Every time I start working, my mind explodes with new ideas of personal side-project.

But, unfortunately, I don't have the time to develop them

I see a lot of people (here on dev.to but also on youtube, dribbble, linkedin, etc..) wich can work as a fulltime employee and also on their personal projects.

So the question is:

Where do you find the time...

or better,

How can you work full time, have a private life and work also on your personal projects?

Do they work in the night? Or they just leverage their private lifetime in advantage of side-projects development?

I'm getting crazy for that.. I love to develop and I want to make some side-projects for different reasons: passive incomes, personal growing or just knowledge sharing.

But I can't find the time to do that, or just I can't develop 80h per week like a robot. I work 40h per week and live with my girlfriend, so I love (and need) to share my free time with her or just need to do my house jobs in my free time, because my full time job is taking my energies during the week.

How do you suggest to proceed? How do you develop your personal projects?

Comments

[David Anton Alvarez]

I work full time and live with my girlfriend (soon my wife), like you. So I had the same problem in the past.

I do not think that what I ended doing is the best solution, but for me it is worth it and it's easy to implement: wake up earlier.

My daily routine is:

• I wake up at 4:50 am
• I arrive at the office at 6:30 a.m. (Fortunately, the building is open 24 hours a day), and do my things until I start my work from 8:00 a.m. to 17:30 p.m.
• Gym time 4-5 times a week.
• Family time, dinner, until 22:30 pm - 23:30 pm that I am going to sleep.

I leave my leisure activities, such as video games, for my days off. And yes, I don't sleep too much, but, in my opinion it worth it.

Following this schedule, I was able to complete the didactic part of the Python Crash Course book, and right now I am studying new things.

It may seem that an hour and a half a day is little to develop projects, but keep in mind that it will be time of pure productivity, without distractions (there is no noise in the street, nobody will talk to you by whatsapp or email, nobody will interrupt you).

[Nicola]

That's a cool schedule, I'll give a try.

I've thinked about this solution in the past but the main issue is my chronic headache.

During my work lifecycle (9am - 6pm) I work really hard because I'm working in a R&D Team so we face a lot of new strong issues and strong development phases, a lot of study and a lot of coding. So when I end with my job I don't have any energy to do anything else (like videogaming or just reading a book), so I'll try doing before my work day..

Thanks for your advice! ^{^}

[David Anton Alvarez]

It's like the gym, some people say that it's better to do the cardio before lifting weights, some says the opposite. Just give it a try, and think how you feel. :-)

[Nicola]

Yes of course I'll do mate thanks a lot! ^{^}

[Derick Hess]

Set aside a set time that is specifically for working on personal projects. Maybe it's Tuesdays and Thursday evenings from 8-10pm or an hour a day, or maybe a 4 hour block once a week. Whatever works for you.

The main thing is, you set this aside as a regular part of your schedule, just like you would for the gym. If the expectation is that there is a regular time just for you to work on personal projects, then you can work social life around that as well.

[Nicola]

Thanks for your reply!

Yes I understand, I'm trying like you say but I think 1 hour is not much for my projects (I think I need like 6 hours per day :D), but I will work on my projects organization to reduce the quantity of time dedicated per day!