The great thing about doing open source work is that you decide how much or how little time you want to put into it. I have a full time job and two small kids.

The great thing about doing open source work is that you decide how much or how little time you want to put into it. I have a full time job and two small kids. I'm usually out of the house with the family on weekends, and after work, I sometimes play video games or read manga. I rarely ever attend meetups or hackatons because I live and work uptown and frankly don't have time to be driving downtown. Yet, I still find time to work on my project (usually after the kids have gone to bed). I used to also do it on the commute when I took transit to work. There's really no real secret to doing open source. Working on my project is something I truly enjoy doing, so I often "stew" on problems and next steps while driving or eating or before falling sleep, and on the nights I feel like working on the project, I just sit down and do. If sitting down to do open source feels like a chore, then it probably isn't for you (and there's nothing wrong with that!) Like anything else that might get stalled by procrastination, every time you sit down to work, you just have to pick some small thing to complete, so that you can get into a roll. Working on open source to scratch an itch is also a good way to incorporate open source into your day job.