45 yr old developer here, been at this for a long time... While it can be tempting to just push through, that can be dangerous. Sometimes that "meh" feeling is

45 yr old developer here, been at this for a long time... While it can be tempting to just push through, that can be dangerous. Sometimes that "meh" feeling is a symptom of burnout. Did you have a long week? Lots of hours? Put out some fires? Decompressing now will be better than fully burning out in a few months with some shoddily coded side project to show for it. That said, it's also possible that you need to "chop wood, carry water" as mentioned by another poster, but if you do that, take a moment to look at your side project from another level. Are you slogging because of some architectural debt, or because you're just poking at the problem to see what works? Personally, I get bogged down when I haven't thought through the problem at a higher level. Sometimes I'll just write a series of steps to get from where I am, to where I need to be, and identify the thing I am dreading doing. TL;DR: Sometimes you need a break, sometimes you need to step back and take a 10k foot view of what's bugging you, and sometimes you just need to push through. It depends ;)