Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just keep in mind that Steve Pavlina is a crank.
Would you care to elaborate on this? I think Pavlina is an odd guy, but I've found some of his advice to be quite helpful over the years. I don't agree with everything he says, but I don't think he's a "crank" either.
Ask HN: How do you stay motivated to work on side projects?
141–145 of 145 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay motivated to work on side projects?
#142I just finished with a side project. I knew going in that I would lose motivation for reasons left and right, even though it's the right project for me to work on. In order to keep up my motivation, I started "Side Projects Dinner" - I would make dinner for my friends every other week, and they would give me feedback on my project. It worked great, and we've had quite a lot of fun. And of course, my friends are also…
Great idea about sharing the ideas around. I can use this idea, but currently 100% of my local friends are non-technical, still it'd be interesting to show an idea to friends. Friend-development approach?
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay motivated to work on side projects?
#143You will lose steam at some point. Go with the flow; take a break, try something else, come back to what matters. I put del.icio.us down for 6 months very early on.
Is that you Joshua Schachter? Del.icio.us was one of the greatest, and most underrated ideas to come out of the early web. For a while I would use del.icio.us as a search engine because it often gave better results than Google. If you can beat Google in search even in a limited area you are onto something big. (Am I remembering correctly that del.icio.us "static" pages would actually show as top Google hits?) Sadly d…
Indeed.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay motivated to work on side projects?
#144Earlier quoted context omitted.
I do the same but I feel like a fraud for not putting my full loyalty, energy and passion in the company I'm working at.
Why? The work you do in your spare time can directly (by reusing libraries you build) or indirectly (learning a new language, framework, etc) improve your performance at work. Only reason you should ever feel guilty is if your side projects are meant to directly compete with the work you do at work. In that case, I would say it's a bit unethical.
I assume it's because he/she is spending time doing the side projects, time which could instead be spent doing whatever he does for his job.
I feel like this is actually one of the things I really hate about being paid salary. I either feel guilty for not working enough or just hate not being able to spend time doing other things.
Re: Ask HN: How do you stay motivated to work on side projects?
#145Perhaps a better (or at least related) question is: how does one find the time to put into side projects on top of staying competitive as a programmer in an environment where 45-55 hour weeks are customary and expected, and also achieve some kind of work/life balance involving significant others and children? I challenge anyone to show that the math for this works out. Everyone I know who has put effective effort int…
The reason the math doesn't work out is that you're using the wrong math. If my job expected 55 hours/week from me, I'd look for another job. If life balance is really important for you, look for a job that allows you to achieve it.
I work a 40 hour week, but still don't find much time for side projects, just because of other things going on in my life, and I don't have kids.