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Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

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Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#61

Post by peterarmstrong »

peterarmstrong wrote: post #55

Pro-tip: Figure out a way to work from home some days. You'd save 2-3 hours. Give one to your company and one to yourself.

Or, better, join / create a distributed team. Last August, the day before a 3-week family vacation to Japan, we closed Leanpub's office and became a distributed team. It was a great decision; we are happier this way, even though most of us live in the same city. Zero commute = more time with your kids and more time working with fewer interruptions. (No, we're not hiring right now :)

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#62

Post by abeyer »

shados wrote: post #60
abeyer wrote: post #54

I know that everyone's situation is different, but I really don't get people who accept that kind of commute time unless it's something you want or you have no other options. (I know people who like to drive and get their only "alone time" in the car on the commute, so it works for them, but they tend to be the exception.) If you value your time at $100/hr (probably low end of the spectrum for a skilled dev in most o…

And now you know why rent in big cities around tech hubs is so crazy high: because its worth it (and building more housing will just attract more people)

Yeah, personally I gladly suck it up and pay to live walking distance to most of where I need to go.

Unfortunately the impact of the people willing to do that on other people who can't earn $100/hr is pretty awful. I suspect in the long term that is going to end up gutting cities that don't find some way of dealing with it.

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#65

Post by misterbwong »

tl;dr;

1. Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize,

2. You'll never have enough time.

3. Timeshift and batch up tasks

4. Trade money for time.

Father of 2 kids (3 and 6mo) here. RUTHLESS prioritization has been critical in helping me reach my goals. Having the two kiddos has taught me to be absolutely ruthless and efficient with my time. Prioritization is the key and saying no is something you need to get used to. I'm a people-pleaser at heart so this has been a difficult transition but, after accepting that I can't say yes to everyone and everything, I've been able to make more progress towards my goals.

There aren't enough hours in the day to do all that you want. Period. You need to take a hard look at every single activity you do and decide whether it's worth spending time on. If something isn't in the Top 3 of your priorities for the day, drop it and don't even consider it. Trying to do everything ends up wasting time because you end up having to half-ass everything. Time is precious.

Timeshift and batch tasks. Pre-plan what you can so that you can be present for whatever it is you are doing. Meal plan your week in advance so you don't waste time deciding what to cook. Decide on what you're going to wear for the week in advance to speed up your morning routine. Have your kids do the same (mine actually likes it).

Learn to delegate to trade money for time, at least temporarily, if you have the resources. Hire a gardener, hire a house cleaner, hire a VA, outsource any tasks that can be outsourced. Deliver food if necessary. If I said you could buy an extra hour a day for $20, would you? I certainly would (and do).

Side note: HUGE props to the single parents out there. Don't think I could handle two w/o my (awesome!) SO.

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#66

Post by b_emery »

johngorse wrote: post #29
unfocused wrote: post #11

I'm like you - full time job, wife (who also works full time), 2 kids under age of 6. I too am tired some nights but some things have changed (for the better): 1. Changed jobs to a balanced work/life job. 2. No longer a developer, but still in IT. 3. 12 minute walking commute (no buses, cars, or bikes) 4. Moved downtown - smaller house than most people, but as noted in #3, walking commute to pretty much everything. 5…

It is possible to find a closer job, but I kinda like it here where I am. I have an awesome team mates. I was thinking about remote job, but this is another story, because the lack of personal contact changes you I guess. While I love my wife and my two kids (son - 2 years old, daughter - 5 months) I guess it is healthy to change environment from time to time.

Working remote even 2 days per week would buy you 4 hrs/wk. That's huge. We just moved closer to my work and the kid's school. The 20 min gained per day (in the morning) has been surprisingly valuable.

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#67

Post by linkregister »

ashark wrote: post #52
linkregister wrote: post #17

As your kids get older, and especially when they enter school, a large part of the evening will be spent by them doing homework. Their weekends will be spent more with friends and doing activities (organized sports, etc). You'll have more time to yourself. In the meantime, enjoy your family time because your kids won't always want to spend all their free time with you (they'll have friends and hobbies to compete with…

Note that 30 minutes/day is a much bigger commitment for a parent of young kids than other people. I've run the numbers in posts on here before, but the TL;DR is that you've got ~28 hrs of kid-free (and non-work/commute) time a week without cutting into sleep, but before taking out unavoidable activities (prepping for the next day, cleaning, spouse time) that's likely to eat at least half of it. So 30min/day is like…

Absolutely, this is true. I'd say your 28 hour estimate is high by a factor of 3x at least. But without exercise, the risk of developing health problems that destroy all that kid-free time is higher.

Getting a back injury from lack of core strength or losing your energy due to obesity harms your entire life.

I'm suggesting regular exercise as a cautionary piece of advice.

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#68

Post by pfarnsworth »

Yep, same here. Having kids completely destroyed my productivity. I now understand why people like to spend money on apps like Farmville, because it's mindless and you don't feel stress. I feel the same way with reading reddit and HN at night, because I'm too tired to think about reading. If I pick up a book, I'll fall asleep within about 15 mins. So it's hard.

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#69

Post by ryandrake »

vbsteven wrote: post #4

Try to get rid of the commute. That's two wasted hours every day. I have a similar 1hour commute but I only need to be in the office 1 day a week. On the other 4 days I get up at the same time (5:30-6:00am) and I work on my side projects until 8am when I bring my daughter to school and my home-work day starts.

I have ~2 hour commutes each way, and honestly, they are the calmest moments of my life. Sure, I'm white-knuckling it down I680 and I880 hoping I don't die on the freeway. But hey, I'm listening to my favorite music, planning my day mentally, prioritizing things, basically my commute time is my thinking time. It is the only time in my life where I'm not exposed to constant interruptions. Step into the office and my time is chunked into chaotic loosely structured 30-minute sprints. It's meetings, E-mails that need to be answered RIGHT FUCKING NOW, meetings, tracking people down to ask them to help with something, "pings" from people, more meetings. Then I get home and it's do this, run that errand, play with me, feed me, read this book, parent stuff divided into equally frantic 30 minute chunks. I mean I love being a parent but shit, I sometimes can't wait for my commute.

Re: Ask HN: Did your life as a parent affected your life as a developer?

#70

Post by ryandrake »

kemiller2002 wrote: post #18

Having kids taught me how to use every spare minute I have. I'm a single parent with 2 kids, so I have no back up to take care of them if I am busy with something else. Half of my free time is spent with my kids, so I have to make everything else count. My process looks a little chaotic, but I carefully plan out what I'm going to do, and when I need to do it by. My entire day is on a mental schedule. Unless I deliber…

Yes, it teaches you to manage your precious time to the second, but it also teaches you how to effectively get things done when you only have sparse 15-30 minute chunks rather than long stretches of time to concentrate. It used to take me 30 minutes just to "get in the zone." Keep that up and you'll never get anything done as a parent. You need to be able to snap yourself into the zone in 30 seconds, get something accomplished, and then go deal with throw-up.

Your life becomes interrupt-driven rather than batch processes. Even if you have the same quantity of time (you won't), you need to live differently to handle it.

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