Personally, I don't think it would be healthy for me to take a long (multi-month) rest and recuperation break. I think I would spiral into a miserable state of

Personally, I don't think it would be healthy for me to take a long (multi-month) rest and recuperation break. I think I would spiral into a miserable state of sloth and torpor. I live pretty frugally, so I would have quite a bit of time to re-establish myself if need be. I would do the following (in order): 1) I would immediately start reaching out to friends/former coworkers to see if there were any opportunities out there. (3mo. - 6mo.) 2) I would reach out to consulting firms to see if there were any work available. (3mo.) 3) Would freelance for a while to see if I could drum up some longer term consulting work. (6mo.) 4) Look for a job outside of the tech industry that could leverage my technical work or problem solving ability. (6mo.) 5) Move to a lower cost geo, change careers, retrain or go back to school for a career in another sector. (∞ mo.) In parallel with above. * I would continue to contribute to open source to keep my skillset up to date. * Provide some training on the skills I do have, give talks at software conventions (network). * Volunteer and giveback.