It's possible because some of us have very supportive wives who have made a lot of sacrifices regarding their own careers. Even then, it was hard in the early years, and we never subscribed to the whole farming-the-job-out-to-a-nanny mindset, believing that since we chose to have kids, we should probably raise them ourselves rather than outsourcing it.
But on the upside, time flies once you have kids and before you know it they're teenagers and barely speak to you anymore ;) Then you suddenly find yourself with all this spare time again. On the downside, in the intervening years you've developed a serious Netflix habit that's proving tricky to kick...
You prioritize between sleep and learning cool new things. And if you can afford it, and your free time is worth something, hire people to do the household work.
The biggest thing for me was when I started working remotely. I found the reason I was tired after work wasn't my work, but my hour long commute. Once I stopped that I gained time and energy.
Now I can stop working when the kids get home from school and put in a couple hours after they go to bed each night for extracurriculars.
Down here in the ignored bottom of the comments, all I can really say when it comes to juggling family and any other activity (job, interest, hobby...) you either do it or you do not. All I can tell you is the how of what I do.
I set a goal and found time. I found 30 minutes every morning. I make it a point to have slack time (hence, answering this post and reading Hacker News...), but I target about 90 minutes a week on whatever single project I choose for the week.
One of the many great things about children, if you're not a total heartless bastard of course, is that having them really sharpens your mind as to what's important and what's not. Most of these things the HN crowd obsesses over are shit, and the things that replace those things will also be shit, and the thing you make with those things--even if it makes you fabulously wealthy--will also be shit, and if you don't be…
This. PG wrote a post a while back about how kids really only have the magic of Christmas a handful of times (ages 3-11?) and then it's gone. When you're making choices, realize there will always be another framework, another conference, another chance to try out that new tool but your kid is constantly changing, learning, and is fundamentally different today, tomorrow, and a week from now, especially when they're yo…
I wouldn't do that. I do know that i personaly don't like that and therefore i wouldn't do that to others.
There are two types of people: Who like kids and think it is cute and the other half.
This. PG wrote a post a while back about how kids really only have the magic of Christmas a handful of times (ages 3-11?) and then it's gone. When you're making choices, realize there will always be another framework, another conference, another chance to try out that new tool but your kid is constantly changing, learning, and is fundamentally different today, tomorrow, and a week from now, especially when they're yo…
OK, I'm completely baffled by this. Am I the only one who thinks taking your young children on a conference call is somewhere between totally unprofessional and, well, very annoying? I get that your children are your priority - but surely they shouldn't be the priority of everyone else on that call? Is the work at hand not the priority? My 3 year old makes a lot of noise and is quite prone to tantrums. Some of my cli…
Depends on the kid. I could easily have mine on at 3 as long as I put something out to entertain him. You wouldn't know that he's there.
What it comes down to is a trade-off. If you want me working on the off hours and working 50+ hours a week, or working on days I'd otherwise take as a sick day, I get to bring my kids to calls.
It's a great question. Get clear on the myths you develop after having kids. The biggest for me is: I only have ten minutes here, fifteen minutes there. I need focused hours of time to build something. That is just a story. When my first child was born, I used the time to write an app late at night while I was getting my wife some sleep. I called it the one handed blogging tool, because I needed a way to blog with on…
One handed typing? That's great, I'm glad it works for you. All babies and people are built differently. To call (what I imagine to be the majority) those babies that require attention, and those people who can't coherently code when giving their baby their attention, a myth. Sheesh. I wish you all the best.
No, you're missing the point. Most of what we think of as being "too busy" for any particular thing is a cognitive bias for forgetting just how much time we waste.
I do find this whole situation a tiny bit crazy, I often think software engineers are often taken for a complete ride by employers. We shouldn't have to feel like we each have to take responsibility to be up to scratch on the latest tools, we should be encouraged to factor that into our day to day work. I don't think this is a question you should ask yourself, but you should talk to your employer about. I don't see a…
I think this is a pretty distorted worldview. I'm confident most brick-layers would be happy to be taken for this kind of "complete ride by employers" in exchange for the cushy offices, offsite retreats, snacks, beer, endless perks, and $100k+ USD/yr salaries that software engineers tend to get in exchange.
One of the many great things about children, if you're not a total heartless bastard of course, is that having them really sharpens your mind as to what's important and what's not. Most of these things the HN crowd obsesses over are shit, and the things that replace those things will also be shit, and the thing you make with those things--even if it makes you fabulously wealthy--will also be shit, and if you don't be…
Agree.. it does sharpen your mind, and also forces you to be more self-disciplined. You basically shift priorities away from things you might have done when you were younger (like drinking, dating, golf, etc), to playing with them, reading to them, taking them to practices, school functions, etc. However, I've found that the time I spend focusing on work or keeping up on technologies is about the same as when I was younger. Of course, there will always have to be compromises.. whether it be work, children, or doing anything else. When you're older, I think you're a bit smarter and more efficient with your time. You multitask a bit better, I think. Having an understanding work environment helps also. There will always be that one person at your company or client that doesn't have kids and thinks that any time away from driving to the next (fictional) deadline is the most important thing in the world, but at this point, you're a bit smarter than that. You start to anticipate potential bullshit situations, so you compensate and address possibly ugly situations much better. You also learn faster.. by necessity perhaps, you're more experienced, so you see the deep connections between technologies, or personality types much clearer and sooner in the process. Keeping with the spirit of the above comment, you start to see what's actually important and really what isn't.