I'm too absorbed by parenting that I dream about side projects I will never do.
Enjoy the free time
Enjoy the free time
But I'm blessed that my kids are sleep through 99% of the night time.
I got to a point that I couldn't bring myself to even open a computer after I got home from work ... and while I recovered to an extent (I've had a number of successful (IMO) side projects, and even did some startups since), I haven't quite felt that drive to spend my off-time doing more work. My daughter just turned 18 yesterday, and I'm looking forward to when my son is off to college in ~4 years; side-projects, here I come!
Took a long time to realize, and of course YMMV. I had kids younger than most of my peers (~10 years early, when I was 20 ... it was all planned, perfectly on schedule), so when a few of my friends' wives became pregnant recently, I gave them all the same advice -- to give yourself time and space to learn how to integrate this new aspect into your life. I went into it trying to maintain my "me time", with side-projects, writing books, making games, reading/writing blogs, participating in online communities (/. at the time), etc ... and I burned out, so my advice to them (and to you) is to learn how to re-balance your priorities. Beer and TV will kick your ass the next day if you stay up late, and eventually it'll catch up to you. Better to go in cycles ... have some "benders" from time to time where you hang out with friends, play games, drink beer, watch TV; and then have a stretch of time that you go to bed at a reasonable (and consistent) hour, exercise, etc.
...or do your children not wake up at 6am sharp every day? :P
But what I say is - I'm not doing that 7days per week - if I'm tired I watch some Netflix or just play games or just go to sleep (but I feel really guilty that I've wasted free time to go 'just to sleep' - I know that's a bad mindset, I'm trying to fight with it, because sometimes your body needs to recover a bit more)
It takes a lot of effort, energy, support from the spouse, ...
I often say - if I could go back in time, I would go visit younger me, single, with 9-5 job being only obligation. I would go there, and slap him (myself) across the face for complaining about not having enough time. I mean, seriously?
And a note to those parents with one kid - enjoy your spring break. That's what it feels like compared to having two kids. Wouldn't dare to think about how it is with 3+.
Enjoy your time with kids, you won't get another chance with that. With side projects you can always start over.
Given that the third baby is very, very likely our last I’m definitely trying to appreciate every moment. The upside is that by the third baby you’re able to just enjoy things because you’ve got some experience and aren’t overly anxious all the time.
I’ve learned the value of slow and steady progress on hobby projects. In some ways it’s more effective. I spend weeks without any real time to sit down and code, but by the time I do I’ve either worked it out in my head during spare moments, or on pencil and paper.
I know exactly what I want to do when I sit down and write code and to be honest I’m spending very little time on writing code. It’s maybe 30 minutes a day, plus constantly going over ideas and research on Trello/iOS Safari when I’m commuting or I only have one hand free.
I think my productivity is not much lower than before, although there are moments when parenting gets in the way I still think it’s possible to keep making progress.
Oh gee, no, no. If all you know is the first few months, you know not of parenting time requirements. You need to come back and talk about ruthless prioritizing and efficient coding when you parent a toddler, or two. Then we can all have a hearty laugh at this post together.
I do find myself already thinking I'm too tired / busy to do something, but then actually I sit down and get started and find I can make progress. I feels to me like it's a mindset of prioritising the things that matter the most, and side projects should be high on the list in my opinion.
If you can find the time to read articles and articulate a response on HN you probably have time to spend on your side project.
For another perspective, I lose 11 hours of my day with my day job, including commute time. With the 13 hours remaining, I get maybe 45 mins a day to groom myself at start / end, usually interrupted multiple times. I don't tend to get more than 2 hours continuous sleep in any given night, so while I get to bed and sleep by 10pm, and usually woken up and forced out around 5am, I've probably been interrupted twice over night. Most of the rest of the time is tending to cooking, cleaning, feeding, laundry, homework, ferrying to and from various hobbies, and when there's moments to enjoy, stopping to enjoy those moments.
When I find that elusive 10-15min break, I don't have the mental power to think about side projects. I just want a nap.
Awch. I've got a 2 month old who, for the moment, is a surprisingly good sleeper. It's still exhausting, getting in from work, trying to spend an hour of quality time with her while helping mum finish dinner before she goes into an over tired 'witching hour'.
I'm much more driven to try some side projects though. The sudden drop to a single salary and the vain hope that one day I could be finically sound enough to take an extended trip with the little one are big drivers.
I found to have a good amount of free time during that first year or so. The weird sleep schedule provides it, I think. If you're like me, you'll find your schedule filling with more and more kid activities as they get older. Then it gets harder to fit all the things in, and you have to make some interesting choices.
Parenting is really honestly taking a lot of time from me that I used to spend on hacks and projects.
+1 on the thinking ahead, that definitely helps. But that limits you to stuff that you already know and can model accurately in your mind, which BTW precludes any sort of debugging work, exploratory programming, etc.
(But as you witness, there's always time to shoot a random remark on HN ;) ).
I hope they’re Restful APIs.
Yes. It is an excuse. That's literally what it is. Its not an invalid excuse or a fake excuse just because it's an excuse. This person has real material daily struggles and constraints. They have logical reasons they can't do more. They are excused from judgement for not doing their side projects. That's how excuses work.
With a 8am-4pm job, plus commuting, plus cooking (you cook fresh for your kid and don't rely on delivery services, don't you?), playing with kid and buying groceries, well.. there's not so much free time.. my energy is over by 8pm
When they get older and start rolling around and walking, then the amount of time you have to be watching them increases dramatically. Especially when they go from 3-4 naps a day to 1 or 0.
Let alone that sitting around programming all day is probably not what you should become a parent for. Note that I am not saying you do this at all, I just mean it from a hypothetical 'maximum-amount-of-time'.
Personally I couldn't care less about my side-projects in comparison to the joy I get from seeing my daughter explore the world, learn languages, etc.