Making Time for Side Projects

[analogwzrd]

Regarding accepting meetings, etc. Robert Heinlein has a great quote...

“Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect. But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please—this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time—and squawk for more! So learn to say No—and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you. (This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)”

[ryandrake]

But the article is about side projects, i.e. projects being done at home or otherwise outside of work. Who the heck struggles with juggling meetings outside of work? Do people have conference rooms in their house or something?

[calferreira]

I think the main issue on side projects is managing your own expectations. You have to be realistic and think that as the name implies is something you do on the side and it's not your main priority. So try to work on it as much as you can but don't blame yourself if you can't work on it for a day or a few days. We all have lives and have stuff to do that are more important then side projects otherwise they wouldn't be called that way.

I'm devoting a single our per day on an android app and i'm having a great progress, i'm doing a tiny feature every day. And that's fine, it's done when it's done, i'm the one doing it and managing so there's absolutely no problem.

If you start looking at the side project in a very serious way, you'll end up with guilt , frustration and remorse and that just kills the fun out of it.

[0xfeba]

How, with just an hour, do you manage to get anything meaningful done?

I've tried that and I have to spend 10 minutes figuring out where I was, 15 minutes researching how to do the next bit that I want (esp. for a project in a new dev environment), 10 minutes upgrading various libraries or other stuff that is needed/needs updating, and then maybe 25 minutes of actual coding. I progresses very slowly.

Maybe my side projects are too ambitious, at least relative to my skill in their respective areas.

[6stringmerc]

Agreed. My part-time (personal time) side projects are now focused on feature length screenplays. Those clock in 80 to 120 pages. Not exactly happening in just one sitting. Takes time, planning, and also, like you say, being personally attentive and accountable without too much pressure. My third and most recent is my longest 121 pages, and it took approximately 3 months from sketching out (based on short stories) to final page final period. I can definitely state that there were 2 week stretches where it didn't get touched at all - either due to writer's block about something or 'just not feeling it' but I found my way back time and again and glad to hit the finish line that I'd set for myself.

[bgilham]

That's definitely something to keep in mind. Thanks for the reminder :)

It's so easy to focus on getting shit done, to the exclusion of treating yourself well sometimes. I think I need to plan a follow-up.

[erikb]

The question is how, after working 40+ of the best hours of your life on other things, spending another two hours in traffic and another two hours with your family. Then somehow you need to get out of the tv chair and to your desk and put in another two to four hours of side project work. The question is not about understanding that consuming != producing.

[ensiferum]

Also:

- spend less time at work (nobody cares about those stupid TPS reports anyway)

- work smarter, i.e. produce more per unit of work.

- focus only on the stuff that actually matters.

- commit to task. I now set a goal (completing a small task such as fix a bug, implement a feature etc) for everytime I plan to work on my projects. For example next weekend: saturday -> setup webdev environment, sunday -> redesign my personal webpage.

[IndianAstronaut]

Setting up bitesize tasks is the best way to make progress. Add a new div to my page today, set up a function to handle it tomorrow, clean up a page after, etc.

[afoot]

I wonder how many hours that would have otherwise been productive have been spent reading about productivity.

[bgilham]

Heh. That's why I called it out in the post too. It's definitely something I've fallen into.

Reading about productivity can be useful, IF you use what you read. Most don't.

[herbst]

Thats exactly what i thought when i stopped reading anything like that. Most entrepreneurs will give you huge lists of must reads. I rather code on my projects.

[anthonylukach]

For me (and I'm guessing a lot of other developers) the hard part is balancing time between side projects and the other passions in life. I love diving in to a new technology and building things when I get home from work, I have seemingly bottomless energy for that. The real hard part is ensuring that you're not neglecting all the other responsibilities in life: partner, kids, friends, chores, etc.

The thing about the software industry is that there is always so much to learn. I always wonder how field leaders manage their personal lives whilst remaining sharp and current on emerging technologies and methodologies. That's the real challenge, staying abreast on the state of the art while not becoming a hermit.

[albertTJames]

I wonder who can afford to say no every time they are not thinking HELL YEAH !

I think HELL YEAH ! probably twice a year...

[TrevorJ]

I don't totally buy the "Stop doing things you hate" advice. I've learned over the years that anything worth doing is going to walk you through the valley of drudgery at some point. Doing things well always includes aspects that you may not enjoy, but many times it is worth working on it anyway to get to the goal.

[pgm8705]

I'm on board with all his points except for "Stop doing shit you hate." Lovely idea, but completely unrealistic.

[brianwawok]

Depends how wealthy you are I guess. If you have a billion dollars, I doubt you need to do ANYTHING you don't like.

As your money scales down, you may have to do a few more things you hate ;)

However I think it might be easier to find joy in things you hate vs just hating them :)

[6DM]

I agree for the most part, you can't just drop everything because you're frustrated. You probably have people depending on you for income, or find moving basically impossible. I will say this though, you really should keep a keen eye out for something better.

I have a cousin who lives in a rough neighborhood. I don't mean scary looking, I mean bullets flying and blood soaked people walking down the street at night (literally saw that the last time I drove out of there). When I was a kid living there, I always thought to myself there's got to be something better and I hated the area. They choose to embrace it. Now, years later, streets are as dangerous as ever. They're still there and I found something a lot better.

I had a few lucky breaks, but I was watching for them and I didn't let it pass me by. My wife did the same, moved to entirely different countries and learned the language there. We treat our jobs the same, when we find it's something we hate, we work toward fixing that. We talk to management about issues that come up. We job search when we have too. We don't give up, we work toward something better.

[herbst]

I quit my job, moved to a country where i can life of the money i have and work exclusively on my side projects while outsourcing stuff i dont like.

I mean, its not so far catched if you have no kids & wife.

[bgilham]

Perhaps. I'm lucky to work a job I love, so I have that privilege.

But there used to be a lot of stuff I hated doing that I've been able to ditch. I probably could have written that point in a more realistic way.

[ensiferum]

Neither poor enough nor rich enough not to do what you don't want to do. The curse of "middle class" so to speak.

[tmaly]

Taking action is probably the best advice one can get out of that post.

I have a small side project I have been working on over the past couple of years. If I am lucky I get a hour a day Monday to Friday to work on it. You really have to push yourself if you want to make progress on something.

[dpflan]

It seems as simple as make time for yourself and your ideas and your actions, then actually use that time with intention and focus.

[bgilham]

It's simple, but not necessarily easy.

[comments_db]

"...But every second you spend learning about productivity is a second you aren’t, well, being productive..."

[fucking_idiot]

Just make sure you realize that there is a life out there.

You're missing out. How much longer do you have left to live? You need to hang out with your kids and GF. Life is really short.