s about honest self-assessment of what truly matters to you. It’s about self-compassion when your energy wanes and the wisdom to distinguish between genuine passion and anxiety-driven obligation.
The Guilt Trap
Many developers feel inadequate for not maintaining active side projects, as if their professional work isn’t enough to validate their identity as a “real developer.”
And I get this. I really do. There are times you want to work on something that doesn’t quite align with what you’re doing professionally. You want to learn new things, explore different technologies, build something that’s truly yours. I’ve done that myself. That’s kind of how I’ve evolved my career as well.
Sometimes the work you do professionally isn’t enough to scratch that creative itch. It’s just what pays the bills. And that’s okay.
But here’s where you need to get honest with yourself. Use some stoic self-reflection to ask whether side projects genuinely interest you or if they stem from fear. Fear of falling behind. Fear of being judged. Fear of being exposed as somehow “less than” other developers.
You have to look at side projects through a clearer lens:
A) Learn something that interests you that maybe can help your career
B) Build something you can potentially make money from
C) Treat it as a hobby – something you do purely for enjoyment
That’s the interesting thing about being a software developer. It’s both a great profession and a great hobby. But just because it can be both doesn’t mean it should be both for you, all the time.
Energy is Finite (And That’s Not a Character Flaw)
After eight hours of solving complex problems at work, mental exhaustion is natural and rational. It’s not a character flaw. It’s not a sign of weakness. It’s biology.
You wouldn’t hit the gym and do an intense leg workout, then immediately start running sprints because you feel guilty about not doing “enough.” That’s insane. Your muscles need rest to actually build and grow stronger.
Your brain works the same damn way.
Yeah, it doesn’t make sense to push beyond that eight-hour mark just because you think you should. It takes an extreme toll on your brain capacity, your brain power. You need to rest. You need recovery time. You need to let your mind do something, anything, other than parse syntax and debug logic errors.
I learned this the hard way. There were years where I’d code all day, then force myself to work on side projects at night. I told myself it was “passion” or “dedication.” But really? I was just running on anxiety and caffeine, constantly worried I wasn’t doing enough to stay relevant.
Eventually, I hit a wall. Not a small wall, a massive, can’t-even-look-at-code-without-feeling-sick kind of wall. And that’s when it clicked: burnout serves no one. Not you, not your employer, not your career, and definitely not your side projects.
Redefining What “Productive” Actually Means
Personal growth includes reading books. Spending quality time with loved ones. Taking care of your physical health. Getting enough sleep. Going for walks. Staring at the ceiling and thinking about nothing. Mental restoration is productive.
But we don’t treat it that way, do we? We treat “productive” as synonymous with “writing code” or “shipping features” or “contributing to open source.”
That’s bullshit.
Social media has made this worse. You’re scrolling through Twitter or LinkedIn, and you see everyone’s highlight reels. Look at this side project I shipped! Check out my contribution to this popular library! Here’s my streak of 300 days of commits!
What you don’t see are their abandoned repos. The projects they started and gave up on. The nights they laid awake anxious about not doing enough. The burnout that’s quietly building underneath all those green squares on their GitHub profile.
Resist measuring yourself against these curated narratives. They’re not real. They’re performance art.
Here’s what I realized after burning out: I needed hobbies that had nothing to do with computers. I got into photography. Completely outside of software development from my perspective. And you know what? It helped. A lot.
When your entire identity is wrapped up in being a developer, when your job is coding and your hobby is coding and your social life revolves around developer meetups... that’s not balance. That’s a recipe for losing your shit.
The “But I Need Side Projects to Stay Competitive” Myth
Okay, I know what some of you are thinking. “This all sounds great, but I need side projects to stay competitive. How else will I learn new technologies? How else will I prove myself to employers?”
Let’s address this head-on.
Your professional skills, problem-solving ability, and work relationships matter far more for career security than GitHub green squares. Way more.
Yeah, there’s too much talk about code, especially when you look at things like “vibe coding” and performative development culture. The reality? A measure of a good software developer is not how well you code or how good you are with syntax.
It really comes down to problem-solving skills. It comes down to understanding how things work. What solutions to use. What problem you’re actually trying to solve. And then applying the best practices you can to create and provide a solution to the best of your ability.
You learn those skills at your job. Every single day. You’re learning when you debug a tricky issue. When you work with your team to architect a new feature. When you navigate legacy code. When you communicate with stakeholders about technical constraints.
That’s all learning. That’s all growth. That counts.
Employers who judge you solely on your side project activity? Those are probably employers you don’t want to work for anyway. Because they’re valuing performative hustle over sustainable excellence. They’re the same companies that will expect you to be on Slack at 10 PM and will act surprised when people burn out.
Side projects can absolutely help your career. But they should never feel like unpaid overtime or resume fodder. Any side project worth doing is something you either enjoy or genuinely want to learn from. You have to treat it as a hobby, not an obligation.
Permission to Not Code
You don’t need to justify not coding in your free time.
“I’m just going to relax tonight” is a complete sentence. You don’t need to explain that you had a rough day, or you’re tired, or you’ve been working hard. You’re allowed to relax because you’re a human being who needs rest.
I fell into this trap hard. For years, I’d feel guilty on weekends if I wasn’t working on something “productive.” Even when I was doing other things, there was this background anxiety humming along. Shouldn’t I be coding? Other developers are probably coding right now. I’m falling behind.
It took conscious effort to break that pattern. I had to literally tell myself out loud, “It’s okay to not code today.” It felt ridiculous at first, but it helped.
Over the years, I’ve put more effort and thought into finding enjoyment in things outside of coding. And you know what happened? When I did want to work on a side project, it was because I genuinely wanted to, not because I felt obligated. And that made all the difference.
When you stop forcing side projects out of obligation, you create space for authentic coding interests to emerge naturally. The stuff you actually care about. The problems you actually want to solve. Not the projects you think you should be building to impress some imaginary hiring manager.
What Now?
So you’ve read all this and you’re thinking, “Okay, I recognize myself in this. I’ve been running on anxiety and guilt. I’m exhausted. What do I actually do?”
Here’s where you start:
First, close your laptop right now if it’s after work hours and you’ve been staring at your side project with dread. Seriously. Close it. The code will be there tomorrow.
Second, take inventory. What side projects do you have going? Ask yourself honestly, which ones actually excite you? Which ones are you doing out of fear or obligation? Kill the obligation projects. Archive them. Delete them. Give yourself permission to let them go.
Third, find one thing outside of coding that genuinely interests you. Could be anything: cooking, hiking, reading fiction, woodworking, learning an instrument. Something where you can’t measure your worth in commits or stars or followers. Something where being “productive” doesn’t matter at all.
Fourth, set boundaries. Decide on work hours and stick to them. If you want to code after work, great. But make it a choice, not a compulsion. And on the nights you don’t want to? Don’t.
The goal isn’t to never code outside of work. The goal is to have a healthy relationship with coding where it doesn’t consume your entire identity and sense of self-worth.
Software development is a marathon, not a sprint. And you can’t run a marathon at sprint pace without destroying yourself.
The industry will always push for more. More hustle. More grind. More proof that you’re “passionate enough.” But you get to decide what enough means for you.
Because at the end of the day, the person who can push you the furthest in your career is the same person who can burn you out completely: you.
Choose sustainability over hustle. Choose balance over burnout. Choose a career you can maintain for decades over a performance you can only keep up for a few years before you crash.
You’ll be better for it. Your work will be better for it. And you might actually still enjoy coding when you’re 40.
Now I want to hear from you:
Have you ever felt guilty for not coding outside of work?
What boundaries have you set to maintain work-life balance?
What hobbies outside of coding have helped you recharge?
Drop your thoughts in the comments. Your experience might be exactly what someone else needs to hear to give themselves permission to rest.
Quote of the Day:
“He who is everywhere is nowhere.” - Seneca
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