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Ask HN: How do develop a side project when you have a 40hr/week job?

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Re: Ask HN: How do develop a side project when you have a 40hr/week job?

#91

Post by jon-wood »

kbart wrote: post #70
jon-wood wrote: post #55

Most of the responses here seem to be from the perspective of people in their twenties without any major commitments other than work, so for the sake of balance I'll throw my two cents in. I'm in my thirties, married with a two year old son, and working 40-50 hour weeks for a startup, and spend all day Saturdays looking after our son so my wife has time to work on her PhD. Between that lot there's not a lot of spare…

"a mailing list of people who want to support each other" What a great idea! I have lots of ideas, even start working on them from time to time, but then always got distracted in one way or another and leave these projects unfinished. Some support and the feeling of responsibility should really help. If you are serious about it, please add me too (my email can be found on profile page).

I couldn't see your address on your profile page - I'm not quite sure this warrants a mailing list, but drop me an email, I'd love to chat.

Re: Ask HN: How do develop a side project when you have a 40hr/week job?

#92

Post by vcool07 »

Waking up early helps. Also, I've picked up on this small but very effective time saver - always leaving the computer in exact same state from where to continue the next day. This really helps me jump right into context when I leave something in between and open it the next day. I always hibernate, never shutdown my computer !

Re: Ask HN: How do develop a side project when you have a 40hr/week job?

#94

Post by apeofsteel »

Wake up one hour early, and immediately start working on your project. Remove all distraction: don't open email, don't log into social media - just start work on the idea. When you have five minutes left, leave yourself notes on what the next day's work should be.

When you devote one solid hour of absolute focus to a project, you get an incredible amount done. When I use this process for side projects, that first hour of side project work is by far the most productive hour of the day.

Re: Ask HN: How do develop a side project when you have a 40hr/week job?

#95

Post by ChuckMcM »

joe563323 wrote: post #82
ChuckMcM wrote: post #37

The better question might be to ask what are you doing instead and why. It may be that those things are more important to you, or it may be that you are avoiding other issues. For me, the challenge in understanding my own choices, is understanding the root of those choices. It can help if you have a neutral third party to talk to about why you choose to do X rather than Y, but barring that there are other techniques…

Are you saying that you work only 1 hour on a project? If so were you able to complete any project? Just wondering how this could be possible?

1 hour a week, 52 hours a year.

The goal though isn't just 52 hours, its a way of testing your desire to work on something against the call of other things.

People, like the author, feel they have no time to do anything else. But they also generally feel that they can spend an hour doing something like watch a TV show or attend some event. So you commit to 1 hour to work on your project a week. And if you are really interested in it and motivated you will find you spend more than that on it. However if you find you can't keep a commitment even to just a single hour, then that is a good indication that it isn't a priority and you should probably accept that and move on.

Re: Ask HN: How do develop a side project when you have a 40hr/week job?

#96

Post by mk4p »

rl3 wrote: post #46
dkokelley wrote: post #19

A (the left-brain/logical approach): There are 168 hours in a week. If you work 40 of them (+ 10 hours for inconvenient lunch breaks and commuting) and sleep 56 of them, you have 62 hours left. There you go. Figure out where those 62 hours are and spend them wisely. Organize your schedule so you have enough hours when and where you need them. B (the right-brain/emotional approach): Yes, you have ~62 hours from the ab…

> Absolutely make time for guilt-free relaxing. This. If you engage in a guilt-laden form, it's not really relaxation, and thus has little utility—rendering it a waste of time.

What might constitute a guilt-laden form?

Re: Ask HN: How do develop a side project when you have a 40hr/week job?

#97

Post by mitola »

kbart wrote: post #88
pc86 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has there been any scientific evidence suggesting this is the case? In college I struggled to wake up in time for 8am classes (that I had no interest in taking). Not surprisingly, a big part of the problem is that I was staying up until 11, or 2, or 4 every night. My typical schedule now (29 years old) is asleep around 9, up at 4:30 and gym 5-6:30 or so. Weekends are only an hour or so later than that, and it's been…

I can get up early and do things, but I feel best when going to bed at 2-3am and getting up at 10-11am. By "natural" cycle I meant that if woken up without an alarm clock and go to bed when feeling sleepy (i.e. during lazy holidays) I tent to align to the mentioned hours. Has there been any scientific evidence suggesting this is the case? Can't find it after quick googling, but I've read about a study which claims th…

But yes, I remember reading in science journals regarding the natural rhythm of averagely around 10-11 o'clock in the morning. As the person mentioned before it was naturally for him to wake up later, or it was harder for him to wake up, until he god used to the unnatural rhythm.

But there was also some evidence regarding the era before modern technology and electricity about the time when people go to sleep naturally. which is actually surprisingly due to instead of spending time on screens they spent it socially or with other activities and still ended up in bed quite a bit later

Re: Ask HN: How do develop a side project when you have a 40hr/week job?

#98

Post by jhildings »

pc86 wrote: post #86
kbart wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Getting up early" advice definitely doesn't work for all people. I, for example, am more productive at evenings/nights and my brain doesn't work at until 9-10am despite of how much did I sleep a night before. The better advice would be "adjust the routine to your natural rhythm".

Has there been any scientific evidence suggesting this is the case? In college I struggled to wake up in time for 8am classes (that I had no interest in taking). Not surprisingly, a big part of the problem is that I was staying up until 11, or 2, or 4 every night. My typical schedule now (29 years old) is asleep around 9, up at 4:30 and gym 5-6:30 or so. Weekends are only an hour or so later than that, and it's been…

One great advantage by staying up late rather than waking early is the amount of people active. More people are outside, or want to communicate with you, traffic is louder and so on. In the night after 12-01 those things calm down

Re: Ask HN: How do develop a side project when you have a 40hr/week job?

#99

Post by rl3 »

mk4p wrote: post #96
rl3 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Absolutely make time for guilt-free relaxing. This. If you engage in a guilt-laden form, it's not really relaxation, and thus has little utility—rendering it a waste of time.

What might constitute a guilt-laden form?

Engaging in a leisure activity while feeling guilt for doing so.

It's probably safe to say there's a large overlap with procrastination.

Re: Ask HN: How do develop a side project when you have a 40hr/week job?

#100

Post by GFischer »

nevdka wrote: post #7

I've found having a third space is useful. You have your home and your office, find a third that you can fit easily into your daily routine, and spend 1-2 hours there when you can. My train home goes past a library that's open late, so a couple of times a week I'll go there after work with a laptop.

Seconded. I'm using a coworking space (there are some in every country), the one I'm in has an "after office" special plan :) and is pretty cool:

http://coworklatam.com/montevideo-uruguay/

The bonus is you get to meet other smart and motivated people too.

I'm trying to build my side project after a 48 hour workweek, and to be honest it's a bit of a struggle.

My plan is to do customer validation first, and if it works, get a small amount of seed investment and go for it.

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