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Comment by city41 | Hacker News Reader

I wake up at 5am, put 60-90 minutes into my project, then get ready for work. It works out really well.

My favorite part is my evening is wide open for relaxing. I often find it hard to truly relax as my brain nags me saying I should be working on something. But with this system, the guilt goes away.

It's not sustainable though. I tend to do it in chunks and what's going on at my day job also influences whether I'm doing it. I also need to go to bed early to pull this off, which doesn't bother me but might others. The key is to listen to your body and brain and recognize when you need to back off.

I've blogged about this a couple times: http://mattgreer.org/articles/waking-up-at-5am-to-code/ http://mattgreer.org/articles/still-waking-up-at-5am/

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Not sure this would work for me. I'm not a morning person, so getting up at 5am would not leave my evening "wide open for relaxing". I would feel like my time is shortened (rushed?) due to having to get in bed so early so that I can get up at 5am without feeling sleep deprived.

Conversely, since I'm more of a night owl, working at night can be problematic because I end up not being able to stop due to momentum and wanting to bring closure to what I'm working on, and then my brain not shutting down for another 30-60 minutes once I finally do go to bed.

I've been doing side-projects for over 10 years now and I did my best successful side-project work in these hours too. I was not a morning person, but when my daughter was born, I'd get up to help with dad stuff and she'd go back to sleep then since I was up, I'd work form 5-7. Not only was it productive from a work standpoint, but it cleared my mind from the side-project ideas floating in my head so I was able to better focus at work. Unfortunately now with three kids who don't go back to sleep, this has been lost and I'm back to waiting and waiting for evening hours, and then something usually comes up to take them away.

This seems much better than my current approach. I get home around 5:30pm. Spend time with my 7 month old and help out wife while she prepares dinner. We eat dinner and watch TV for about 45 minutes (I know bad habit). Get baby ready for bed around 7:30-8pm. By time baby is asleep it's 8:30 or 9. I then try to get in 1-2 hours of work before bed. Unfortunately I'm usually physically and mentally drained by this time. I dedicate the least productive 2 hours of my day to myself while I give my best hours to my company.

I do feel like my company deserves my best hours. That is why I take into consideration what's going on at work when doing this. If I feel like I can put in an hour and still be fresh for work, then I'm ok. If work is really draining and I need all the energy I can get, I back off on my personal stuff.

I also wake up at 5am on busy days before deadline, so I have two hours more to work without interrupting. Of course, I have to get to bed earlier, but my evenings are absolutely free. It really works.

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