Relevant to the story earlier today, John Carmack has three jobs and two children. He tweets regularly, speaks at cons, and occasionally blogs on altdev. He also reportedly lifts weights regularly.
It's not impossible.
It's not impossible.
1 - he's a multimillionaire. He can afford to offload lots of cooking (restaurants), cleaning (cleaners), childcare (nannies), loss of income (stay at home partner), shorten his commute (purchase a house close to work, put a gym in the basement)
2 - even with all of the above, I still bet his wife does a big chunk of the household maintenance and childcare
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Not saying that his accomplishments aren't impressive, but being John Carmack probably helps doing the things John Carmack does.
But sparkling John Carmack is totally plausible.
If he wants to delay the next Quake engine by a couple days so he can speak at a conference, no problem. He can afford it, and it's up to him when his next product comes out.
Most people either answer to a boss, or are not rich enough to purposefully pass up on new business. So it's not impossible, but to do it well takes a level of means that most people don't have.