
How to balance full-time work with creative projects - cookingoils
https://thecreativeindependent.com/guides/how-to-balance-full-time-work-with-creative-projects/
======
d357r0y3r
I think side projects, software at least, are a lot like the Civilization
games.

You can't wait to start. The first 10% is awesome. 10-40% is complex and the
difficulty ramps up. 40-100%, all you can think about is starting over on
something else. At around 80%, you just quit and actually do start over.

~~~
IAmGraydon
Interesting. My creative outlet is music, as it has been for 20 years, and I
can tell you that your timetable holds true there as well. I’ve written a
boatload of material but released very little (at least as a solo artist)
because I never felt that a song was complete unless it felt utterly orgasmic
to listen to. It took me a very long time to come to grips with the fact that
even my idols have very few of these “perfect” songs. They probably felt like
me quite often, but the difference is that they released anyway. So now, at
that 80% point, I release the song. The ones that are special and can go to
100% become obvious as the song progresses, but they are rare.

The point is that it’s better to share a lot of imperfect creative works than
to never release anything because it’s imperfect.

~~~
TheOtherHobbes
Your idols will have been supported by creative contributions from tens of
other people including uncredited co-writers, producers, session musicians,
mix and mastering engineers, marketing people, and sometimes record company
executives.

Even with all of that backup, they still can't produce more than solid one hit
out of maybe thirty songs.

~~~
warmblanket
There are certain artists who are fantastic, but I guess it’s not easy to be
objective with something g like music. What one person likes another hates. As
for support, production quality alone is huge. Nearly everything I listened to
today has sooo many vocal layers. Comparing a song I’m writing in the kitchen
and recording on voice memos to a singer with his voice layered 4, 8, 12 times
perhaps multiple background singers (very subtle) or heavily effected with
vocoders/etc... of course your recording sounds like an average voice over
mediocre instrumentation. The pros don’t sound polished on voice memos either,
which is why you never hear of any pros releasing them.

------
bloomca
My experience is that if you can afford it, allow yourself 2–3 months
sabbatical, and after some time (for me it is about 2 weeks), you'll start to
produce creative projects.

I personally write down all ideas and when I have time to implement them,
choose what looks the most interesting (and feasible).

With this strategy, in the last couple months, I was able to implement:

[https://2018.bloomca.me/en](https://2018.bloomca.me/en) – just a website
showing how bloated web is

[https://real-local-food.com/](https://real-local-food.com/) – project about
local food

[https://nameless-hamlet-12227.herokuapp.com/](https://nameless-
hamlet-12227.herokuapp.com/) – check your allergies application, built for a
hackathon.

Now, you can notice they are not perfect, and by no means are finished, but
before I was not able to produce that much.

edit: formatting

~~~
dominotw
what do you do with insurance if your employer doesn't cover it while you are
on sabbatical.

~~~
jimbokun
Get EU citizenship somehow and move to a civilized country?

~~~
lentil_soup
Which EU country? In Germany, if you quit, you have to pay insurance while you
get a new job (unless you're in unemployment benefit, which you don't get for
a few months if you just quit)

------
zachlite
I tried to balance, but months would go by and I wasn't making progress that
satisfied me.

I quit my job last month, and so far, it seems it was the right decision.

What really pushed me over the edge was just realizing how bored I was at
work, and it wasn't just a slow period - it was systemic. The projects I'd
fantasize about spaced out commuting home genuinely excited me, but then I'd
snap out of it as soon as I got home and realized I had 4 hours to eat, bathe,
and maintain relationships with friends and significant others. I was scared
to think about losing my paycheck, especially because I'm not pursuing these
projects as potential revenue streams - really just for the sake of exploring
and learning new things. I'm fortunate enough to be in a position where my
only financial obligation is rent, and as a software engineer, a few hours of
freelance work per comfortably covers that.

I'm not advocating everyone go quit your jobs, because I realize everyone's
situation is different. But life is too short to be bored as shit.

~~~
LargeWu
Same here, except it's not friends, it's kids. I spend a fair amount of my
work day completely bored by the grind of software development and thinking
about my hobbies (which right now is mostly screenprinting and music). But by
the time I get home, cook dinner, clean up, and put the kids to bed, it's
between 8:30-9:30, which means I have 1-2 free hours to do anything else.
Having a creative outlet helps a lot, both because I have an urge to create,
and nobody else gets to tell me what to do or how to do it. It's much more
rewarding than video games or TV.

Not sure quitting my job is in the cards at the moment, but my son's preschool
is closing down for the summer in June, before he starts kindergarten in the
fall. I've considered taking the summer off to stay home with him for a few
months and just do creative projects.

~~~
zachlite
If you took the summer off, would you possibly work on a creative project with
your son? It can be so nice to share something you love with someone you love,
and motivating too.

~~~
LargeWu
I don't know about something big...he'll only just barely be 5 then, and his
attention span is pretty limited. But I can see trying to something that we
can work on where we can make small amounts of progress every day.

~~~
zachlite
That sounds lovely. I wish you the best.

------
cortesoft
I really miss working on personal projects. Having young children at home
makes it pretty impossible. The only time I have to work on personal projects
is after the kids go to bed, and by that time my brain is done.

I have pretty much resigned myself to not doing any personal projects until
they are older. If only I realized how much time I had in the before-time....

~~~
imhoguy
In the past I tried creative night shifts too, sometimes till 3AM but in the
morning I was wrecked. So what works now: I go to sleep same time as my kids
and wake up much earlier.

Benefits:

1) kids get good habit going to sleep at the right time

2) you get a proper sleep

3) at least my morning mind is much more fresh after some exercise

4) your creative wandering is time limited by how early you wake up - that is
most difficult especially in the winter, but it is just a matter of habit and
doesn't sacrifice health so much.

5) I am unlikely to procrastinate in the morning if I wake up with a planed
task in mind

~~~
glormph
I have to try this. But how does it work out for you when you "have to" be up
late, e.g. at social activities? I imagine yawning my way through a late
dinner, falling asleep at the cinema.

~~~
grey413
Realistically, that sort of thing suffers. My wife keeps an early schedule and
anything past 7 or 8 is iffy. She can usually do it, but there's a non trivial
chance that she'll be too tired to function properly.

------
perfunctory
The best way is simply not working full-time. Work part-time. I know you'll
now come up with all sorts of excuses why it's hard/impossible. But hey, you
want to do a creative project. That implies you are a creative person. So get
creative. I assume the partial loss of income is not a problem. Can't be in
our industry. So go negotiate with your boss. Negotiate hard. Your boss can't
agree because he needs someone to occupy a desk - work half a day. Trade other
benefits. Get your colleagues on board. No luck - change jobs, become a
freelancer. Hack, you could even become a freelancer at your own former
employer. There are plenty of options. Get creative!

~~~
magic_beans
> The best way is simply not working full-time

I would LOVE this, but I can't get insurance or benefits this way (in the US).

~~~
jcoffland
You can buy your own insurance and save for your own retirement.

~~~
mathgeek
> You can buy your own insurance

Depending on where you live in the US, this can be more costly than it's worth
(compared to group coverage).

~~~
jcoffland
With group coverage you are paying much more than you think. The cost to your
employer could have been paid to you as wages. The best option for buying your
own insurance is to buy the absolute minimum coverage with high deductible and
HSA option. Then put money in the HSA and save on income taxes.

~~~
dragonwriter
> The best option for buying your own insurance is to buy the absolute minimum
> coverage with high deductible and HSA option.

It's probably the highest expected return, but the greatest exposure to
downside risk (conversely, buying the near maximum coverage HMO plan is
probably the lowest average return, but least exposure to downside risk.)

------
frankhorrigan
I'm a person who can't sustain my mental health if I'm not building things.
Quite literally. And I know there are plenty of others like me who face the
idea of a typical 9-5 life with crushing existential dread.

I appreciate the article, and I'd also caution anyone who opened it looking
for magic tricks or simple solutions. There really aren't any. I work part-
time and make substantially less money than I could working full time. I say
no to friends who want to hang out. And sometimes I start to hate my creative
work or get burnt out on it.

But I do it; I keep doing it.

I'm in a band, I make my own music, I built an art car for Burning Man this
year, I write and design things. And it keeps me happy and keeps me going.

All I'm really trying to say is that it's like health. The trick to being in
good health is that there is no trick. Eat well and exercise. The trick to
having creative pursuits is to sacrifice the time to sit your ass down and get
to work.

------
gavanwoolery

      - I work fulltime  
      - I commute 30 minutes each day during the week  
      - I am a fulltime dad  
      - I exercise 5 times per week 
      - I walk my dog 2x daily  
      - ~10 hours/week on chores/yardwork/construction 
      - I still manage to have a side project.  
    

Its definitely doable, I think you just need to be a little bit mentally ill.
:)

~~~
komali2
How many hours of sleep, nightly?

Lately I've been meeting many "hustlers" who are swearing up and down I only
need 6 hours, or even less, which I thought would be obviously absurd, but
this stupid meme keeps cropping up. The 80s sales gurus were teaching us this
in highschool with their pep talks, and now the new-rich millenials are
devouring it and sending it straight down the line on their instagrams.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
In the 80s they had cocaine. One is forced to wonder if modern "hustlers" are
omitting something in their advice.

~~~
asdff
Adderal, its everywhere, and not much in the way of side effects. Taking it
while you are in the thick of a task is the way to do it; once it sets in you
are working at 150% pace with undivided focus. This is the drug of the future.
Much more sustained focus from caffeine, and no stomach discomfort or nausea
that you might encounter with high caffeine doses. This drug, along with
ritalin, are designed such that you can't get a high enough concentration of
the drug in your blood to trigger any physical dependence or tolerance. Plenty
of my friends have prescriptions, and doctors generally prescribe enough to be
on the drug every waking hour for a month, whereas they might only need to
take it a couple times a week for focusing on a specific task, so people whose
ADD symptoms are milder tend to build up a surplus.

~~~
komali2
I don't agree that it's the miracle drug you're indicating.

First off, the effectiveness in diagnosed add / ADHD people vs people just
using it doesn't seem to be 1:1. For example, it gets me focused on relevant
tasks, whereas my non ADHD friends could easily get sucked into the infamous
"clean the entire house" funnel. Or, it just makes them anxious.

I also suspect it dramatically reduces my emotional reaction to things,
including art. I feel like it robotocizes me. Sure, I'm more effective, but
time seems to just slide by without having any real impact on me. The weeks I
don't take it seem to automatically be more "colorful" in my long term memory.

It's certainly made my life a hell of a lot easier as someone with ADHD, but I
wouldn't sing its praises as a side-effect-less drug. If anything, the side
effects are insidious in a dangerous (emotionally) and undetectable way.

------
hardwaresofton
I think what people should be doing is rethinking "full-time" work. 40-hour
weeks don't make sense in today's society. Start negotiating the "standard"
9-5 contracts that are out there today, instead of just blindly agreeing --
ask your employer if you can do 4 days a week for the appropriate amount of
pay.

In addition being on-call (thus sacrificing even more freedom and your time)
and required to manage operations is cool only if your company pays you extra
for that extra time you're losing. Since this is a more contentious issue I'll
elaborate - in the past, companies hired night-shift employees and split the
work, not giving a ~10k bump in pay to the day employees and expecting them to
keep laptops close to them while they were off-premises.

BTW, if you think you're underpaid as a tech employee, you're almost certainly
wrong -- don't forget that the big tech firms colluded to keep wages low not
too long ago.

Time is the one resource you never get back (well so far at least).

Anyway, nerds/engineers never think of this stuff, it's why CTOs are the least
paid of C levels [0].

[0]: [https://www.comparably.com/blog/what-the-c-suite-earns-a-
loo...](https://www.comparably.com/blog/what-the-c-suite-earns-a-look-at-
executive-pay-in-tech/)

~~~
around_here
You mean overpaid, right?

~~~
hardwaresofton
Yes, I meant overpaid -- apologies for the typo.

From what I can tell, despite the enormous amount devs are being paid, It
seems like we're still on the underpaid side of the balance, especially
depending on where you are.

~~~
around_here
I agree. Otherwise the biggest capitalists who claim to love competition just
s'damn much wouldn't have created a cabal to keep salaries down.

~~~
hardwaresofton
Yes, also somewhat anecdotally if you look at the value being generated at
these companies versus what they're paying out it's astronomical.

I know we're way past piece work economies but the ratio _has_ to be off.

------
bpchaps
I've found it to be very hard. Very, very hard. It got to the point for me
where my "creative projects" took over and started to become what I spent most
of my mental energy on, so a fulltime job became extremely difficult. These
days, I only work 10hrs a week doing independent contracting, which while it's
not much time, it's been surprisingly exhausting considering the time crunches
and other strange pressures that come with it.

That said, my "creative projects" are a pretty involved - two of them include
FOIA lawsuits.

~~~
malux85
ok there's no part of this comment that I'm not interested in you expanding on
if you would!

Does the 10 hours a week support you financially? Is that because your cost of
living is low?

Tell us about the creative projects and the lawsuits!

~~~
imhoguy
> _Tell us about the creative projects and the lawsuits!_

He was on HN FP recently:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18257867](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18257867)

------
chasd00
Don't try to make money with your creative projects and they'll be a joy. If
you're trying to make money with them then have a plan in place to turn them
into your day job so you can make time for fun creative projects eventually.

~~~
bartcobain
Which of this suggestions is your case?

Edit: formatting.

------
meuk
I honestly don't know how people can produce something decent while working
fulltime.

I am usually home at about six. I then cook, do dishes and hurry to get to
sports training, am back at 22:00, hit the shower and go straight to bed.

I also have a buttload of stuff I want to learn, and so many projects I want
to do that I never get to really work on anything.

~~~
snarfy
I stop by the grocery store and grab cooked food from the deli counter. It
takes about 5 minutes. I eat my food on paper plates, and workout in my room.
I'm probably gaining 1.5 hours per day on you. It's more expensive this way
but time is money. If I consider it time I paid myself it's worth the expense.

------
adamnemecek
I'm sorry but it's not possible. When you work full time, you have little time
left, maybe 4 hours a day. These are not prime working hours, they are
leftovers. You make very little progress which discourages you even more. You
feel guilty about watching TV. You try to do something on the weekends but
let's be real, the five days in between are really going to break your flow.

I feel like the idea of a "side hustle" is selling false hope.

Maybe people call something a "side hustle" just so that they can brush of
criticism with "it was just a side hustle".

I've convinced 3 people (2 friends, one person on hacker news) to quit their
jobs to work on their ideas, pursue self-study and figure stuff out. They've
all been very thankful and the progress on their respective journeys has been
much faster.

You can't build something cool without devoting yourself entirely to it.

~~~
SurrealSoul
I disagree and actively disprove of this. I have four hours at home.

Hour1: Eating / TV / Hanging out with wife

Hour2: Development, studying, cultivating

Hour3: Gym

Hour4: Relax, mental health, maybe some more development

While I agree that my progress is significantly larger on the weekends, the
five hours from the weekdays gives me a good amount. Keep in mind too, this is
about side projects, creative ideas. Not about "starting a business" or some
startup venture

~~~
gnulinux
I'm insanely curious how can you spend an hour at gym. Showering alone takes
30 mins. There is also time commuting to and from gym. Do you work out for
only 20 mins and is insanely efficient doing this task? Most people work out
~1 to 1.5 hours and combined with inefficiencies, commute and showering it's a
2 hour commitment.

~~~
SurrealSoul
I have a gym in my apartment, so typically a 45min workout and a 15 min shower

------
rick22
Technology is supposed make human work less. Ironically as the technology
advances the working hours has also increased. Bertrand has written nice short
summary
[http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html](http://www.zpub.com/notes/idle.html) in
the 1930's which is sadly very much relevant today.

------
keiferski
Personally, I think the “burn the ships” strategy is probably more viable for
a serious endeavor, if you can afford (financially or otherwise) to do it.
Save up 6-12 months of living expenses, make a plan, launch a barebones
version, then make the jump and quit your job.

Speaking only personally here, but I think trying to just schedule in
productive creative time doesn’t really work. There is no real enforced
urgency and it’s too easy to think, “Well, I worked hard at my day job today,
so I deserve to relax.” There is no “survival” mental state. But YMMV. I think
it depends on whether you’re a “disciplined slow-but-steady worker” or if you
thrive on being obsessed with what you’re working on.

~~~
jcoffland
This sounds like a good recipe for disaster. There's no buffer room in this
plan. You've got 6-12 months to make your company profitable or it either
fails or you get into massive debt.

~~~
keiferski
I don’t know, worst case scenario you learn a ton and...go get another job?
Life is short and time is valuable. There is a very real cost to _not_ putting
your 100% into something.

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
There's also a cost to putting yourself 100% in to things, that's why they
have this whole "moderation" concept.

------
SurrealSoul
As with everything, your milage may vary with these suggestions. I am not the
writer, but am just a man with a side project, which is getting more and more
of my time.

Change “I can’t” to “I don’t.” -- This section bugged me. At first, I thought
it was great. Looking back, this is great advise for a smaller project, or
someone just starting. However as your project gets bigger and larger you need
to have time for mental health. By saying "I don't do anything Tuesday
evenings" can isolate your friends or family. Sometimes after a hard day of
work you just want to play a game or two with your friends, but it can be hard
to make that push knowing you're actively "sabotaging" your progression.
Having a routine is nice, and I find it the only way to progress myself, but
sometimes it feels good for your friends and family to "bug" you. I personally
believe breaking a routine for your mental health will be beneficial in the
long run.

I do love the words about finding creative peak hours, building slowly and in
general good habits. For what it is worth, I am using a "circle development
cycle". You can imagine it as a circle progress wheel, making initial progress
on several things and going back to improve them several times. The initial
pass may be an uncolored landscape, where by the fourth pass there are natural
mountains, cities and ect... This way I am cultivating new creative ideals
while progressing on things as a whole. My "done" state will arrive sooner,
but by delaying the "perfect" state's date.

Anyways, this is a great article and just wanted to share my smaller findings
while I apply what the author suggested to myself

------
costcopizza
Wow, the comments in this post are timely. I'm considering taking a month off
to move to an unfamiliar, non-destination area to work on my creative project
(songs) for 8+ hrs a day with no other commitments.

~~~
richardbrevig
Will you have a support network of friends or other people to regularly and
daily spend time with? A month might not be enough time to slip into a
loneliness caused depression...but set yourself up for success if you do this.

~~~
qnsi
Hey, what happened to rivalseek? Is it not going to be continued? I never
tried it, but comments said it was very good - maybe you can share your method
if there is no plan to continue?

(sorry for offtopic)

------
sajidkalla
This is hard until you really got hooked into something very different from
the day job. I have been working for banks for more than 10 years. Tried many
side projects. One that really got me in is entirely different from computers,
Leathet crafting. 3 months. From 0 to 1. Now I have a design and a successful
Etsy shop called tauruscamp.com

~~~
shrimpx
Your wallets are really cool, congrats!

------
chrstphrhrt
Can only do this if able to build up a state of flow around it. Start small,
as small as possible. Not everything good has to be big.

All the comments like "dump everything and dive in head first for X months"
sound like some weird cult of extreme heroism to me.

Everything is a process, not some abstract form that can magically be reified
into existence by wanting/trying harder. We are animals and have to build up
the habit and curiosity in tandem, else risk burnout.

------
JamesAdir
I'm stuck in the first paragraph: "What type of work or situations might you
seek out that wouldn’t leave you in a bad mood after working?"

I would go work in many menial jobs, but the problem is that this jobs pay
very little and then you're worried and stressed and can't move on with side
projects. If you go to a nice corporate job (not as a career but just as a
source of income) you're usually left grumpy as he describes.

------
Bekwnn
Re: the "go easy on yourself".

I think it's hugely important to set aside relaxation time and, though it may
seem counterintuitive, be active during that time about being relaxed. To me,
that's usually a visit to the zoo, a walk by the ocean, or sitting in a coffee
shop reading. Having the mindset of "I'm going to disappear for a bit" lets
you focus on unwinding.

At the same time, rather than beating myself up or getting depressed when I'm
not doing as much on the side as I would like, I've found a "healthier"
approach is a more heated, angry frustration, similar to when you keep dying
on the same level in a game. That kind of stimulus brings out something
competitive in me and as a result I become more determined to overcome and
"beat it". It's similar to the restlessness other commenters have described on
the 3rd week of vacation, except it also continues to build while I work 40
hour weeks.

------
jeremyarose
We have time for what we prioritize. That doesn't mean it's easy, but it is
possible.

------
anacleto
I'd argue that this has a lot with to do with set point theory.

As humans, our curiosity arouses around novelty. The object will tend to lose
its novelty over time, and we'll tend to progressively lose interest in it up
to the point where we go back to 'set point'.

Hint: look for mechanisms in your side projects to add novelty to the system
so that your interest doesn't plateau.

When we built [https://sametab.com](https://sametab.com) as an internal side
project, we used to constantly brainstorm new ideas about how this could
eventually become. The more ideas we were founding the more the project looked
new and appealing at our eyes.

------
ppeetteerr
The advice in this article is very on-point. I would add that a creative
project can also be done at your current job. If you have the freedom to take
on new responsibilities, it will be generally seen as a positive (who doesn't
like employees that work late and on the weekend?). You might even get a
promotion. How that compares to doing something on the side is up to you, but
I would recommend not seeing work as just work, but a place where you can
experiment in an existing enterprise.

------
president
Hard to do if your job workload is elastic and/or has on-call. Unfortunately
these days, most employers are looking to squeeze 110% of your time and
energy.

~~~
pietrovismara
These days? That's how it always worked so far.

------
jerry40
I consider freelance as a side project (miserable, I know) and I'm able to
devote ~15 hours per week to it. Plus I take several hours for English,
coursera and functional programming exercises.

My next goal is to leave my job (it takes 11 hours per day including commute
and lunch time) - it will free ~2.5 hours a day! So actually freelance is a
side project which should help me to say goodbye to my full-time job.

------
b123400
The article and all the comments seem to assume work and creative projects are
mutual exclusive, that we have to find a balance. I am wondering if it is
possible to have a job that allows people to be creative? Like, as happy as
doing side project? If no, what kind of experience did you have that suggest
it is not possible?

------
bartcobain
Since many(if not all) of this comments are completely empirical and based in
personal experiences, all I can take from this comments is that one of my 2019
resolutions is to start a plan and save money to quit job and focus on a
project of mine.

------
tnr23
It's not possible. And even if you try, no competitior will even take you
serious as you are just at 10% speed/willpower/energy. Just quit you job and
start in a manner that makes sense :-)

------
zackmorris
For what it's worth, I've been attempting to switch the pathway in my mind
about creativity and side projects from depression to rage/wrath. I've played
the victim for so long that people really don't want to hear about it anymore.
I've basically exhausted every opportunity for procrastination and
ineffectualness and still find myself stagnant in my early 40s.

In my case, I wanted to build a gaming PC so I could learn Unity. I forced
myself to do the research and find articles about which parts to buy and how
to assemble them. I don't even want to think about how long that process took.
Maybe 6 months? A year?

Finally I resigned myself to the fact that I would probably make a mistake,
but I have some money saved which means that I could afford to. I broke down
and bought all the parts one day a couple weeks ago:

[https://techbuyersguru.com/1500-ultra-compact-mini-itx-
gamin...](https://techbuyersguru.com/1500-ultra-compact-mini-itx-gaming-pc-
build)

Note: get a normal 2.5" SSD (I got a 1 TB Crucial/Micron because they're based
out of my town) because you need the M.2 port if you want to use an HTC Vive
with their new wireless adapter:

[https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2RP77A2...](https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA2RP77A2945)

I also upgraded to a Corsair 600 Watt power supply and paid $10 more for a Be
Quiet! SILENT WINGS fan.

It turned out that all of my questions about where to plug in cables were
answered by the manuals or labeled. You can use the included 8 pin to split
6+2 pin power supply cable on the GTX 2070 for example. Building a PC turned
out to be easier than when I was repairing Macs at a previous job. I didn't
have to mess with the BIOS, I only had to download ethernet and wifi drivers
to USB stick for the motherboard after I installed Windows 10.

The point I'm trying to make is that all of the details above turned out not
to matter. They only added a slight bit of money and time. In the face of the
months I lost sweating over parts, they were inconsequential.

That's how all of the projects in my life have been. I'm classically trained
for STEM where there is no room for error. I go to the ends of the Earth to
make sure that there are no bugs. But it costs me heavily in terms of my own
time and reserves of motivation.

So that's where the rage comes from. Think about all that waste, and that for
the most part there is nobody to blame but yourself. Channel that into
brutality, and wage war against the hangups and demotivational sessions where
you talk yourself out of doing something. Discipline is a negative word and I
don't like it, because people use it to make themselves sound better than you.
I prefer words like wrath, because you can draw on neglected aspects of your
psyche and feel untapped energy reserves. We're so far to one side of a
healthy bell curve that it's good for us sometimes to draw from the other
side.

If you want an exercise to feel this, do a plank right now on your elbows and
toes, keeping your torso parallel with the floor. Start a timer on your phone
and you'll feel an anxiety (like holding your breath too long) around the 30
or 45 second mark. When your stomach is about to fall, use rage to bring
yourself up to parallel. Each time you begin to fall, roar silently in your
own mind with profanity. Feel the endorphins course through your veins. Anyone
can do a minute - but going beyond yourself you can do several times that.

Your strength emotion may not be rage (maybe it's gratitude, or forgiveness),
but you can still find whatever it is and recruit it to force yourself to take
a first step, even if it's devoting a period of time each day towards the
first step of your goal. Do it every day for 2 weeks, even if you don't like
how it feels, and you will find that channel in your brain become automatic
(like part of your subconscious) and probably even forget it by the time the
next step is needed.

------
rubenhak
I could combine multiple creative projects with day job, but that all ended
when I turned 30. Had to quit my main job to fully focus on the startup i work
on.

~~~
heurist
Joining a startup was death for my creative side projects. I get to be much
more creative at work now than I used to but it's still work, and a lot more
of it.

------
jpmoyn
I really like the layout of the website.

------
revskill
Quit your full-time work if it's not creative

------
pettersolberg
Well, get out, plow on some field. That will give you _some_ balance regarding
the mental vs. physical stress dispute. Didn't read the article though.

------
nurettin
find a satisfying, well paid job and those "creative" feelings might just go
away.

~~~
BigJono
That's basically impossible. Almost every full time job that pays well is some
variant of patching together code that other people wrote with very little
work on interesting problems.

Unless you somehow consider "why is my CRUD app not working after my teammate
introduced this shit library" an interesting problem, in which case I'm very
jealous.

~~~
nurettin
I like to tie things together and watch them work. Not very hard to find a job
that makes me happy.

And I live in a 2nd world country, so it isn't very hard to find a relatively
well paid job from abroad.

------
JustSomeNobody
No time. Interview prepping so it has to be leetcode day in and day out
because that's what the industry expects...

~~~
gnulinux
A good side project is like leetcode on steroids, so this is not very true.

~~~
wingerlang
Do you have some examples of good side projects that fits your description?

Leetcode specifically targets a specific problem (per entry). Side projects
might contain one or two, but usually I'd guess it's a small part of the total
worktime.

~~~
JustSomeNobody
Exactly. There's no way I could work on enough side projects to cover all the
algorithms and data structures and concepts that interviewers expect me to
have at my ready.

------
mattbierner
Over the past five years, I've sort of reinvented myself though side projects
all while staying quite professionally productive. I wrote a little about my
project process almost a year ago and thought I'd repost it here in case any
one else finds it helpful:

\---

(From early 2018 [1])

My driving force is to create things and that directs how I go about personal
projects. I don't have much in the way of an official process, but the typical
project cycle goes something like:

1\. Start with any idea or question that is most interesting to me right now,
for example: converting audio propaganda to waveforms.

I usually try to align the project with some longer term personal goal. One of
my current longer term goals for example is to start a business. To do that, I
want to become better at selling things. Therefore, my current medium term
project is to try selling letterpress prints of the waveforms from propaganda.

2\. Research the idea, start learning required skills, and begin prototyping.
Often—as in the letterpress project—I go in with no idea what I am doing. I
always try to keep my specific goal in mind and make sure I am delivering
something, either as learning or as actual prototypes. I'm also trying to
become better at collaborating with other people on this and outsourcing the
work here (which is itself another longer term goal)

This stage usually spawns a number of new ideas that I add to a personal
backlog. If one of these is more interesting than what I am currently working
on, I change the project's focus or abandon it altogether.

3\. Polish, release, and share. If the project is still interesting, continue
iterating. Otherwise, go back to step 1 and repeat.

I try to keep this cycle short but that isn't always practical, so I
compensate by having multiple project going on at the same time. These roughly
fall into a few different timescales: one-off (a few hours in one go), short
(1 or 2 weeks freetime), medium (a month or so with interruptions), and long
(3 months+ of very off-and-on work).

This process has let me create, explore, and learn quite a bit without getting
burned out. It has also taken me in directions I never expected.

I don't know any of this would work more broadly. Again, my driving force is
to just to create things. I'm operating in a bit of a vacuum with no real
audience in mind or much in the way of external pressures.

\---

Main takeaways:

\- Side projects should be for you.

\- Mix short and long term deliverables and goals.

\- Have variety and continually iterate to avoid burn out.

Since writing the above in early 2018, I actually did learn letterpress in
order to complete the propaganda waveform project[2], which itself led to me
traveling to Switzerland for a letterpress poster design class, which led to
all sorts of adventures in Switzerland and Italy and tons of new project
ideas. I'm also continuing to explore selling more (including selling printed
posters)

Again, this general mode of working has let me explore a large number of side
projects while doing good work in my day job. There is really nothing special
to it. However side projects have been incredibly important to me and I hope
these points may be useful to someone else too

[1]:
[https://github.com/mattbierner/blog.mattbierner.com/issues/1...](https://github.com/mattbierner/blog.mattbierner.com/issues/11)

[2]: [https://blog.mattbierner.com/anwar-
wave/](https://blog.mattbierner.com/anwar-wave/)

------
wayanon
This came at just the right time for me!

