You prioritise! its as simple as that, like exercising or walking the dog... if its a priority you will do it.
Ask HN: How do you find time for pet projects?
11–20 of 77 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you find time for pet projects?
#12Married, two children. I find myself wishing the days lasted 36 hours instead of 24. :P
I have a full time job as well and do not have the time for pet projects. After work I get home and have some family time until it's bed time. Then my wife watches some TV while I work for about 1 hour tops.
As you know, 1 hour is NOTHING when developing. I take at least 45 minutes to get into a groove and ultimately I do nothing of substance.
I envy single people in that regard, they can work until their eyes drop out of their head. Don't waste your time! You hear me single people! Don't waste your time!
Re: Ask HN: How do you find time for pet projects?
#13Everyone here is saying "it's not hard", but it really depends on your circumstances. I am newly married and have a I bring my laptop with me in hopes of working on the bus during my commute, but the bus is often far too packed for me to even have the arm room to pull my laptop out of my bag. Because of this, I sometimes just jot notes in a notebook, but that doesn't get me very far when the majority of what I need t…
Please reduce your commute time to < 30mins. Even if it costs you $1k/month more. I did this, and now I have more time and energy to do more of what I want to do.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find time for pet projects?
#14A "zillion" is probably too many. Focus on one, ship that, then move on to the next one if anything. Focus is really important (especially since you want to start your own startup one day based on these projects).
Also, keep in mind that context switching is expensive -- switching from one project to another requires a change in your mindset and maybe even the technologies/syntax you're working with. It's very easy to burn out just switching between projects.
Here's a schedule that I follow: - Wake up at 5:30am. Hit the gym, eat breakfast, go to work. - Work from 10am - 6pm. - Be back home by 7pm, eat dinner. - Work on pet projects from 7:30 - 10:30pm. Go to sleep so I can wake up early again.
I've realized that consistency is really important. 3 hours may not seem a lot every day but if I do this everyday for 2-3 weeks, that adds up to a lot of time spent towards one project.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find time for pet projects?
#15Married, two children. I find myself wishing the days lasted 36 hours instead of 24. :P I have a full time job as well and do not have the time for pet projects. After work I get home and have some family time until it's bed time. Then my wife watches some TV while I work for about 1 hour tops. As you know, 1 hour is NOTHING when developing. I take at least 45 minutes to get into a groove and ultimately I do nothing…
Serious question, not trolling. Why did you make the choice to have a family, then?
Re: Ask HN: How do you find time for pet projects?
#16Reduce from a zillion to one, first! Then make time: go on a part-time job (some places offer 4 days weeks), either freelancing or as an employee. Lastly, over time it will help to work on pet products rather than pet projects.
This
I used to have a list as long as my arm of pet projects, with a full time job and a life outside coding its pretty much impossible. but you can make a serious dent with a single project.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find time for pet projects?
#17I'm currently an intern. I get into the office at around 9am and I get home at 8PM. For the last 3 weeks, I've been working on a mobile web app(onevoteamericamobile.appspot.com) and I finished it over the weekend. Every night, I would get home at around 8PM, eat dinner and then program until 12PM. I wake up around 7AM and take a train to work. During my commute, I would research various technologies and come up with ideas for my pet projects. Its all in the planning my friend.
Re: Ask HN: How do you find time for pet projects?
#18Re: Ask HN: How do you find time for pet projects?
#19Everyone here is saying "it's not hard", but it really depends on your circumstances. I am newly married and have a I bring my laptop with me in hopes of working on the bus during my commute, but the bus is often far too packed for me to even have the arm room to pull my laptop out of my bag. Because of this, I sometimes just jot notes in a notebook, but that doesn't get me very far when the majority of what I need t…
Please reduce your commute time to < 30mins. Even if it costs you $1k/month more. I did this, and now I have more time and energy to do more of what I want to do.
I am planning to as soon as our lease expires, but unfortunately that's not for another 10 months. :)
Re: Ask HN: How do you find time for pet projects?
#20Your only option is to work hard. Any spare time I had went into my side projects. I stayed up late, got 3-4 hours of sleep a night. It sucks for a while but your body gets used to it.
All of this panned out for me and now my side project has turned into a main project and career. It sounds a lot worse than it is but in reality I enjoyed what I was doing so it wasn't really like "work" to me.