One thing that I have found that helps with exactly this situation, and I have suffered it as well over the years, is to move your focus from one end of the spe

One thing that I have found that helps with exactly this situation, and I have suffered it as well over the years, is to move your focus from one end of the spectrum to the other. That is, if you have to spend your daylight hours grokking another mans API, then spend a few hours in the evening, or during off-time, hacking on your own embedded project with the Arduino. I've got tons of projects around, all of them slowly making progress admittedly, with the purpose of getting me out of my funk .. I don't actually code my hobby projects for any other reason than to make my professional work (embedded systems for safety critical applications) a little more enjoyable. It sure is fun to dive into Android, for example, and get some context, and then another week spend some time with the AVR compiler.. then the Beagleboard, etc.