So really, how to make time for pet projects?
The real reason it's so important is that I would really like to start my own startup one day based on one of these projects...
I have a full time job as well and do not have the time for pet projects. After work I get home and have some family time until it's bed time. Then my wife watches some TV while I work for about 1 hour tops.
As you know, 1 hour is NOTHING when developing. I take at least 45 minutes to get into a groove and ultimately I do nothing of substance.
I envy single people in that regard, they can work until their eyes drop out of their head. Don't waste your time! You hear me single people! Don't waste your time!
So I'll be 40 when my youngest turns 18 ... just in time for my mid-life crisis :P But in all seriousness, 11 years in (I'm 31, and my daughter is 11) and I'm still happy with our decision. I'll let you know in 9 years how that turns out ;)
Conversely, some will choose not to have them for various reasons (psychological, physical, etc.). All are equally valid on both sides of the equation.
For me, it was never a matter of if, but when ... as a human, reproducing is what we do. So when things lined up, I decided to pull the trigger (so to speak).
At 35, I don't consider myself even remotely too old to still be doing things, and my daughter will turn 11 next month. That means that she was born about 11 years ago, and frankly, I had no clear idea of a career path above and beyond just working my way up the company ladder. It wasn't that it hadn't been done obviously, but the internet wasn't as prevalent 11 years ago, and there weren't near the resources then as there are now.
Several thousand times over.
What can be done? I wish there was some sort of hypertime chamber like in Dragonball Z where I could in and work for three weeks but only have left for 1 hour. That would be sweet!
Single guy here, and no sorry we can't work until our eyes drop out of our heads. I think working long hours is just a result of training to that over the years, bit by bit and it just comes by practice. I have done that as a student and a good enough part of my working career.
But its not something that someone could do forever. I mean to say the only reason after all these years I can thing of is 'money'. If its not worth the money, I don't even bother. I am not ashamed or afraid to admit that. I am going close to 30's for heaven's sake. Soon there will be family, expenses and what not. I don't like working like a cubicle bound wage slave my whole life. No easy way to get out of all this without working hard.
I just wish I could work on something interesting projects in my spare time, and make some money out of it.
So no, being single or married doesn't make a difference. Although I know having a baby in the home does become demanding, I've had that experience before with my sisters kids.
But, when you say a zillion projects, you automatically reminded me of how I use to be. My mind is like a buzzing bee, always having ideas. So I've got some more advice for you:
Look at what you HAVE to launch for pet project #1. The smaller details and functionalities can be added later on in v2 or whatever. I always had issues not being able to complete projects, because I was keep on coming up with "cool new additions that I insisted I needed to add". Don't, it will only delay you more and more, and you'll never launch.
Focus.
Relax.
Build v1.
Write down your ideas if you spontaneously come up with a new one for later, and brainstorm before you start working on v2 again. Then, repeat above steps. Or, start a v1 of another project. But working on multiple things at the same time isn't productive.
Different people like different approaches, but this one worked for me after getting very frustrated with myself.
From what I can see (myself included), there's more tendency to make pet projects more technically complicated than needed (usually because they're thought of as an opportunity for technical experiment & also less responsibility if things break), and these complexity will make project context switching much, much more painful, which will lead to less time of meaningful developing.
Here are a few things I took into consideration when making this move:
1. My employers current codes of conduct contract prevented me from earning income elsewhere. Moving to 3 days a week allows me to both get clients and keep my current work relationship intact.
2. The last 30% of my income was taxed at the highest rate (Canadian tax). When I took the time to do the math, surprisingly it wasn't all that big of a hit (at least it's not for me).
3. Doing this removes any complications around code-ownership, copyrights or product rights.
Just another option to consider for those who are really serious about their start up, but can't find the time or money otherwise.
Now, seriously, I don't have large blocks of free time anymore. So I had to change tactics. In the morning, I wake up first, so I start boiling water for the coffe, turn on the PC and check emails/facebook on my phone. My wife wakes up, we eat, dress up our baby, and she leaves with him. Every other day I have 20 minutes of free time, that I use to code or play games. Then I read books on my commute, when she's breastfeeding I read documentation, new technologies, my rss, and late at night while she is taking a bath, I have 30 minutes of coding or gaming.
And that's it. The New Reality. 30, 50 minutes, interwoven with 5 minutes throught the day. But no worries... the life of a husband and a father is what I want. It's a matter of priorities.
I bring my laptop with me in hopes of working on the bus during my commute, but the bus is often far too packed for me to even have the arm room to pull my laptop out of my bag. Because of this, I sometimes just jot notes in a notebook, but that doesn't get me very far when the majority of what I need to do is get down to actual implementation.
I don't really have any fantastic advice other than saying it's a huge juggling act, and you need to find the right balance that works for both you and your family.
Also, keep in mind that context switching is expensive -- switching from one project to another requires a change in your mindset and maybe even the technologies/syntax you're working with. It's very easy to burn out just switching between projects.
Here's a schedule that I follow: - Wake up at 5:30am. Hit the gym, eat breakfast, go to work. - Work from 10am - 6pm. - Be back home by 7pm, eat dinner. - Work on pet projects from 7:30 - 10:30pm. Go to sleep so I can wake up early again.
I've realized that consistency is really important. 3 hours may not seem a lot every day but if I do this everyday for 2-3 weeks, that adds up to a lot of time spent towards one project.
#2 - get up early. I get up an hour and a half early to work on side projects in the morning. Since my wife and baby sleep in a little, this gives me valuable time to get stuff done without interruption.
If you can work from home, do it. It saves valuable commute time that can be better spent on side projects.
Then make time: go on a part-time job (some places offer 4 days weeks), either freelancing or as an employee.
Lastly, over time it will help to work on pet products rather than pet projects.
I used to have a list as long as my arm of pet projects, with a full time job and a life outside coding its pretty much impossible. but you can make a serious dent with a single project.
There are boundaries though. I don't hide in a hole away from my wife and daughter for a weekend. It goes in chunks of time. Family is a priority for me, and I can't justify shutting them out so I can code for a weekend. As a result, I need to work in 1-4 hour chunks. Four hours is pushing it (either because of sleep or a daughter craving time with me on a saturday). Hockey, music, cooking... those things can always wait when I choose.
I also constrain myself to small pet projects. Many times the projects cannot be completed, and I'm ok with that. I usually work on projects to prove out ideas or learn something... not finish them. Sometimes I share stuff on my blog or github. However, my work is usually rough around the edges. My pet projects are not meant to be polished and beautiful. They are for me to learn or just do something crazy and cool.
Having a child will cut off your free time like a tourniquet. However, I've found that having a child has also helped me focus. My seven years as a father have arguably (and ironically) been my most productive for my career. I have a hard time explaining that, other than I've had to focus and really come to terms with what is important - both at the macro level of choosing an activity and at the micro level of how pretty I want my side-work to be.
I go to the gym during lunchtime. Unfortunately that is easier or harder depending on where you work.
I think one of the best pieces of advice that is being repeated here is to have just one project at a time. I think this is golden, if you are pressed for time then more than one will kill you.
Then I switched to 5 day work weeks and began commuting with my wife. We only worked about 10 minutes apart but were 30 minutes each away from our place. This gives us 30 minutes of pretty much one-on-one time where we can sit and talk to each other. Or just space out together. It's really quite wonderful. It also keeps in contact with each other more... because if she has meetings or something comes up, we let each other know. Before we'd rarely send text messages to each other. Now, it's a bit more frequent.
I only work on 1 project. That seems to be a general consensus here, and it's fairly relevant. Everything I work on stems from this single item. If I want to design, I do it. If I want to develop, I do it. DB stuff? Done. Want to do sys admin stuff? Save it for work tomorrow.
One thing I never do though, is neglect my wife. If she wants my full attention, she has it. Doesn't matter if I haven't ':w' in an hour and my laptop is about to die. I push it aside and focus on her. Life become copacetic.
I have all the time I need.
I'm not a fastidious planner with a Type-A personality and an obsession with maintaining lists. I'm actually terribly lazy and my wife might have to remind me a couple times to get something done before I actually find time to do it. I think I've just structured my life around what I love to do that it all falls into place with the least amount of effort on my part.
Things that contribute to me having enough free time to work on my side projects:
- I don't spend much time watching TV, playing video games, or engaging in passive activities (I save them for when I need a rest) - I live close to where I work so that I don't waste hours commuting - I keep my circle of friends small and plan my social engagements ahead of time (I usually plan them around the time I want for working on my projects) - I do chores, run errands, and keep up with all the little things using a todo list. If I need to pick up groceries I'll do it on the commute home. If I need to run a bunch of errands I'll schedule that time in advance. - I get up early and get my exercise in before I start my work day - I never work at my full time job for more than 8 hours (very few extraneous circumstances will change that. I break this rule on occassion) - Wife and I are rather independent people and we like our personal time which helps too ;)
Time is the one resource that we cannot acquire more of. We're all spending at the same rate as one another. I believe it's how you choose to spend it that is the most important. I tend to be very self-centered and introverted and structure my life around spending as much time on the things that will make me happy as I possibly can. I don't like planning and living on a schedule so I just make sure I'm in the right place at the right time to do the things that I want... kind of like 'wu-wei' I guess.
Would love to hear your story 9 months from now to see how all your advice holds up ;).
Fortunately for me, my girlfriend works as a nurse and has lots of afternoon/night shifts, which is great for me so I can dedicate myself to some pet projects.
However it's not easy, it's very complicated to explain to her that "I don't want to go out because I'm working on this bug...".
So you have to balance your life a little more, instead of taking 2 months to complete your project, maybe it will take 3 months. And that's fine for me. Some times can be a good thing to get away of your project and come back a week later with a fresh mind, it makes you actually want to work.
With that said, after 6 months with lots of interruptions including holidays I was able to complete my app http://codebugapp.com/ , I just released last week.
While most commenters here are right about schedules, That can be hard for some people. What I find is most important is communication with your stakeholders (i.e. wife/gf/kids) and maybe not setting an entire schedule for your whole day , but maybe a set time block a few days a week for "pet project work". What is really important here is do the same for your other responsibilities. Like Tuesday nights is "watch TV with the wife and kids" night and wednesday night is "I work on my project" night.
Most important to remember is Keep Trying!
Limited amounts of time can make you incredibly productive.
-Focus on one project at a time, picking the one most interesting rather than the potentially most profitable.
-I like the quote "a mountain is climbed one step at a time". Ambitious pet projects can be overwhelming, but small steps of progress eventually lead to the goal.
-Cut TV time, web time, facebook time and hacker news time.
-Some people get up early to work an hour to 1.5 hours every morning before ordinary life intrudes.
-If possible reduce commute, work remotely a day or two or go down in time permanently to a 4 or even 3 day work week, if financials allow.
-Real work can be done in 1.5 hours (agree 1 hour is often too little). Try and schedule uninterrupted blocks of time. Regular blocks of little time accumulate quickly.
You don't need many hours, you need to make a good use of the hours you get.
For example, I know that I will have only 3-4 hours on Saturday and Sunday. If I don't do what I need to do, I will have to wait another week. As a result, I am really focused on the core of my pet project.
This works for me. I know people that prefer doing it a few hours a night, but I rarely can. At end it is just a question of focus and organization. If you do those two things well I am sure you will find the right amount of time for your projects.
Make you pet project your relaxing time, unless you truly enjoy what you are doing (especially initially) it might be a good idea to try another pet project. This is the key.
I've done many pet projects because I was truly enjoying myself doing them, even waking up earlier so I can work on my project before going to the office. BTW Weekends and holidays are great times as well. Recently celebrated our 10th anniversary I know how hard can this be with a family.
Nonetheless, I'm running my own startup for the last 3 years now (11 people at the moment) because one of those pet projects. But also I pretty much stopped doing pet-projects other than Google style 20% free time within the company.
I work as a fulltime developer, have a wife, two kids and one on the way. My wife also works part time
The biggest roadblock is sleep. Here is my daily schedule:
5:30 Wake and Meditation
7:30 Make Breakfast for everyone
8:30 Start work
5:30 End Work
6:30 Make Dinner
7:00 Eat Dinner
8:00 Play time with Kids
9:30 Get kids in Bed
10:00 Do dishes
10:30 Side Project time!
12:30 Go to bed.
Repeat!
During the last 3 years I have built:
From my perspective, anyone without a wife/husband and kids in tow really has little excuses. Generally the issue is either being overcommitted or just laziness/procrastination.
You will only understand that if you someday have your back against the wall wishing you could back back to your pre-married pre-kid lifestyle.
Offtopic: Pretty amazed about your wellhub project. How is it doing? Any sales? Actually I'm working on something similar and would like to extrapolate your experience to my case.
Keep going, less is more.
What I ended up doing is always having a Netbook or at least a Linux phone with me and hack that 10-15 minutes in the bus or underground. I'll sometimes sit another minute in the train station to finish things up or use that one minute I get free when the kids sleep and my wife's busy to just get another piece of code written.
It's amazing how much I even get done that way. I think only now I really value time.
If you don't have a lot of hours to put into them, just reduce the scope and do something you can complete in a few evenings / nights. Then if you're happy with it, you can iterate and get a real product out of it.
I elaborated more on the subject on my blog a few months back if you're interested: http://marcgg.com/2012/01/09/start-working-on-your-side-proj...
Looks like most of my commits are 9pm on wednesday.
I find working on the train or bus also helps me to focus - I've got nothing else to do there, and only a fixed amount of time to do stuff.
1 - Wait until they go to sleep. Usually 10pm. Con: Most of the time you are really tired by then. Most likely won't happen.
2 - Wake up really early. 5am.
Doing either of these means you need to sacrifice entertainment. I rarely have time for TV or video games anymore. Be warned single devs!
A project doesn't have to be stressful or unenjoyable for you to make progress or learn something.
Use time trackers like Toggl to watch what you do with your time. Cut the fat out.
Also get enough sleep. All these answers with sleeping 5 hours a night are bullshit. You cannot do stuff that requires concentration quickly if you are not well-rested.
Some tips: What are you spending your time on? TV? Lawn work? Date nights? Going out? Commuting?
Outsource the lawn work. Quit watching TV. If you have shows you watch with your significant other, then take a laptop in and work casually while you're watching. If you have more than a few shows a week, then you might need to consider cutting back.
If you have a long commute, stop it. Either move or find a different job. Another popular suggestion is to take mass transit and work on the way, but in my opinion that time is too interruptable (YMMV) - between other passengers, having to stand up for the elderly, change stations, make sure that you don't miss your stop, etc., my tack was to eliminate the commute altogether.
Ultimately it's your life obviously, and only you can say what can and can't be cut out, but if you honestly can't cut out anything to make more time for your dreams, then perhaps they're just hobbies? That isn't meant to be a critique, but if you can recognize that you have a programming hobby, it might turn out to be more enjoyable than always fretting about how to find time for them.
Of course I wish there was more time in the day, and I'm sure I don't get as much done as somebody with less family obligations, but I still get plenty of things done. While I've certainly been in the same boat you're in, what I ultimately realized was that my problem wasn't time, but about making effective use of it, and committing to a single idea to completion.
I've started a million projects that will probably remain unfinished, all the while lamenting that I didn't have enough time to get them all done. When I found my first spurt of productivity was in realizing that nobody has enough time to do everything they want, and that in trying, I wasn't effective at getting ANYthing I wanted. After that, I found that by rigidly focusing on one project at a time made me get a lot more done. When I hit stumbling blocks, I can take a break and think about them, so that the next time I sit down to code, I have a clearer picture of what the problem was, what the solution is, and how I'm going to use my time effectively.
If I run into a problem after I just started out coding, I start doing something easy, but productive. This past weekend, while watching football on Sunday (poor Ravens), I was able to implement asset bundling for my JS, CSS, write some fabric deploy scripts, optimize my PNGs and convert them to Sprites.
Anyway, like I said, I've had instances where I genuinely didn't have enough time, but I was able to reprioritize my life to get more time. I've had times where I just thought I didn't have enough time, but I was able to refocus to solve that problem. Side projects are a funny thing, because nobody's expecting you to get them done, and it's not paying your bills. If you need, get a project manager, or get your wife, or a friend, or somebody to hold you accountable to a deadline. Pick a date and give status reports, on ONE project. If things slip, they should be disappointed, and make you feel bad. Make yourself accountable, even if it's to somebody else. All of the above worked for me until I was able to be a more focused self-starter when money wasn't (directly) involved.
Good luck either way.
Might find some helpful answers here.