
Ask HN: How do develop a side project when you have a 40hr/week job? - ciaoben
I am a developer and I have a 40 hr&#x2F;week job. It is a very good job and I put a lot of effort in it. But I have also my own ideas that I would love to develop, but I am struggling to organize time and material to develop something for me.<p>I read a lot and have a lot of ideas, about little porjects to test new technologies or new patterns, but never find the time.<p>I would love to learn the experience and techniques used by someone who have been able do to something like this
======
dkokelley
A (the left-brain/logical approach):

There are 168 hours in a week. If you work 40 of them (+ 10 hours for
inconvenient lunch breaks and commuting) and sleep 56 of them, you have 62
hours left. There you go. Figure out where those 62 hours are and spend them
wisely. Organize your schedule so you have enough hours when and where you
need them.

B (the right-brain/emotional approach):

Yes, you have ~62 hours from the above example, but you probably want a social
life, need to eat and exercise, and it would certainly lead to burnout if you
spent every free moment cramming side projects where you can. Instead of (or
in addition to) managing time, manage your mental energy. Find a pace and
rhythm that work for you to make regular progress on projects you deem
worthwhile.

It's very important that you know yourself for this to work. Here's what has
worked for me:

* Go to the gym on lunch breaks during the week. I reclaim that pesky break in the day, stay healthy, and generally feel refreshed and energized after a visit.

* It's cliched, but I don't have a cable subscription. (I spend my time on HN instead, so I suppose it's a wash)

* Absolutely make time for guilt-free relaxing. For me relaxing is going on a hike or camping trip, grabbing dinner with friends, or playing an instrument.

* Spend time reading. There is a lot of good material on time management or lifestyle design. What's important is that you read and learn to isolate the signal of what matters to you from the noise (and there is a lot of noise).

* Live by this mantra, "If it matters to you, then you'll find a way. If it doesn't you'll find an excuse."

~~~
rl3
> _Absolutely make time for guilt-free relaxing._

This. If you engage in a guilt-laden form, it's not really relaxation, and
thus has little utility—rendering it a waste of time.

~~~
mk4p
What might constitute a guilt-laden form?

~~~
rl3
Engaging in a leisure activity while feeling guilt for doing so.

It's probably safe to say there's a large overlap with procrastination.

~~~
toomuchtodo
WaitButWhy has a great piece on this idea: [http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/how-
to-beat-procrastination.ht...](http://waitbutwhy.com/2013/11/how-to-beat-
procrastination.html)

------
hunvreus
Same as for working out or cooking, you can always find time.

I cut alcohol years ago and tend to go to bed at reasonable hours: the feeling
of waking up at 5:30, getting a good workout and two to three hours of work
before you even start to get ready for the office is pretty empowering. It
feels like you already had a day worth of productivity in.

So, to recap:

1\. Don't drink (or drink in moderation). It leads to late nights, difficult
mornings and wasted hours on (often) empty discussions/interactions.

2\. Go to bed early. Avoid screens in the bedroom (they keep you awake) and
work out in the morning (helps to feel tired at the end of the day).

3\. Wake up early.

Where there's a will, there is a way.

~~~
kbart
"Getting up early" advice definitely doesn't work for all people. I, for
example, am more productive at evenings/nights and my brain doesn't work at
until 9-10am despite of how much did I sleep a night before. The better advice
would be "adjust the routine to your natural rhythm".

~~~
pc86
Has there been any scientific evidence suggesting this is the case?

In college I struggled to wake up in time for 8am classes (that I had no
interest in taking). Not surprisingly, a big part of the problem is that I was
staying up until 11, or 2, or 4 every night. My typical schedule now (29 years
old) is asleep around 9, up at 4:30 and gym 5-6:30 or so. Weekends are only an
hour or so later than that, and it's been that way since about 3 years ago.

My point is I think it is as much _why_ you're waking up early as it is a
"natural rhythm" or something like that. I would much rather go to the gym at
5:30 than to a liberal arts gen ed class at 8:00. Yes it's possible my
circadian clock shifted I suppose, but I think it's as much desire or habit as
anything else.

~~~
kbart
I _can_ get up early and do things, but I _feel_ best when going to bed at
2-3am and getting up at 10-11am. By "natural" cycle I meant that if woken up
without an alarm clock and go to bed when feeling sleepy (i.e. during lazy
holidays) I tent to align to the mentioned hours.

 _Has there been any scientific evidence suggesting this is the case?_

Can't find it after quick googling, but I've read about a study which claims
that there are no such things as "night owl persons", but it didn't convince
me as it was talking about extreme cases as staying up all night long and
sleep during the whole day.

~~~
mitola
But yes, I remember reading in science journals regarding the natural rhythm
of averagely around 10-11 o'clock in the morning. As the person mentioned
before it was naturally for him to wake up later, or it was harder for him to
wake up, until he god used to the unnatural rhythm.

But there was also some evidence regarding the era before modern technology
and electricity about the time when people go to sleep naturally. which is
actually surprisingly due to instead of spending time on screens they spent it
socially or with other activities and still ended up in bed quite a bit later

------
kintamanimatt
I'm going to assume you don't have a whole bunch of children, an underwater
mortgage, or massive amounts of debt to service — or some other very
compelling reason the following advice isn't going to be practical for you.
But if you can swing it, it's vastly more fun and productive than some of the
other suggestions:

Start freelancing, quit your job, and move to a cheaper country where you can
survive on something like 22 hours of billable work a month (+ business
development). Then spend the rest of your time working on your stuff, or
whatever you want to do! No sleep deprivation is required, you can still have
a life, and you don't need to rigidly structure your time. It's a decent way
to keep stress levels down too which yields more productivity!

It does help if you have some savings as a buffer too!

~~~
ereyes01
This concept of moving to a different country and living on less hours of work
sounds too good to be true. I've heard it proposed before, but I've never
known of anyone who has pulled it off. Are there any good examples to read
about?

I've met really smart English-speaking developers from other countries (namely
Brazil), and I didn't get the impression that they can laze around and work 22
hour weeks to put food on the table and live comfortably.

Perhaps it can work as a temporary thing, like moving around for a year or
two, while retaining a home base in your developed country of origin...

~~~
kintamanimatt
My suggestion is a form of arbitrage and it's really quite doable.

If you live in a cheap country and earn money in a more affluent one, you
don't need to work as many hours. If you choose to earn money in the local
market, you'll end up replacing one 40 hour work week for another. Your
Brazilian buddies likely work locally which is why they have similar time
constraints as someone living and working in NYC would do.

You also don't keep a homebase in your country of origin because that
increases your expenses! It really requires getting over the mentality that
the country you were born in has to be your home; it doesn't.

I live in the center of Prague right now. I used to live in London. My
expenses all tolled come to around 22,000Kč/month, although I could do it on
less. That's roughly £600/US$850/€800. The number of billable hours required
to maintain this lifestyle isn't much. I'm also vastly happier here than I was
in London.

My suggestion is a method of abandoning a full time job if that full time job
is getting in the way of more important goals and aspirations. Something has
to give, of course, and cutting expenses in a way that isn't detrimental to
happiness is one way to do it.

I acknowledge this advice isn't for everyone. It's like going to the gym: some
people don't want to do it, some people can't do it, and some people won't do
it despite good intentions. Also, not everybody can do it at the same time!

~~~
dkns
Were you born in UK? How's social life in Prague for a foreigner like you? Is
language a huge barrier?

~~~
kintamanimatt
Indeed I was born in the UK, so in my case living in the Czech Republic
indefinitely doesn't come with any visa hurdles and such.

The fact I don't speak Czech is a very rarely a barrier. Sometimes if I'm in
the grocery store and I'm not entirely sure what I'm buying I have to use
Google Translate. I struggled once in the post office when trying to mail
something internationally. I probably should learn conversational Czech, but
I'm more interested in learning Spanish.

The nightlife in Prague is awesome and my social life is ideal.

------
nevdka
I've found having a third space is useful. You have your home and your office,
find a third that you can fit easily into your daily routine, and spend 1-2
hours there when you can. My train home goes past a library that's open late,
so a couple of times a week I'll go there after work with a laptop.

~~~
pacomerh
I'll second this. Find a place that is close or convenient. Of course if
you're the kind of person that is waiting for the next distraction to avoid
stuff, then no solution will work. If you're motivated by what you're doing
there's nothing that can stop you from having fun building it.

------
JASchilz
I've found that an emphasis on a clear spec, decoupling, testing, and
producing quality code significantly reduce the "spin up" time that gets ever
more daunting in an infrequently-visited project.

A clear spec means that I know what all has to be programmed. Decoupling my
components means that I can make changes to my business-logic/back-end without
having to make changes to my display/front-end, as long as the interface
remains the same. Testing means that I can make changes without fear that I'm
going to unknowingly break existing features. Quality code means that I can
more easily understand the code that I've written after an absence. The upshot
is that I always feel comfortable making a few quick changes, pushing commits,
even after being away from the code for a few days.

A few concrete tools for writing quality code: write it to be open sourced,
write it to be viewed and collaborated upon; use code quality tests like
pylint, jshint, code-climate, whatever is appropriate for your language;
display your code quality metric badges in your repo, badges for coverage,
built-status, etc.

------
halite
It definitely is difficult. No doubt about it. Here are few things you need to
remember (or things that helped me):

1: Break down your ideas into smaller ship-able chunks

2: Once you've something presentable, start getting market feedback to see if
it would make sense going all in

3: If you don't see much interest, don't give up hope, sometimes it is better
communication sometimes pivoting required. This is where you'd decide where
you'd like to go. I found reddit to be tremendously helpful in getting
feedback.

4: This probably is special case for me but I was giving up on software and
getting little depressed / overwhelmed with my current stage in life. I like
to do artsy stuff once in a while and so I started getsatvik.com, no-one has
bought anything yet but this helps me learn marketing, copywriting and
understanding how to sell. So think what you'd like to do as a hobby maybe
combining that with your ideas could keep you going.

5: I find teaching people is also a great motivator. I now run a regular
meetup in my city, learn some new concepts every month, teach them to other
people. I don't get paid for any of this but helps to keep me sane.

6: Sometimes having virtual buddies also help. I now have a 'friend' on reddit
who helps me with quick feedback / writing critique (as English isn't my first
language) and I help him with doing some programming / teaching.

7: Nothing new or revolutionary here but sometimes connecting with like-minded
individuals and organizing an accountability group also helps. If you'd like
to connect, I'm happy to be your virtual-buddy!

------
hn9780470248775
Another question: How do you develop a side project when your employer insists
that it owns all intellectual property you produce?

Edit: As far as I know this is a very standard clause in tech company
employment contracts, and is perhaps the legal default even in the absence of
such a clause. For example, see "Employed to invent" under
[http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/pre-invention-
assignm...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/pre-invention-assignment-
agreements.html) .

California is an exception to the above: here employees may retain the rights
to IP they create on their own time, not using resources of their employer
(including company laptop), and, importantly, not in the same line of business
as their employer. In the tech field, the "same line of business" caveat can
be killer.

~~~
thriqon
In which country is he legally able to do so? He shouldn't be able to control
everything you do... I've experienced attempts for that, but not all clauses
are enforceable.

~~~
hn9780470248775
In the United States, for example.

[http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/who-owns-patent-
right...](http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/who-owns-patent-rights-
employer-inventor.html)

------
saluki
There are a few ways . . . typically I'm so excited about a side project I'll
skip watching TV and spend an hour or two on it at the end of the night.

Time outside the typical 40 hour work week:

Getting up an hour or two earlier than usual.

Spending an hour or two at the end of the night on it.

Same on the weekends, early or late, maybe schedule a 4 hour time on Sat or
Sunday afternoon.

Those are really the only three areas to find more time with a 40 hour gig.

Obviously make your main job your priority. Be careful of any IP clauses in
your contract if this is building something you want to profit from.

One other possibility, depending on where you work. You could probably use
your lunch hour to learn new things, do tutorials. You should probably bring
in your own laptop and use your phone's hotspot for this to keep things
completely off work hardware/bandwidth.

If it's something you enjoy doing it won't feel like work or like you're
missing something.

Make sure you balance this with spending time with family and friends.

I was working full time as an engineer in another field, started doing
websites for family and friends, then moved on to developing web applications
for clients along with my own side projects during the time slots listed
above. It can get tiring along with a 40 hour job. Now I'm consulting full
time remote so I work on client work 40 hours a week and use any extra time
for my own side projects.

The holidays is a good time to kick off a side project as you'll typically be
taking vacation days so you'll have some extra time that you would normally
spend commuting, eating lunch, working that you can use for a side project.

Good luck hacking away on your side projects.

------
HeyLaughingBoy
A little at a time.

Force yourself to do something every day, even if it's only 15 minutes of
work. Write a blog post, research a technology, test some code, etc. Just do
_something_ to move your project forward. Progress is made in little steps.

As an aside, I've found that with kids, this is the way to get _anything_
done. I just don't have large blocks of time I can spend working on stuff
anymore. I've found that although it's inefficient to work in small increments
of time, sometimes it's either make zero progress or make a tiny amount of
progress.

~~~
c23gooey
Second this.

I have young kids and am trying to build a side project.

I have found that an hour or two at night and maybe a block of 2-3 hours when
my wife can take the kids to friends' place is the best i can hope for.

Its hard to get into any flow in these timeframes however its forced me to
organise and prioritise my side project work more than i otherwise would have.

------
octref
I'm a junior college student doing some side projects[0] while taking 21
credits, jogging daily, going to mandatory club events, etc. Those except side
projects take more than 40 hrs/week so I guess I have even less time for side
projects than you.

I highly recommend you to read this talk script by Chris Wanstrath[1], one of
GitHub's founders. Two of his suggestions:

\- Turn off (or lower the frequency of) reading news/RSS/Twitter.

\- Do a bit contribution to side project every day and get a streak. I feel
John Resig's GitHub profile illustrates the point best[2].

I'm following these two suggestions on and off for a while, but I want to
really do them for the whole year 2016.

And my suggestion is to go to some hackathons. You'll be amazed at how much
you can get done during a weekend without distractions. Plus you meet a lot of
awesome people, sharpen your skills and win prizes.

[0]: [http://pwu.me/projects/](http://pwu.me/projects/)

[1]:
[https://gist.github.com/defunkt/6443](https://gist.github.com/defunkt/6443)

[2]: [https://github.com/jeresig](https://github.com/jeresig)

~~~
hn9780470248775
>>I'm a junior college student doing some side projects[0] while taking 21
credits, jogging daily, going to mandatory club events, etc. Those except side
projects take more than 40 hrs/week so I guess I have even less time for side
projects than you.<<

You're assuming that the OP doesn't have a family or other responsibilities. I
suspect that you'll look back on junior college, even with 21 credits and
mandatory club events, as a time of carefree existence and plentiful free
time.

------
brudgers
One way (though perhaps not the best and certainly not the only) to look at it
is that the forty hour job is a filter. Ideas that don't get worked on are
things that deep down don't seem worth working on after hours (never mind
quitting the forty hour gig for).

Derek Sivers says a bit about the general problem in this recent interview:
[http://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2015/10/14/creativity-
an...](http://softwareengineeringdaily.com/2015/10/14/creativity-and-
engineering-with-derek-sivers/)

~~~
AznHisoka
Definitely agree. Who says you have to find time for the side project? I
believe if it's an idea you're truly interested in, you'll find time somehow.
In the meantime, go spend that time with friends/family, a hobby, or a new TV
show (I recommend Fargo)

------
ChuckMcM
The better question might be to ask what are you doing instead and why. It may
be that those things are more important to you, or it may be that you are
avoiding other issues.

For me, the challenge in understanding my own choices, is understanding the
root of those choices. It can help if you have a neutral third party to talk
to about why you choose to do X rather than Y, but barring that there are
other techniques you can use.

One is to make an appointment to spend 1 hr a week on some project. When I do
this I start with a fresh notebook and pick a time either before I go, or
after I get home, from the office to spend on this project. Then when the time
comes the first hour is dedicated to writing down in the notebook the goal of
what I'm trying to do, why I'm trying to do it, and the things that will have
to be true before I can achieve that goal. After an hour I close the notebook
and go about my life. The only rule is that during that hour I work on the
project and nothing else, and if unavoidedly interrupted I make up the time
lost that same day.

The things that make that possible are; It is only an hour, same as watching a
TV show or reading through the front page, the notebook retains my mental
state between sessions so I don't start out wondering what the heck I was
doing last week and what needed to be done.

I found that for me what I really hated was spending an hour coming up to
speed on a project and then only having a few minutes to work on it. Very
unproductive and very demotivating. But with a process to stop and restart a
project in hand, it takes away the restart lag and so I can be productive
nearly right away (perhaps 10 minutes reviewing my closing notes from the
previous session). Also if my check list is good then I have a good idea of
how close I am to the goal.

Time is a finite resource, and learning to budget it will serve you well
throughout your career.

~~~
joe563323
Are you saying that you work only 1 hour on a project? If so were you able to
complete any project? Just wondering how this could be possible?

~~~
ChuckMcM
1 hour a week, 52 hours a year.

The goal though isn't just 52 hours, its a way of testing your desire to work
on something against the call of other things.

People, like the author, feel they have no time to do anything else. But they
also generally feel that they can spend an hour doing something like watch a
TV show or attend some event. So you commit to 1 hour to work on your project
a week. And if you are really interested in it and motivated you will find you
spend more than that on it. However if you find you can't keep a commitment
even to just a single hour, then that is a good indication that it isn't a
priority and you should probably accept that and move on.

------
darkxanthos
I don't think anyone has said this yet: Use your lack of time as a motivator
to distill your side project down to the simplest thing that could possibly
work (MVP). This is your opportunity to get really good at that. If you can't
test out an idea in a weekend, you need more practice at this not more time.

------
matheweis
Small amounts of time, scheduled regularly, add up quickly.

A few years ago I spent my lunch hour ~3 days a week or so building up a
little app for Mac as well as Windows. 3 hours a week is ~150 hours a year.
You'd be surprised how much you can accomplish.

The other thing that I think helped was I kept a running list of specific
tasks that needed to be accomplished. So instead of spending my hour browsing
the web or just doing random stuff, it was an hour of focused time spent
towards building the next specific part of the app.

------
jon-wood
Most of the responses here seem to be from the perspective of people in their
twenties without any major commitments other than work, so for the sake of
balance I'll throw my two cents in.

I'm in my thirties, married with a two year old son, and working 40-50 hour
weeks for a startup, and spend all day Saturdays looking after our son so my
wife has time to work on her PhD. Between that lot there's not a lot of spare
time, but I'm also in the process of starting a side project I hope to grow
into a business.

Recently I've finally managed to get a bit of momentum behind that. The key
was to book a week of holiday from work, with the intention of building an MVP
during that time. I didn't quite get to something I feel I could sell in that
time, but I did make enough progress that I feel like its worth continuing.

The other thing that's working to my advantage is having moved house to be
closer to our families. That means I now have 10 hours of train journeys a
week over the two days I need to be in the office rather than working from
home. Its not an ideal situation to work in, the internet connection is
intermittent while traveling through the countryside, and sometimes I'll lose
30-40 minutes waiting for their to be a seat, but it does have the advantage
of being a block of time that I can dedicate to it. You can get a surprising
amount done in two hours when you focus on it. I'd go so far as to say if you
can't make time outside of work, move two hours away from the office, and buy
yourself an annual train ticket. Maybe I'll turn it into some sort of
coworking movement, bringing together commute hackers.

The other key thing has been to try and notice when I'm wasting time, and to
back out fast. There's no leeway for yakk shaving away four hours when that's
half the time you have to work on something this week. I will say I have mixed
success on that front, having recently lost a week to the decision I should
stop using Bootstrap. Eventually I killed that branch, and got back to
focusing on what matters, but it was super painful.

Finally, and the critical thing for me at least, is having a side project you
truly care about. If you just feel like you should be working on a side
project for appearance sake you'll never find the motivation to stick at it.
My Github profile can attest to that, with a steady stream of things I spent a
few hours on and then got bored of.

I'd love to hear from anyone in a similar situation, and maybe start a mailing
list of people who want to support each other. If that's something that
interests you, my email address is in my profile.

~~~
kbart
"a mailing list of people who want to support each other"

What a great idea! I have lots of ideas, even start working on them from time
to time, but then always got distracted in one way or another and leave these
projects unfinished. Some support and the feeling of responsibility should
really help. If you are serious about it, please add me too (my email can be
found on profile page).

~~~
jon-wood
I couldn't see your address on your profile page - I'm not quite sure this
warrants a mailing list, but drop me an email, I'd love to chat.

------
squiggy22
Dedicate time to doing. I took at least one day that was me time, where I went
to Starbucks after work and spent a few hours every week cranking out code.
The disconnection from your home life, whether that be your significant other,
or the mountain of TODOs around the house helped me to focus massively.

Don't beat yourself up over it taking a long time to get something together.
Its going to take a lot longer to get a side project off the ground whilst
working. I found that the first few weeks were the hardest, mainly because
you'll be looking at a project that looks like nothing. As it evolves over
time, it'll start to look like _something_ and as such this in itself is
motivation to find the time to work on it.

Stupid as it sounds. I also didn't buy a domain. You might think that 'oh I
have an idea I'll buy a domain and go do it' but the inverse was true for me.
The amount of domains I have that I have done nothing with is testament to
that. The risk of someone else buying the domain I wanted was motivation,
anyway, domains don't matter in the general grand scheme of things. If your
product isn't shipped, domains aren't worth shit.

Focus on small wins. Create a Trello board with a few columns. TODO, DOING,
DONE. Keep the tasks small, and when you have them done, move them over.
Whilst not directly an answer on "where to find the time" it will help to keep
you motivated to have a big column of "DONE" with stuff in it. Especially when
you are going to have nothing visual at the start.

I have an extremely understanding partner, but I also set aside time when I
put the laptop down. Stupid as it sounds, actually working on a laptop rather
than a desktop worked for me as when everyone else was watching tv, I could
code, and you can take your work with you so when you have some free time you
can work.

------
datashovel
I personally would suggest thinking about the project in your spare time
first. I find that it's so much easier to context switch if my objective is
only to think about a problem I want to solve. This way I can do this a lot
more frequently throughout the week with little to no effort.

And only once I've thought enough about it, and am comfortable I have a solid
plan and have carved out a precise scope / objective for my coding session,
will I open an editor and start coding.

The trick I think is once you can visualize exactly what you want to do you
can knock it out relatively quickly. I think it can become stressful if you're
always sitting down to code in your spare time, when you're not prepared with
a specific plan. You can waste a lot of time spinning your wheels when you do
that, which in turn can make you feel like you're wasting a lot of time and
have nothing to show for it.

------
ajhurliman
In bursts!

I try to do something meaningful for my side project about once a week. If
it's side-project night, I put my phone on airplane-mode and tell the lady-
friend I'm booked up so I can concentrate for a solid ~5 hours without
interruptions.

Obviously you can't do this super often while balancing the rest of life, but
it's reasonable to get it in about once a week.

The tricky part is to let ideas for it simmer on the back-burner of your mind,
but not to let the flame go out completely. It's nice to walk into your
session with a full agenda and a general grasp of how you're going to
implement it with caveats in mind, which you can fill in during the downtime
of the week. However, it's also easy to completely forget about your project.

You can counter that part by getting friends involved!

------
n17r4m
The theory is simple, practise is difficult. Aim for the absolute most bare
bones side project you can, and throw a few weekends (or other time to spare)
at it, and get it going. From there, improve when you can. Given time, your
dream project emerges.

------
fleitz
Stop reading, start doing.

Imagine someone asks how do I train to run a marathon?

Start by running 1 minute a day and add a minute every few days, after 2-3
years you'll be running long enough to run a marathon.

There is no substitute for doing, there are no shortcuts, there is no miracle
pill (well, ADHD meds may help...)

You must actively decide that your sideprojects are more important than
whatever else you are doing, speaking of which now that my two kids are
asleep, and my fiance is reading, it's time for me to stop commenting on HN
and start working on my side project.

Time is not something that is lost or found, you have a fixed finite amount of
it, and it is continually decreasing the only thing you can do is choose what
you do with it.

~~~
Chris2048
By that logic, The day before the full Marathon you ran a Marothon-1 minute,
and the day before a Marathon-2 minutes...

Even if you are capable of keeping that up, it might be better to increase
distance, otherwise you might be just slowing down, making no progress...

~~~
fleitz
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allegory)

~~~
Chris2048
Yeah, all my poor analogies are allegorical too...

------
volaski
I work 40hr/week yet I have plenty of time to work on my stuff. Of course it
would be much better if I could fully commit to my project but hey i still
need money to sustain myself and need to compromise with reality. Anyway,
sometimes when I really get into it I can even work more hours than my day
job. In extreme cases, I would leave work at 6pm, get home by 6:30, take a
shower and start working at 7pm. Work on my project for 11 hours until 6am,
and go to sleep and wake up at 9am to get to work by 10am. I take nap during
lunchtime (45 minutes to 1 hour). Of course I can't keep this up forever so I
only do this when I am super motivated and can probably do it for a couple of
weeks to a month at a time. But even when I'm not in this crazy mode there's
plenty of time to work. Just doing half of what I described will give you 5
hours * 5 days = 25 hours per week, plus if you're really committed you can
work all weekend 12 hour * 2 = 24 hours (for saturday and sunday), which adds
up to around 50 hour/week. "Not having time" just means you're not motivated
enough. Before you say "yeah right you can do that because you're some
abnormal crazy guy, no sane person can do that and it's not even healthy" I
want to tell you that motivation is not something people are born with.
Instead of trying to wait till motivation finds you, actually start "doing"
something and you will gain momentum and next thing you know you will be super
motivated and don't have to worry about these things.

~~~
reedlaw
Only do this if you want to be totally turned off by programming within a few
months/years. Working 40 hours a week at a computer and then coming home for
more is bad enough for your body. But beyond that, any single activity reaches
a point of diminishing returns when engaged in to the exclusion of all others.
It might not happen right away, but at some point there will likely be regret
that you didn't spend more time with people you cared about or that you didn't
take more time off to enjoy life's other activities.

~~~
joe563323
> Working 40 hours a week at a computer and then coming home for more is bad
> enough for your body.

If this is the case then how to get financial independence? Are you suggesting
that it is good to work forever?

~~~
volaski
Most people live their lives just fine without financial independence, because
they put higher priority in other activities in their lives. Entrepreneurs are
different types of people, they put higher priority on being able to control
their own destiny and because of that they can push through the comfort zone.
If you're not motivated enough, of course it would be hard to do this. If
entrepreneurship was that easy and rewarding for everyone, everyone would be
doing it.

------
jondubois
Just pick something you really enjoy and it should be feasible.

I started SocketCluster ([http://socketcluster.io/](http://socketcluster.io/))
on the side about 2 years ago while working 45+ hours a week for a startup.

I still spend about 10 to 20 hours a week on it. It's been a great learning
experience - The kind of experience that's impossible to get from just being a
full-time developer.

------
rufus42
If you be honest, almost every suggestion won't work. When you feel the need
to really finish a project, you just cannot hold back and start to code in the
night or during your normal work day.

What I can suggest (for your sanity and social life): \- Pick the weekends
(one or two days) where you code for 5-6 hours. \- Do it during your work day.
If you want something out of your side project, just don't work hard enough at
work so you have ressources left for yourself \- Ask your boss for a 25 hours
working week or try to get one day off without salary reductation to see if
you be as productive as before. If not, ask for 10% less.

Divide your side project in learning and developing.

Get a book which you can read during your commune, or even an ebook which you
can read during work.And then, at home, take a weekend/one day off/two nights
off to develop and code.

I also suggest the Lean StartUp method, which is not only helpful for
StartUps, but also for side projects. The key is to develop in small iteration
to always have a finish product you can test.

So, don't do everything, pick one little feature, develop it and see where it
goes from there.

------
blizkreeg
I hope your job is easygoing, not stressful, and <= 40h/week. If not, find one
that is. Next, wake up early, work for an hour or two before the job, get home
at 6 and work until dinner, and after. Work on weekends. But most importantly,
find a co-founder/partner to work on your ideas with you. It will keep you
going. And make time for relaxation as well, you will need it to keep going.

------
hobo_mark
I work 50+ hours a week already but I still manage to put in three to four
hours of side-work every day (on weekdays that's usually 9pm to 1am), in my
experience so far:

\- The less correlated your side-project is to your day job, the better. Brain
craves novelty, even after I am completely worn out by day work, by the time
I've cycled back home I am ready to go again, but at something completely
different.

\- Move, I commute by bike and I have seen it make a big difference when
you're sitting at a screen 14 hours per day.

\- Make it a routine, at home I have two backpacks always ready, one for work
and one for cowork, after dinner I just grab the second one and leave with
barely having to think about whether I am staying in or going for another half
day of work.

\- Have a dedicated space, I am lucky to have a 24/7 co-working space
literally around the corner from where I live or I would not be able to do
this, it really helps your brain to physically switch context depending on
what you do.

\- It goes without saying, but you ought to really love what you are doing in
order to forgo almost everything else...

------
dools
Here's how I'd do it:

My basic advice would be "set up a sustainable business that doesn't take up
all your time and takes care of your basic income requirements, then develop
an idea once you're financially independent enough to do so".

Maxing out your time now, while you're working, is the most stressful way to
do anything. Developing something based on your own idea is the most risky way
of doing anything.

Rather that focusing on your own ideas, focus on other people's problems, then
figure out how to get paid to solve them.

Reduce your bottom line agressively to maximise the chances you can sustain
yourself without taking up all your time.

Solve problems and get paid to do it, then systemise that and get other people
to do the work. Now you have a business that doesn't take up all your time,
but which takes care of your basic income requirements.

You can choose to spin a product off based on that, ie. by automating that
business and selling it as a product, or you could use a product extension of
that business to increase revenue, or you could just work on something
completely tangential.

------
adamzerner
Assuming that you have the energy to do coding after work, it seems like this
is really a question about time management rather than about motivation.

One thing I'm trying right now and that seems like a good first step is to
track what you spend time on every day. I'll give you an example. Right now
I'm home for Thanksgiving, which is sort of a vacation, but I also want to be
productive. Here's what I did today:

11:50-12:45 - Wake up, internet

12:45-1:00 - Work

1:00-8:30 - NFL, hang out with friends

8:30-9:00 - Quick work out, shower

9:00-10:45 - Dinner + work

10:45-11:25 - Break, clean up, shave, wash up

11:25-11:50 - Work

11:50-12:00 - Pats-Broncos OT

12:00-2:00 - Work

2:00+ - Relax, sleep

I don't know if that was the most helpful example given that I'm on vacation,
but whatever. I've found that I spend a lot more time on little things like
eating and cleaning than I'd think/hope (I'm a very slow eater).

Anyway, I think that having good data on where you spend your time is very
useful. Both from a logical planning perspective, and from an
emotional/motivational perspective.

Prioritization, motivation and efficiency are topics that are too big and too
well covered for a comment of mine here to be useful.

------
hidro
I have a full time software engineer job, and I work on a side project which
is a HN Android app.

If your side project is a freelance one, you're probably in for a tough time,
due to external pressure.

If your side project is a hobby one, my advice is to start small, and plan
subsequent iterations small as well, so you can usually finish in say within a
weekend. Anything bigger will make you feel overwhelmed. Also be prepared to
sacrifice some personal time for your project, it's a hobby anyway.

I'm assuming that your side project has little in common with your main job,
otherwise there is no fun in doing it. If that's the case, I find it
especially useful if the side project can, in a way, contribute to the main
project. E.g. you experiment things you want to learn with side project, and
apply it into your main project some time in the future. This way you have a
good cycle and motivation to keep innovating/experimenting. Making your
code/project public so others can use/contribute is also a good motivation to
keep it up.

------
tasdev
I know I'm coming late here, I really hope I'm not too late for you to read
this.

I have two children - a four month old and a 5 year old. I tried working
around the time they were up and I always felt guilty. I also work full time,
loose an hour a day commuting (or there abouts), etc. The point I'm making is
that I'm lucky to find a few hours free each day as it is.

Here's what I'm doing now and it's working well. Mentally, I'm in a good
space, not feeling burnt out, feel like I'm seeing the kids enough, etc.

* I get up early. I have found going to bed early gives much better sleep. I am naturally an evening person so this was hard but getting up early (around 6am) I've found makes the days feel longer. This negates an anxious behaviour of mine feeling "there isn't enough time to do anything". Sometimes when I get up early I'll do an hour or so of work, othertimes I'll head in to my day job early so I can get out early.

* Learn about the pomodoro technique; it's invaluable and you can get a lot done. Break your work into Pomodoro slots (I use 25 minutes) and plan before you start. This way when you have a spare block or so you can just do that.

* Try to find 2-3 hours a day uninterrupted to work.

* Never forget you need time to yourself to unwind and relax. Make this a priority.

* Don't neglect your family. You will be far happier and productive when they're happy, at least that's what I've found.

* Never, ever work on weekends. You need time to yourself and do things you want to do.

* Get a good nights sleep

* Eat healthy. Make sure you get your 5 / 2 a day.

* Exercise during lunch. I go for a walk every day and love it.

Good luck! You'll get there with perseverance.

------
d--b
Working 1 hour every morning before breakfast worked out well for me.
Important things to consider: 1. your life is more important than your side
project, so don't prevent yourself from going out at night just to work on
your side project, it's ok to skip days. 2. Don't screw around over thinking
what you need to implement. Just make a list of small tasks and do them. It's
incredible what you can get out of 1 hour with a clear goal and no
distraction.

Edit: my work week was 60hr per week. There was no chance I could do anything
at night as I was completely drained. Weekends were off bound too. I found
that when you do as little as 1 hour a day, if you don't believe in the
project you'll just drop it. If you really think you can get something out of
it, you'll keep going and you'll get to some place good reasonably fast.

------
yason
Weekends have plenty of time.

But any good side hack will just make the time for itself. It's that stuff you
can't not do so you stay up slightly late and will be slightly more tired at
work but hey, so what, you'll feel so good about it that you can't wait till
the work day is over and you can continue again. Then it'll fade away and
you'll get more interested in work again until one night you figure out where
you left with the side project and hey, there you go again.

Personally, I've never been in such a good job that I _would always have_
interesting things to do. So, I've observed that my home-hacking is strictly
proportional to the amount of boring stuff at work. I need my dose of
programming and if I can't get it at work, I'll get it at home. This kind of
takes care of side projects on its own.

------
joeld42
I do a lot of side projects. I feel like I am lazy but my friends always ask
how I manage to find time for it. Which feels weird because it doesn't feel
like a lot of time.

Basically, I work 1-2 hours in the mornings, not every day but a few times a
week, either after I drop my daughter off at school, or before they wake up.
Some nights I work after they go to bed (I am working on a side project right
now, it's 10:20pm on a Sunday). Sometimes I stay up late if I can deal with
being a little tired the next day. I'd say I get on average about 5 hrs a week
out of this. Then, sometimes I carve out weekend days where I get 8-10hrs of
work. Other days I'll watch the kids and let my wife go out to a movie or out
with her friends to make up for it.

Slow and steady progress. Have realistic expectations. Just chip away at it.

------
brianwawok
An interesting observation.

If someone here asked "How do I have time to work 60h a week at my day job,
40h already feels like a lot" \- You would get a lot of responses telling you
about work life balance, and that 40h is plenty of work - heck in Europe they
work 36.

On the other hand after coding a full day, most people here suggest going home
and coding side projects.

I think each person is different, but this is HARD to do. If you are working
and thinking real hard at your day job, I don't think you can really go home
and do something useful on a side project. I have had periods where I spent 3
weeks going to meetings and writing tech docs - in those it would be easy to
go home and code. But if I already put in a solid 40h of code? Forget about
it, my brain can only code so much good code a week.

------
akulbe
I have been doing this for a couple years now. I am about to make some big
changes, as a result of the side work taking off.

I work early/late, so that side work wouldn't conflict with my day job. I
worked Saturdays.

I'm a systems guy, not a dev as much as I _really_ want to be. I'm getting
into automation stuff, and learning enough programming to help me be a better
sysadmin (Ruby, for Chef).

I'm always reading, and working to improve my skills (technical, and
otherwise)

I took every opportunity to do side work, for some extra money. It's paid off
well, and now the scales are tipping to where I've easily replaced my day job
income.

I have an email address listed in my profile. I'd be happy to talk more, if
you're interested.

------
jwatte
So what are you doing when not working? Maintaining a house? Watching TV?
Stuck in a commute? Taking care of elder parents? Volunteering at the red
cross? Raising a family?

Give up something you value less than development. Move closer to remove
commute. Let someone else volunteer. Give the family involuntary free space.

How about: Find or make an alone space. Set aside 12pm to 10pm every Sunday
for your project. You disappear from the world, and only do the project. No
maintenance/family/commute/charity/TV is allowed to interrupt.

This gives you 10 hours per week, or 25% of full time. If you spend half of
your working time in unproductive meetings, it's more like 50%.

It can be done. Is it what you want to do?

------
matvoz
(never only) 40hr/week job (project manager), a wife and a year old child

I am just about to launch my second big(ish) side project.

When outside my "real job", the priorities are with my child and my wife. So
the time for anything else is scarce and the most is done after both of them
go to bed.

\- limit your TV

\- limit your distractions on the computer (I use RescueTime)

\- learn to differentiate between motion and action
([http://jamesclear.com/taking-action](http://jamesclear.com/taking-action))

\- automate everything you can

\- motivation, motivation, motivation (when sitting on the toilet you aren't
thinking about your side project, you don't want it bad enough)

~~~
illumen
\- outsource

~~~
matvoz
I build so I can learn new skills. So until now outsourcing wasn't a part of
the master plan. But you are correct, delegating the right way is also an
option to boost development.

------
apeofsteel
Wake up one hour early, and immediately start working on your project. Remove
all distraction: don't open email, don't log into social media - just start
work on the idea. When you have five minutes left, leave yourself notes on
what the next day's work should be.

When you devote one solid hour of absolute focus to a project, you get an
incredible amount done. When I use this process for side projects, that first
hour of side project work is by far the most productive hour of the day.

------
senjindarashiva
Maybe a bit late to the party but id recommend reading How to live life on 24
hours a day by Arnold Bennett
([http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2274](http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2274)).

It's helped me a lot with the same issue. The main idea is to ensure that you
don't overreach but start small and focus on improving or researching one
thing at the time and only on weekdays.

------
jakobegger
I worked on my first app next to a 40hr/week job. It wasn't really hard, since
I liked my side project. My schedule from Mo-Fri looked like something like
this:

7AM: Get up, shower, cook breakfast

8AM: Take the bus to work

5PM: Come home, buy groceries, cook dinner, etc.

7PM: Work on side project

1AM: Go to bed

This worked well since I lived alone during the week (on the weekends I
travelled to my home town and stayed with my girlfriend)

I got plenty of stuff done in that year.

The most surprising thing was that I wasn't really more productive when I quit
my day job.

~~~
SneakerXZ
You are lucky, you need only 6 hours of sleep.

~~~
jakobegger
After a few days of sleeping only 6 hours I get irritable and slow though, and
then I'll fall asleep on the couch in the afternoon. It's not sustainable, and
probably not healthy.

------
dharma1
Projects to test technologies/patterns - try to find ways to incorporate those
in your current job so you can do the learning at work.

Other side projects - work together with a friend or perhaps hire someone so
you can split the workload for something you want to build?

Organise your free time in a way you have time for extra projects - ie skip
TV, cut down on social media etc. But you have to really love the side project
to be able to pull it through

------
throwaway4338
Use your paycheck to directly pay a braindead coder with zero creativity or
ambition who does nothing more than meet requirements, like you're fucking
dictating to them. for added oomph they can be in a low-income country, but
people with no creativity or initiative or ability to translate requirements
into code aren't worth much anywhere.

So rather than code anything yourself, just give htem requirements that read
like a to-do list for yourself, after you've already doen all the theoretical
leg-work:

#1.1 to-do: when this form is submitted, pop up this confirmation form:

#1.1.1 Confirmation asking if user wants to leave page? #1.1.1.1 if user
clicks yes, redirect them to the link clicked #1.1.1.2 if user clicks no, keep
them on page.

#1.1.2 Form submission: when user submits form, run valdation

#1.1.2.1 if the name is not betwene 2 and 30 characters show an error "Name
must be between 2 and 30 characters"

#1.1.2.2 if the email address is not in the format (one or more characters or
numbers) @-sign (one or more characters or numbers) and contain at least one
period after hte @-sign, then error message reads "Please input a valid email
address."

and so on and so forth. stuff that makes your eye water regarding how
incredibly, uselessly boring it is, like you're an executive and can't even
tell your business manager to accept a bid, you must fucking dictate the
letter itself.

However, as incredibly annoying as this process is, it takes you approximately
half an hour to do a day's worth of work with it. You can review progress
every day in half an hour over breakfast.

So, there is your answer regarding how to build a side project while you're
working full-time: manage dirt-cheap disposible developers on Odesk or Elance
who get off on adding absolutely zero benefit whatsoever of any kind to a
project, besides doing exactly what they are told in painstaking detail.

This is being made from a throwaway because I haven't heard this idea
expressed and people might not realize that this is the answer. As for my
tone/style, I think it's completely wrong for any developer to agree to be in
such a role, and the REAL correct solution would be to manage a creative,
contributing developer who gets equity in the result and has more free time
than you. But what do I know.

~~~
chambo622
Serious question: has any product or service of lasting value and success ever
come out of an approach like this? It runs counter to most commonly-held
beliefs on how great ideas turn into great products.

~~~
throwaway4338
absolutely, but nobody talks about this. This is simply handing off
requirements, contracting them out. Your question can be rephrased as "has any
product or service of lasting value and success ever had any part of it
contracted out" and clearly the answer is yes. Not everything is built in-
house. People don't usually mention it however.

(it's not accepting my edits on the original comment, I am trying to change
"aren't worth much anywhere" (which sounds like a value judgment) to "don't
command a high rate anywhere.")

------
loki49152
Stop. Watching. TV.

Or, at the very least, prune it back to one or two current shows you follow.
TV is by far the most significant time sink in most people's lives.

------
drakonka
I tend to work on my side projects for fun whenever I feel like it.
Fortunately I'm really into my side project, so when I come home I often feel
like doing some work on it no matter how tired I am after my day job. I don't
really have dedicated times for it and do as much as I feel like or have time
for that day, whether it's 10 minutes or 2 hours.

------
yoklov
Start small, work up to bigger projects. By small, I mean 300-1kloc. Or
whatever you can bang out in a single sitting. It needs to be cool enough that
you feel motivated to finish it too.

Accept that you can probably only get ~8-12hrs of good work on side projects
done a week (except when you're really inspired, or when you can spend a
weekend on it).

------
vcool07
Waking up early helps. Also, I've picked up on this small but very effective
time saver - always leaving the computer in exact same state from where to
continue the next day. This really helps me jump right into context when I
leave something in between and open it the next day. I always hibernate, never
shutdown my computer !

------
rubydoggy
I think that if you love something you will find time to spend. I have a
40hr/week full time job (i am not a developer) but development is my hobby and
i start my challenge to take the chance and find a job as a developer. You
also need a lot of support if you have family. I am blessed because my wife
give me a lot.

------
des429
When I am done working on something, I jot down what I got done and any notes
to help me get started quickly next time. This lets me juggle multiple things
a little easier.

I actually created an iOS app this summer to handle this.
[http://getbalanceapp.com](http://getbalanceapp.com)

------
hourdays
A masochist approach: I live in a Paris suburb and have a full time job in
Paris. I use my 3 hours of daily train home<>work travel for side projects
(web dev & co). There you have it: move further away from your job and take
the train (away enough to take a non crowded train and not the subway :-)

------
drinchev
I couldn't do it. I live with my girlfriend and at the time when I had
40hr/week job it was just terrible to work on a side project.

I was feeling tired and/or guilty in the same time. Then I decided to find a
part-time job and finally became a freelancer. Much better on that matter.

------
epicureanideal
Post some contact information and I'll be happy to discuss in more detail.
Meanwhile, do you have family or anything else that takes up time outside of
your 40 hours? If not, you should easily be able to find 16 hours on the
weekends by "working" a 7 day week.

------
meritt
There's 168 hours in a week. Get up earlier. Stay up later. Sleep less. Put in
time on weekends.

~~~
kintamanimatt
Sleeping less is not really a sustainable or good idea. Nobody's productive or
happy if they're sleep deprived.

------
hourdays
A masochist approach: I live in the subdurbs of Paris and have a full time job
in Paris. I use my 3 hours of daily train for side projects (web & co). There
you have it: move away and take the train (away enough to take the train not
the subway :-)

------
spullara
The real question is what you are doing the rest of the time you are not at
work. If you have a family, that might take up another 32 hours a week. If you
sleep 8 hours, there goes another 56 hours. Hmmm, you still have 40 hours
left...

------
acd
At my previous work place I managed to reduce my work to part time so I worked
60% there, that meant I had 40% time to develop my own company.

Search for Einstein and the patent office for someone for an idea that you can
copy.

------
MichaelMoser123
i am commuting to work by train (50 minutes each direction); that gives me
some time to tinker and to read - these commutes are of great value to me.

------
meric
Weekday: Wake 9am, Work & Lunch 10-6, Dinner 7-8, Side Project 8-11, Sleep
12-9, Repeat.

Weekends are for chores and socialising.

------
tmaly
I purposely take a train instead of driving. I use that time to work on a my
side project.

