
How much time should I honestly shoot for to be programming outside of class? - ConvictDev
At the moment I work about 45 hours a week. Though I am only in 7 credit hours, it&#x27;s still a fairly full schedule, especially adding in commute times. I also plan on upping my hours quite a bit in the coming semesters in order to hopefully graduate a little earlier than anticipated.<p>My current workload and other responsibilities really limit how many hours a week outside of class I can spend truly working on my programming. Perhaps this sub is rubbing off on me a bit too much in that I feel like I&#x27;m going to need all these sorts of side projects in the coming years in school. Although just starting out I genuinely do enjoy when I get to sit down, program, solve programs and improve my skills. I just worry that being a pretty non-traditional student who needs to work a lot is going to hinder my improvement over the next 2-3 years before I graduate. How much difference could an extra 30 minutes to an hour a day outside of class really improve my skills, if that&#x27;s all I can do at the moment? I can definitely spend more time on the weekends, as long as I&#x27;m not catching up on homework.<p>I enjoy this and wish more than anything I could find a way not to work and fully immerse myself in these studies and graduate in as good a position as possible. Finding a year round internship is definitely a focus for the coming years as I feel I wouldn&#x27;t be wasting so much time at an unrelated job.<p>Overall I suppose I&#x27;m asking, should I be worried that I don&#x27;t have several hours of free time a day to just simply code? I&#x27;m learning in my classes, I just don&#x27;t have the opportunity to dive in like I want. Was anyone else in a similar situation as myself and still end up being &quot;successful&quot;, for lack of better terms?<p>Any advice or inspiration would be great, thanks!
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jmts
I think the answer to this question varies from person to person, and depends
greatly on the commitments you already have, and the things you value
investing time in.

Back when I was at university, my honours supervisor was of the opinion that I
should be sleeping in our lab, and doing as much work as possible as often as
possible. At the time, I'm rather glad that I ignored this advice because your
social life tends to suffer enough anyway, and I had friends, a motorcycle,
and a girlfriend that I wanted to spend time with also. In the end I still
graduated very successfully, despite what my supervisor's expectations were.

After I graduated, I decided academia wasn't my thing until I knew 100% what I
wanted to study, and eventually I slipped into spending a lot of time playing
video games and watching TV, and this increasingly became uncomfortable for
me, so over the last year or two I've been working on spending more time doing
things I find more valuable, in a more structured and versatile way that
enables me to quantifiably make progress on the things I care about, while
still allowing time for spontaneity, etc.

My current system ultimately comes down to a daily set of checkboxes that
reflect the things I find important at present:

\- projects (any progress) \- reading (30 minutes or 1 chapter) \- exercise
(walking/running/pushups/swimming) \- other (catch-all tasks, errands, etc) \-
up @7:30 \- bed @11:30

These are mostly non-social goals, and my aim is to tick off as many as
possible, but I give myself permission not to worry when something else comes
up. Christmas is always a write-off, for example. But primarily, it gives me
motivation to make time for the things I find important when I am able to,
because I too have to work 38 hours a week, a social life that I would like to
maintain, a relationship that I'd like to keep, and a smattering of other
random things from time to time, and it's not always easy.

So in summary, I guess my answer is to find the balance that works best for
you. The people you hear of that seem to work 10 hour days then throw in
another 4 hours for side projects (or whatever) have found their balance that
likely involves a number of sacrifices and compromises that may not actually
suit you, so you should not aim to emulate them, and you can most definitely
have a successful career without doing so. I would argue however, that your
'successful career' should be your own decision, and not because you believe
"that's what people do". Your definition of 'success' may be very different to
what the corporate world wants you to believe is successful. 20 years of 18
hour days working for big names may be one definition of success, but it
certainly doesn't have to be yours.

Finally, to answer your question of 'what will an extra 30 minutes a day get
me?' \- possibly not much if you only look at it in 30 minute chunks. But 30
minutes is a lot of time, when you accrue it over time. Approximately a week
and a half per year if I've done my math correctly (or 22, 8 hour work days
per year!). That's not an insignificant amount of time, and if you work on
something important to you, it can be very rewarding. As far as skill
development, you will likely learn more in a challenging environment (for a
business, a startup, or with a group of people more experienced than you), but
you can definitely do something valuable to you with that time.

~~~
burfog
I found a solution to the social life issue in college.

I picked the woman majoring in Computer Science as a girlfriend. The ratio was
40-to-1 at first glance, but excluding people who would return to foreign
countries it was more like 200-to-1. This did not deter me. She was also kind
of taken already, so I sort of had to swipe her.

That solution meant I could spend time with my computer and girlfriend
simultaneously. We could sit at computers next to each other in the lab. If
she was less busy, she could nap on my lap as I wrote code.

