Ask HN: How do you manage a fulltime job+family+side project at the same time? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: How do you manage a fulltime job+family+side project at the same time?

I've been getting consistently busy working on a few side projects myself but as a husband and a soon to be father, I am fighting to find time. I'm getting rather serious about my side project and can't really give up at any point. I am only however, willing to launch my product when it shows some promise. To keep the ball rolling, I'm currently in a situation where I can't let go of my full-time job yet.

I know people slowly Transition from an employee to an entrepreneur, but with a family and kids, I wanted to know every piece of valuable information to extract the most of my busy life as much as I can. My wife works o A full-time job that pays well, for what It's worth.

Answers and help appreciated!

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Sometimes when reading Hacker News I feel like everyone is exercising for an hour every day, reading a novel and a book about programming, working on a side project, have a full time job, and support a family while conquering depression.

I'm doing about two of those things...

Been there, done that! Although, I was also pursuing a degree at the time. I don't know how I did it. The best advice I can give is to treat time as your most precious resource, and always triage. Give up things like television, video games, nights out with friends, sports, etc. The wife and kids must have high priority if you want to keep them. I always felt that I was not performing well at my job, but my management was always happy so I guess I was "good enough". I only managed a 3.75 GPA, but I guess that was "good enough". I did not take on any new work on my side project, but I somehow managed to keep it going (and it is still going today).

a rule that comes to mind is that a bunch of 8/10 scores make a 10/10 bottom line. it comes from Santa Monica Studio, developers of God of War series, where their strategy to achieving a "perfect" game is to have a minimum of 8/10 scoring on any single aspect of the game. Put together, you get a masterpiece. I guess this may apply to life as well - it's extremely hard to get a 10/10 in any one particular thing, but with discipline most can manage 8/10 in all aspects of life.

Ask your parents or grandparents. My grandfather worked a crap job to provide for two kids, while going to med school nights and weekends. My grandmother had a p/t job and a side business. They managed. Their story doesn’t seem unusual for their generation (right after WW2). By comparison my f/t job with three kids and a consulting business on the side (which I now do full-time) seemed easy. You just do it, try to maintain balance, look forward. There’s no secret.

Not sure what advice to give, because I'm in a rather similar situation. Haven't had a true vacation in years, and it's harder and harder to keep on developing.

Try to have realistic deadlines, save as much money as you can, watch how-to-think-business (advice from Mark Cuban and so on) on your spare time.

All the best!

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