How do you balance side project coding with your job during the workweek?

Comments

[Si]

I've recently had to find the right balance for this, after realising I might actually be able to make my side project a success.

Work time (8-5) is work. I don't touch my side project.

I travel two hours on the train every day and I work on my side project then, in the evenings and at weekends.

[Chirag Jain]

I have started keeping hard cut-off for work time, no job related tasks get done before 8AM and after 4PM unless company is loosing big money on it right now.

Meetings will become emails. You'll waste less time in the workplace.

The second thing that has helped is keeping detailed events in my calendar to schedule almost everything even personal work.

[Not my circus, not my monkeys]

Doesn't seem like a difficult thing to balance.

If you're on your employer's dime you work on their projects and leave your own side projects at home. Once you're off the clock you get to work on whatever you want.

As long as you don't have any obvious conflicts of interest it's pretty simple. If your side project is something that could put your employer out of business it's worth treading carefully but if there's no overlap at all it's simple enough.