I'm currently doing this. Basically, I work for four hours per day doing mostly Django and back-end stuff and a bit of dev/ops and Angular for some great folk

I'm currently doing this. Basically, I work for four hours per day doing mostly Django and back-end stuff and a bit of dev/ops and Angular for some great folk at a growing startup. I spend two unpaid hours per day focusing on learning something (currently Rust). I spend another two hours per day working on my own project. Currently, that's a React Native app designed to make it easy to write books by speaking into your phone. I'm using it to dictate my own book as I develop the app. After that I try to spend time with my wife and kids. It's pretty nice so far. One interesting thing I've learned is that I enjoy the contracting as much or more than the stuff I do on my own. There's something about human interaction that adds a bit more fun. At the same time, it matters a lot to me to have freedom to learn and build without taking too much time from the family. For that reason, and because money is good to earn, I think that when my Rust has matured a little bit I'll probably try to find a gig that lets me use it in for pay alongside the Django work.