

How to Make Time for Your Side Project - charlieirish
http://www.startupclarity.com/blog/make-time-side-project/

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city41
I wake up at 5am, put 60-90 minutes into my project, then get ready for work.
It works out really well.

My favorite part is my evening is wide open for relaxing. I often find it hard
to truly relax as my brain nags me saying I should be working on something.
But with this system, the guilt goes away.

It's not sustainable though. I tend to do it in chunks and what's going on at
my day job also influences whether I'm doing it. I also need to go to bed
early to pull this off, which doesn't bother me but might others. The key is
to listen to your body and brain and recognize when you need to back off.

I've blogged about this a couple times: [http://mattgreer.org/articles/waking-
up-at-5am-to-code/](http://mattgreer.org/articles/waking-up-at-5am-to-code/)
[http://mattgreer.org/articles/still-waking-up-
at-5am/](http://mattgreer.org/articles/still-waking-up-at-5am/)

~~~
isuraed
This seems much better than my current approach. I get home around 5:30pm.
Spend time with my 7 month old and help out wife while she prepares dinner. We
eat dinner and watch TV for about 45 minutes (I know bad habit). Get baby
ready for bed around 7:30-8pm. By time baby is asleep it's 8:30 or 9. I then
try to get in 1-2 hours of work before bed. Unfortunately I'm usually
physically and mentally drained by this time. I dedicate the least productive
2 hours of my day to myself while I give my best hours to my company.

~~~
city41
I do feel like my company deserves my best hours. That is why I take into
consideration what's going on at work when doing this. If I feel like I can
put in an hour and still be fresh for work, then I'm ok. If work is really
draining and I need all the energy I can get, I back off on my personal stuff.

------
Draiken
Every time I read articles like this I see this common theme of watching less
TV, playing less games, etc. But I think the real hard part is getting out of
these. Many times you don't feel like your side project could turn into
something real or you're just so burned out from your day job you just feel
like doing nothing.

For me, the latter is the worst feeling to overcome. It's like you give up
your soul to a job you don't really like, and it ends up sucking up your
energies to do what you really want when you're finally "free" from it.

~~~
jader201
I could have written your post. It actually sounded like me talking.

I'm considering finding another day job that isn't quite so soul-sucking, but
I've been trying to do that for the past 4 or so years without much luck.

Also, I don't watch TV, but I do play games (I go through phases of this), but
I feel I do this to give me something to decompress. Maybe it's an escape, I
don't know.

By the way, this thread has been very therapeutic. Thanks everyone.

~~~
michaelrmmiller
I actually just went through a lot of this. Despite loving my day job as a
software engineer, it was so creatively exhausting and draining that by the
end of the day, all I wanted was to relax. I couldn't find even the desire to
work on the things I'm passionate about. I think that was the most upsetting
part to me.

I'm very risk-averse but finally worked up the courage to quit and spend my
time doing what I love: writing music. I'm slowly bleeding through my savings,
but it's worth it. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I never gave
composing a fair shot. In the end, the biggest risk is actually to your ego.
There's always another job out there, particularly if you're a software
person.

I'm still nervous about the whole thing and worried about my prospects. I
still procrastinate. But damn, I'm just much happier these days!

Finally made an account after years of lurking just to say this. Believe in
yourself and take a leap. Sometimes it's just what you need to rediscover
yourself.

~~~
jader201
Thanks for joining to share that!

Do you have a family to support? That's a big factor in how much risk I can
really take. If I was single, I don't think I would have any issues taking a
break to work on this project.

I actually have a pretty good nest egg established from another project I
launched about 10 years ago, but I don't think it's enough to responsibly
depend on exclusively to support my family while I work on this.

~~~
michaelrmmiller
I have a girlfriend of eight years but no children to speak of yet. She's
finishing up grad school but eventually should have a decent salary. That
said, I definitely sympathize and it's a worry waiting on the horizon. We had
long discussions about the future of this path and how I needed to be willing
to take a step back and provide more if things weren't working out.

When I first brought up my career change, she wasn't on board because I didn't
have a plan. But now that I am (more) sure of myself and know what I want to
do and how, she is happy to support me and I'm exceedingly grateful for that.
As long as you're communicating and your family is supporting you, I'd bet you
can find a way to make it work.

I was reading about director Ang Lee a few months ago and found some
inspiration in his career. After finishing grad school, he spent the next six
years unemployed, writing a couple scripts at home and taking care of his two
small children while his wife (a molecular biologist) worked. If he had given
up then or if his family hadn't believed in him and supported him, he probably
wouldn't be where he is now. Everyone's situation is different but I found
hope and comfort in his backstory.

------
davidw
These things always suggest cutting down on your TV.

Yeah, I stopped watching it like 10 years ago. Need more ideas.

~~~
rthomas6
Limit HN, etc. to 30 minutes daily? If you cut your TV and replace it with
mindless internet, it does no good.

I should know, because that's what I have done.

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playing_colours
Quote: You’ve probably got lots of side-projects; they’re all exciting in
their own way.[...] Focus on getting one launched [...] Otherwise, you might
be spreading yourself too thin.

That's so true for me. There are so many exiting things to do, and I'm trying
to do start them all (for me those are statistics, Java concurrency, Haskell).
The result is predictable - a bunch of started projects, nothing completed, no
satisfaction of the work done. It's easy to start, but it requires discipline
to continue. I am trying to figure out what can help to build this discipline
and the habit to complete.

~~~
xur17
I definitely struggle with this. I have a relatively successful side project,
but I keep coming up with other good ideas. It's difficult at times to stay on
task.

I made a pretty neat little app that would send notifications when products
were available for purchase (such as the xbox one and ps4, which were
difficult to find), and it did pretty well over the holidays, but it's too
distracting from my main side project. I've looked into hiring someone to
handle promotion / day to day activities for it in exchange for a percentage
of profits, but I'm wasting too much time trying to figure out how the taxes
work when splitting profits vs paying a flat fee.

Does anyone have experience trying to sell side projects? This project has
potential, but I simply don't have the time to dedicate to it right now, and
would rather focus on my main side project.

~~~
captainmartyn
Have you considered selling on a site like
[https://flippa.com/](https://flippa.com/)?

~~~
xur17
I was just looking at that site the other night. I need to take a look around
more, and get a better idea of how it works / pricing, but it looks like it
could work.

Does anyone have experience selling on that site?

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embwbam
So I know this isn't practical for most people, but I've been able to choose
how many hours I work on my day job for a while. My suggestion is: if you are
a key employee or have any kind if sway, negotiate a lower or dynamic hour
requirement in exchange for a pay cut. Once you start making over a certain
amount you don't need more money, you need more time.

Wherever possible this will make you a happier person, not just give you time
for your side project.

I actually think this will do a lot of good long term for the creative
workplace as we learn to focus on efficiency and output instead of hours. It
could open up more jobs too. So I know it's early and not often possible. But
if it may be possible for you, I highly recommend doing it. If you do a good
job you'll slowly make it possible for everyone.

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jader201
_Delegate the areas that you can’t do or don’t want to do so that you can
build and launch your side-project._

One of the biggest bottlenecks (excuses?) keeping me from gaining traction on
my project is finding a good creative designer. I haven't an artistic cell in
my body -- I'm all binary. So I need a good wingman to help put a pretty face
on my ideas.

And while I know I could put a barebones product together and have someone
come in after the fact and put makeup on it, I really need this going on in
parallel to see it coming together, which in turn helps me maintain momentum.

Am I alone in this? What have you done to overcome this?

~~~
vonmoltke
You are not alone. I have the same problem, but have not been able to overcome
it yet. I look forward to hearing some anecdotes about doing so.

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megalomanu
I'm working every mornings (it's very hard at the beginning to sleep earlier,
but after some time, it's so delightful to recover this natural rythm), and I
use the pomodoro technique, but with days instead of minute. 4 days of work,
one day of total laziness. These moments of laziness are very important to me,
they help me to regenerate but also to find new ideas and to question myself.
I think that we should not overlook the virtues of boredom ... and sometimes,
procrastination. Everything is a matter of proportions. Procrastination is not
that bad.

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scrumper
The biggest factor for me, by far, has been an understanding spouse. That
being said, what I've learned doesn't require that luxury.

Since having our first child I've learned, painfully, to stop trying for
optimal conditions (a quiet room, a guaranteed, contiguous block of
uninterruptible time), and learn to spin up and down quickly as circumstances
dictate. That learning process was primarily about refusing to use sub-optimal
conditions as a reason to delay work, but it's also about setting up in the
family room and accepting that people make noise and demand attention and
that, with mental discipline, you can work through it. Copious notes (I keep a
running 'dev log' open and note my thoughts into it almost constantly) are a
huge help in re-establishing context after a distraction.

There's always something you can do to keep engaged with the codebase when
given a 30m slot: some brainless extraction of magic numbers into statics;
cleaning up some nagging compiler warnings; things that free you up to do more
creative and challenging things when there's less noise and distraction later
on.

------
nader
From personal experience with a family (two kids) my best time to work on a
side project was always between 0am and 2/3am. The only downside is that this
doesn't work for a longer period of time as you are getting more and more
burned out.

The mornings don't work for me as they start pretty early.

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crypt1d
I always felt the solution to my procrastination is something a lot deeper
than just "stop watching TV and get organized". Call it lack of motivation if
you like, but I don't watch TV shows because I find them too interesting, I
watch them because my brain "defaults" to this action whenever I try to argue
with myself to do something useful. I found out that trying to consciously
make yourself do something doesn't really help. What does help however, is
making a firm conscious decision and moving the action to a subconscious
level. Basically when your alarm rings at 5AM, you need to stop that little
battle that goes on in your head and just get out of your bed like its
business as usual.

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giantrobothead
I was going to write an insightful response here, but lunch time came up and
well, I'll get to it later. :)

Seriously, though, I've found that procrastination is my greatest hurdle to
overcome. I always think: "I'll get to it later", or "There will always be
time to get to that". Invariably, all that time ends up getting away from me
and I feel down on myself for not getting to said project/essay/whatever.

So, when you have an idea, act on it. Don't wait, because waiting will kill
that nascent idea as surely as anything. Make time, even if it's just a few
minutes, it will end up benefiting your project in the long run.

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squigs25
Reflecting on 2013, I found that not making enough time for my side project
was one of the biggest things holding me back.

So I made my number one goal for 2014 to launch a side project, and I hope to
achieve this by carving out time, valuing my time, and lastly eliminating all
wasted time.

------
prottmann
In my opinion is Journaling an important way to stay focused on a project.

Casandra post a nice article about that:
[http://blog.teamspir.it/productivity/journaling-is-
productiv...](http://blog.teamspir.it/productivity/journaling-is-productive)

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talhof8
Great read, thank you! Extremely relevant to me. I'm a 17 y/o high school
student struggling to work on my side-project, so it must be 10x times harder
for those of you where parents...

