
Where do you find the time for side projects? - mijustin
http://justinjackson.ca/where-do-you-find-the-time-for-side-projects/
======
Zikes
> The short answer is: I work on side-projects whenever I have a spare moment.
> I sacrifice other things (watching TV, reading the newspaper, playing video
> games) so that I can do creative work.

This is the real answer. You do not find time, you make it.

~~~
cpprototypes
Time is important, but another factor is mental energy. I have only a certain
amount of mental energy for each day. Things like TV, reading, and exercising
are good when I'm in a low mental energy state. If I have a hard day at work,
it doesn't matter how much free time I have since I just won't have the mental
energy left to work on a side project.

~~~
pc86
I find that I get energized on my short (20 minute) drive home. Maybe it's the
change in context, but even if I'm mentally fried at 5 I find that I can at
least get another hour or two.

~~~
Adirael
That happens to me, I have a 20 minute commute too. I do it by motorcycle and
it makes me wake up in the morning and be ready to do whatever I want to do in
the afternoons.

~~~
seestheday
I find motorcycles amazing for this. Even a ten minute ride completely
energizes me. It might have something to do with the total focus required.

------
marvin
There is no shame in _not_ having the time and mental energy for side
projects. Working full-time is hard, and not everyone is born with the
capacity to be an intellectual superhero.

It's good that some people are, but I think the relentless focus on people who
achieve great, nearly superhuman things sets an unrealistic standard for the
rest of us. If you can't find the time, energy, inspiration or focus to do
other ambitious things on the side of your regular day job, there is no shame
in that. You'll be a perfectly good person if you do your day job and fill the
rest of your time with low-powered hobbies, or even mindless things like TV or
reddit.

Even in Norway, with our 9-5 culture with 5 weeks of compulsory holidays and
court-enforced overtime payment, it can be hard to get enough distance from
things to do other stuff on the side. And it is always a question of
priorities. If your time goes to your personal side projects, there will be
less time and attention to maintain your health, your relationships and your
family. This is simply not a question. I don't even want to think about doing
this kind of thing if I was working the startup grind, or even the regular
West Coast "60 hours a week".

Don't feel bad if you can't do this. Your mental health will thank you. Time
and time again, I see intelligent people display a focus and ambition which
almost merits an OCD diagnosis. Many of us should take a step back and
investigate what we _really_ want to do. If your side projects are important
enough, take a part-time position instead of trying to fit it in alongside
your full-time job.

~~~
elwell
A lot of people project an image of themselves as an "Intellectual Superhero".
This may make everyone feel lesser because no one actually is an intellectual
superhero.

------
Jemaclus
I leave my house 90 minutes before I'm due at work. It takes me between 15 and
30 minutes to get to work, depending on traffic and public transportation.
Instead of going into the office, I go into a coffee shop around the corner
and write for 45-60 minutes, and then head up into the office.

I've managed to keep this up for 3 months straight now, and while I'm not
anywhere close to being ready to publish, I've got more words written in my
book(s) than I wrote in the last 3 years combined.

As another wise person once said: there's no such thing not having time --
only not making it a priority. Everything comes down to priorities. Do you not
have time to do side projects, or is making side projects not a priority for
you? Make a list of everything you do in your time, and fo reverything that is
a lower priority than your side project, bump it off the list. Don't do it. Do
your side project instead.

Drinking with buddies less important than finishing your side project?
Schedule it for another time. Is Breaking Bad less important than finishing
your side project? Watch it on Netflix later.

And so on. Prioritize, prioritize, prioritize.

I decided a few months ago that publishing a book was one of my top
priorities. What wasn't my top priority? Watching yet another episode of some
TV show on Netflix. Instead of watching 3 episodes a night, I can watch 2, go
to bed an hour earlier, wake up an hour earlier, and have time to write in the
morning before work with zero distractions.

Works for me, anyway. Good luck.

------
agentultra
The short and skinny for me:

> _The short answer is: I work on side-projects whenever I have a spare
> moment. I sacrifice other things (watching TV, reading the newspaper,
> playing video games) so that I can do creative work._

In late August of last year I had come to the conclusion that I needed to
start and finish a small project to get a feel for what it takes to see things
through and gain perspective on what it takes to bring an idea to reality.
I've been building things for as long as I've been able but in software it's
never, "finished," and I always have my nose to the grindstone. So I picked a
hobby I'm passionate about, scoped out a project I felt could be reasonably
completed in my spare time and at the advice of a friend I signed up to be a
vendor at a local comic/arts/games festival... _and I only had an idea!_

Needless to say it put a lot of things into focus. I did sacrifice time with
my wife in the weeks leading up to the event. I spent every spare moment I had
when I wasn't at work or taking care of my family on it (with the occasional
night off of course). I realized pretty early on that I wasn't able to do
everything: I farmed out illustration and typesetting work to other
freelancers. I never did find an editor in time which hurt the project a
little I think. But every step of the way up until that milestone I was
thinking about what I needed to do next in order to get there.

And when I was finally there? I printed twenty books. Sold six. And couldn't
have been happier with the outcome. I have a website up, the beginnings of a
fun little project and this year my goal is to work on marketing and
promotion: something I have never done before.

You just have to play with the hand you've been dealt.

~~~
mijustin
Congrats on shipping!

Could you share a link to the book? I'd love to see it.

BTW: My next book is specifically aimed at helping developers with marketing -
[http://justinjackson.ca/marketingfordevelopers/](http://justinjackson.ca/marketingfordevelopers/)

~~~
agentultra
[http://dungeonmastersdelight.com/](http://dungeonmastersdelight.com/)

Thanks for taking a peek. Let me know what you think of the site.

If it's something that really interests you, get in touch. I really like to
get reviews/feedback. :)

~~~
mikkel
This looks really cool.

However, my first inclination was to close the tab because I didn't get it.

I love playing board games (Dominions, Pandemic, etc) and have always wanted
to try D&D. Am I your target audience?

Then I found your value prop at the bottom of the page:

"Dungeon Masters Delight is a series of books that aims to collect useful
hacks and tricks for the discerning dungeon master. It aims to fill in the
gaps of literature concerning running and developing tabletop role playing
games. "

I've put together some changes here

[http://imgur.com/xcI4xn6](http://imgur.com/xcI4xn6)

I used [http://www.webedit.io](http://www.webedit.io) to do this review.

~~~
agentultra
That looks much better. Thanks!

 _Update_ : Changed the subtitle text and added links to the "Buy" and
"Subscribe" pages.

------
sdegutis
_> The short answer is: I work on side-projects whenever I have a spare
moment. I sacrifice other things (watching TV, reading the newspaper, playing
video games) so that I can do creative work._

I tried this approach for a while, but it greatly degraded my quality of life.
Eventually I found that I was always hunting and hoping for a spare moment,
instead of just enjoying whatever moment I was already in. It's true that I
get less side project stuff done now, but I'm happier, so that's what counts
for me.

~~~
ochoseis
I know the feeling -- It makes me seem like I'm always distracted when I'm
around friends and family because I'm either thinking about or working on a
side project. What I need to do is stop multitasking and focus on the right
things at the right times -- and the author suggests good ways of doing that
while not sacrificing quality time with others: wake up early, use lunch
(don't like this idea), wait 'til kids asleep, etc.

------
nine_k
My problem is not that I don't have 2 spare hours a day. The problem is this
time is severely _fragmented_ , with 15 or 20 minutes being the largest
fragment.

Working on code takes some concentration which is hard to attain in 30-60
seconds; it's closer to 10-15 minutes, but then the time is up.

~~~
buckbova
What takes up the majority of the time in your day?

Try these:

* Sleep one hour less a night.

* Don't drink alcohol.

* Prepare all food for the week in advance.

* Cut down your time from awake to shaved, showered, dressed to 15 minutes.

* Work less at your day job.

~~~
nine_k
* Sleeping less than the norm makes you stupid, I try to avoid this.

* I don't drink alcohol at all.

* Nice idea about food, which I mostly follow. Not all food can stay palatable for a week, though.

* Faster startup is a nice idea, too.

* Working less on my day job would be nice, but probably my employer won't be happy. I'm not overworking.

~~~
aryehhoffman
I find it really useful to prepare all "menus" in advance for the week.
Preparing food in advance for the week doesn't really work for me as I like to
eat fresh food. Not having to decide what to eat on the fly saves me so much
mental bandwidth. It can make the shopping more efficient too.

------
petercooper
Every "main project" I have (or have had) began life as a "side project."
Literally. 100% of my non-consulting income (and my consulting income is
peanuts) for the past 5 years has been from side projects that stuck and did
well enough to go full time.

Given this, it's absolutely imperative I continue to invest time into
experimenting and trying out more side projects, because they could well be my
main gig in a few years.

------
geolisto
I know exactly where Justin is coming from. I'm married with 4 kids. I'm glad
my wife supports my side-projects. After the kids are put to bed (around 8-9
p.m.) I will work until midnight. My wife will hang out in the office with me
while I work. On the weekends I wake up at 6:30 a.m. and work until around
10:30 a.m. From there I will spend the rest of the day with the wife and kids.

I tend to set a goal for what I want to achieve in a given period (for me it's
about 4 hours). It's easy to be all over the map when you don't have a full
day to commit. With a strict schedule and a goal anything can be achieved.

~~~
mijustin
Thanks: yes, having a supportive spouse _really_ helps.

In some ways, having the constraint of a family is helpful: you know you only
have x number of hours. There's no time to fool around.

------
buckbova
One thing I can suggest. Don't commute to work and if you do make it as short
as possible. This time is wasted.

~~~
jbattle
Depends on the commute - I bought a small laptop so I could work on my side
project while on the train. I've found that I can get a lot done in the 10
20-minute legs of my weekly commute. I'm sure it is less efficient than taking
the 200 minutes in a solid stretch - but it was easy to fit into my life so I
kept with the habit (which is the hard part for me).

(At least until I stumbled on a good book - totally off the wagon now)

~~~
JackMorgan
I've been doing this 40 minutes total a day for almost a year. I've probably
doubled my knowledge of programming in that time. Something about the short
time and nothing else to do gets me to focus like crazy.

------
johnmurch
Scheduling time for yourself and sideprojects is super important. I just
started to do this recently and it's making a world of difference. So lock
down a night a week or whatever and make it your "sideproject" time rather
than grabbing a beer with someone or whatever.

Great Post Justin! I love how open you are with this stuff :)

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Super true; it's the same principle as "pay yourself first" in finances.
Locking down time in advance truly helps.

------
rhubarbcustard
For a long time I fell into the trap of thinking that I needed to find a block
of a few hours so that I could sit down, get into the zone, and get some side-
project work done. The result of that was that I never found a 4 or 5 hour
block unless I took a day off work and so I made slow or no progress.

More recently I've made the concious effort to do small pieces of work
wherever I can fit it in: lunch break, get up an hour earlier, an hour in the
evening, etc.

If your tools are set up for a quick start then it's pretty easy to get some
good work done in a spare 30 minutes and all those small pieces of work soon
add up to a finished product.

------
ChristianMarks
I made the decision not to get married or have children so that I would have
time for side projects. Unfortunately, single people are often expected to
stay later to enable those with family obligations to leave earlier.

~~~
Jemaclus
Screw that. It's not my fault you settled down and knocked up your partner. If
we have the same level of responsibility, we work similar hours. Done.

~~~
ChristianMarks
While I too look forward to the impartial application of policy, employers
have their own interpretation of who, in fact, is "done." I have bolted from
less than mutually beneficial working arrangement, myself.

~~~
mindcrime
Quit. Find another job. Your time is too valuable.

------
jimejim
One thing that I didn't fully appreciate till I had kids was some of the
hobbies I did before weren't really that important to me. There's a difference
between the things you do because you truly want to and those that are just
filling time or you're doing them because you feel like you have to.

Once you identify and remove the time-wasters, it gets easier to make time for
other stuff, and I still get away with spending time with friends and some tv
here and there.

------
Alex_MJ
Set up times to work with people. The best stretches of pounding out
productive side project work usually start with discussing it with a friend,
both lamenting how much we're wasting time and messing around on it, and then
we show up at one person's apartment or a coffee shop and hack on our
respective side projects for 4 hours straight.

------
zobzu
the real answer is also generally:

"do minimum at work, you don't need to actually do more than that"

it frees your brain to work on the side stuff. its not just time that is
needed. many of us keep working and thinking about work even when they're not
technically "at work", for hours. Or the "i really should have this finished".

Nope, you don't.

------
RoadRunner_23
Justin, I did not see you mention wife and kids activities anywhere in the
article. 1\. Does your wife work? 2\. Who takes kids to their activities?
including playing the basement, reading stories to them, taking them to
McDonalds 3\. How much family time do you spend per day? 4\. How does your
typical day and weekend look like ?

Curious.

~~~
mijustin
For sure:

 _For reference: I work 8 hours a day at my day job, with an hour for lunch._

1\. Wife does not work outside the home (full-time caregiver) 2\. We both
share kid activities - I try to take as many of these as I can. 3\. Basically
from 5:30pm - 8:30pm I'm in dad mode: dinner, chores, playing with kids,
reading bed time story, putting them to bed. 4\. Typical weekend: I wake up
early Saturday & Sunday and work on personal projects. The rest of Saturdays
is hanging out with family. Every Sunday we try to go skiing as a family.

------
fhd2
Wow, not bad. I've got 2 small kids, but 4 kids sound like a different level,
kids don't scale in my experience.

I'm approaching my side projects strikingly similar, got just one thing to
add: Time not spent physically working on projects can still be spent working
on projects. I routinely solve both technical and non-technical problems I'm
facing in my projects after thinking them through during a walk with the boys,
or chores. I enjoy and treasure the time with them, but spending time with
toddlers doesn't seem to require my full mental capacity.

That said, I'm doing this not because I think I ought to have side projects
just for the sake of it. I'm doing it because this is my best shot at building
the future I want to have for me and my family.

------
ozh
Manage your own 20% at work. Depending on your environment (colleagues,
management expectations, your personal levels of productivity), this can be
doable. Not necessarily 20% (that's a lot), can be 10, or even 5, but that's
still something.

~~~
gregcrv
is it really possible ? I think whatever you do during your work hours becomes
property of your employer, not you.

~~~
mindcruzer
* if they find out

------
misiti3780
If you do not have kids - I really do not see how you can say you do not have
time for side projects. I live in manhattan, work between 50-70 hours per
week, have a girlfriend, exercise 5 days a week for 1 hour, drink a lot, and
watch some tv (HBO only), and have multiple side projects.

Here is what I do not do: watch sports (huge time suck), watch TV (unless im
programming at the same time), commute to work (5 minute bike ride), go to bed
early, have kids, program because I have to.

I would love to see a csv with one column that is "Have side projects (Y/N)"
and "Watch sports weekly" in the other .... I think you would see a trend

~~~
justrudd
You and I are very similar (I live in Seattle not Manhattan and my commute
takes 20 minutes not 5), but I do watch sports. And I still have side
projects. I am in fantasy leagues as well, and I still have time for side
projects.

Do you mean all sports? Or maybe Baseball, Basketball, and/or hockey? Since
those sports have multiple games during the week, they can be a time suck. For
hockey, I generally only watch Hockey Night in Canada on CBC (assuming I can
find a bar that will put in on). For basketball, I generally only watch the
4th period during regular season (they don't start playing till the 4th).
Baseball I don't watch on TV because they only show the pitcher and batter,
and all the other cool parts aren't shown. But football isn't a time suck at
all unless you are trying to watch EVERY game on Sunday. But even when I go on
binges of watching every game on Sunday, I still make time for my side
projects.

------
lxt
As mentioned in the article, give up useless timekilling activities (TV,
Facebook, etc).

The other big thing for me is cache warming. If you are doing non-mental
activities such as showering or driving, use that time to plan what you're
going to do next on your project. Pre-solve the problem: write the code, book,
whatever, in your head. When you have free time - even if it's only fifteen
minutes - dump the contents of your brain into your laptop. Don't spend that
fifteen minutes thinking "where was I?" Do that in advance, and maximize your
output in short stretches of time.

This approach is literally magical for me.

------
akilism
For those of you who write code for your side projects how long does it take
for you to get ramped up and going. Sometimes it can take me 30 minutes before
I feel like I'm in the full swing of things and if I only have an hour total
of free time that means next to nothing gets done. Somedays I find it
particularly hard to flush out problems I've been thinking about at work
switch gears and work on problems for my own projects. My mind will just get
stuck in a state of trying to crunch on the work issue.

------
thibaut_barrere
Start freelancing, then raise your rates and use my little calculator [1] to
"make time", then work on side projects.

Also: as someone who did a lot of side-projects over the last few years, my
advice is "start a side product" instead (if you want to end up living out of
it, that is).

[1] [https://www.wisecashhq.com/goodies/bootstrapper-
calculator](https://www.wisecashhq.com/goodies/bootstrapper-calculator)

~~~
rfnslyr
Uhhhh [http://cl.ly/image/3l1h251S060B](http://cl.ly/image/3l1h251S060B)

~~~
randomdata
Perhaps some validation would be useful, but 20 days per week?

~~~
rfnslyr
Oh I thought it said 20 HOURS per week.

~~~
thibaut_barrere
Sorry for the confusion! I'll clarify the wording.

I emphasize working with days (vs hours) because I find it really pleasant to
have days dedicated to one project instead of more than one.

In my organization, each day is dedicated to one main topic (consulting, or my
own product, or something else etc).

Hope this helps!

------
gengstrand
Great discussion here. I particularly like the debate over whether of not
there is merit to the notion of conservation of mental energy. I did a side
project [https://github.com/gengstrand/clojure-news-
feed](https://github.com/gengstrand/clojure-news-feed) over the winter
holiday. It was not exhausting to me because it was a learning project so I
found it to be fun instead of tiring.

------
cfritz
I always find there's a lot more time available than people realize. If you
cut down your time wasted, it really ads up. I like to think of it this way:
There's 24 hours in a day, I spend 6-8 asleep. Where are the other 16 to 18
hours going? If I spend 10 hours a day working, that's 6 to 8 hours
evaporating. If I can capture just an hour a day to work on something fun, it
really adds up.

~~~
fleitz
Yup, there's those that are doing things and those complaining on hacker news
that they dont have enough time to get everything done.

------
arca_vorago
I usually sacrifice sleep. You can't do it too long or it can get to you, so I
will do a week of little sleep and then one or two weeks of a good nights
rest. In my mid 20's though, I sacrificed social interaction for my "side
projects". To be frank, sometimes it's my work. (a whole other rant about lack
of incentive)

------
pmelendez
On my commute... it doesn't sound like much, but when you add it up, it is
close to 8 hours per week

------
Sakes
Try and get an hour before work in, or an hour right after work. I like to sit
at a coffee shop or a bar for this. Then finding some weekend time should be
trivial.

It's a marathon not a race, well, at least for many of us.

Edit: Oh yes, and there is always 15-30 mins you can squeeze in at lunch
breaks.

------
ericcope
9pm to 1am. after the kids go to bed. I don't watch tv. at all. ever. When you
find stuff you're excited about, its easy to stay motivated. I keep my side
work fresh and new.

------
andymoe
Early morning (5AM-7AM) OR after the kid and SO goto bed between 9:30 and
midnight... Then I quite my job and went all in so I guess it's not a side
project anymore ;)

~~~
andymoe
Man, I really hate article titles that are a question...

------
deevus
Definitely agree with setting a deadline. I set a 3 month deadline recently
for a large side-project and we're just about ready to launch on schedule :)

------
AznHisoka
Immediately after dinner from 7:30 PM to 10:30 PM. Then all afternoon/evenings
on weekends. I forgo most leisure time except time with wife and baby.

------
coulix
For me it´s cyclic, every six months I fall into a creation craving period. An
understanding wife and not so intense daily workload helps.

~~~
zxcdw
Something like a bipolar disorder?

------
knodi
You have to MAKE time for stuff out side of work.

------
mindcrime
I can tell you how I do it, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend my path to
anyone else. I'm not even 100% sure I'd recommend it to a younger version of
myself, although I'm also not sure I'd recommend _against_ it either.

Basically, I'm single and childless, and darn close to my every free minute
goes into the startup project. When I was working full-time, that meant "after
work" M-F and the majority of my Sat and Sun. hours. I make an exception
during football season to watch the Dolphins game on Sunday (yeah, yeah, go
ahead, say it... I'm a glutton for punishment).

I force myself to take a break every once in a while and read a novel or watch
a movie or something... but truth be told, lately, even when I watch movies or
something, there's an angle related to the startup. For example, I've been
reading and studying a lot about sales lately, and I've seen more than one
sales book mention "be like Columbo".

I had kinda wanted to rewatch some old Columbo episodes anyway (yeah, I'm old,
deal with it) so I've been watching Columbo and thinking about "how do you
apply his attitude / approach to this 'diagnostic business development'
thing"? And the movies I make time for tend to be ones that I find
inspirational (Rocky, The Karate Kid, Rad, etc.) that help keep me motivated.

About 6 months ago, I dropped down from full-time status to part-time status
at my regular job to free up more time for the startup. I had a little bit of
money saved, but not enough to quit outright... luckily the owner of the
company was willing to be flexible and let me do that. I've pretty much burned
through my savings though, and we aren't profitable yet, so I'm going back to
working full-time next month.

These days I forgo most social activities like dating, parties, and most non-
technical social events. I rarely mountain bike anymore, and almost never set
foot in the gym. I bailed on going home to see my parents for Christmas so I
could use those few days of "down time" as recovery time. I stay amped up on
more caffeine than could possibly be healthy, and do everything I can to the
tune of heavy-metal[1] or hard-rock of some sort. My mantra right now is
"Caffeine, heavy-metal and adrenaline". \m/

I know, I know... you're thinking "dude, you must be miserable". Nah... I
_enjoy_ this in a certain sense, and since I'm 40 now, and haven't achieved
anything yet, my mindset now is to say "fuck it" and go for broke. It's now or
never, ya know? My mindset is to achieve the biggest and most ambitious of my
dreams, or - when life finally breaks me - pull a _Leaving Las Vegas_ deal and
go to Vegas and try to drink myself to death.

Do not try this at home...

[1]:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQQcOQsCFnw](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQQcOQsCFnw)

~~~
aryehhoffman
Wow, I'm reminded of the saying "be careful what you wish for, because you
might just get it" (i.e. at the expense of everything else).

You just might be successful in your startup, but what is that worth if there
is nothing else in your life, and no one to share it with?

~~~
mindcrime
Valid question. All I can say is "it's complicated". I'm pretty content with
where things stand though. The being single and childless thing also isn't
_just_ about the startup thing... it's also a function of me never having met
anybody that I felt that strongly about, to want to settle down, get married
and have kids, blah. And it could still happen, I'm just not defining my
success in life, or happiness, by whether it does or not.

~~~
aryehhoffman
I understand the "it's complicated" thing. My best to you.

------
danthewireman
5am - 7am

------
0800899g
Where do you find the time for side projects?

------
hydralist
doing less work at work

