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I really think with a proper full time job working long hours its unrealistic to spend much time on any side project. Its much healthier to try to spend time wi

by rb808 7y ago

I really think with a proper full time job working long hours its unrealistic to spend much time on any side project. Its much healthier to try to spend time with friends and family, or hobbies. If you have young children there is little chance. What everyone should strive for is the side project at work. Making new tools, monitoring systems, refactoring some library, user friendly applications, experimenting with new languages. Google is famous for the 20% project, but most people can get away with spending a few hours a week on whatever they want while working. If you deliver something useful its also a good way of getting recognition.

robohoe 7y ago
Agreed - having a pet project at work can really make you well known. It's far more realistic since you're already in the working mode in your brain. At the end of the long day you could not get me to code anything anymore. But while I'm at work I still have some mental strength left to do the code gymnastics. Who knows, that pet project might get picked up by the enterprise as a product or an internal tool that others might use. In my past experience, some of the pet project dashboards that I made to make my life easier have been picked up by higher ups since they improved troubleshooting/time to recovery metrics.
baxtr 7y ago
I really think it depends. You would not say that it’s a bad idea if someone did more sport, started a new language or went hiking. The point is: it might give you a lot of energy and doesn’t feel like an extra burden, and, may potentially develop into something bigger. In any case it’s better than binge watching Netflix
- MS90 7y ago
  But sports, languages, hiking, etc. are all different activities. I'm already coding at work 40+ hours a week, the last thing I want to do when I get home is code even more.
  - johnward 7y ago
    I know a guy that codes for 40 hours. Goes home and codes. Spends other time preparing for conference talks. Goes to the bar and actually codes at the damn bar. This dude absolutely loves to code. I just do this for the money. I spend my free time with my wife and son.
comboy 7y ago
Side project at work is a different thing. I do recommend them (at home), but that's irrelevant. It's irrelevant, because if coding is something you love doing, you will have many side projects and enjoy them not caring all that much about their profitability or how do they look in your CV. And if you don't, why would you want one? Do the things you love. Possibly consider changing your career (but I guess this may be tough especially if you are a good coder).
nickjj 7y ago
Over the years I tried a number of ways to develop things on the side. Ultimately I've learned what works best for me is to put as much time as I can into something until it's done. One concern I have with a few hours a week is unless the project is really really tiny, you can begin to think that it'll never get done and it fizzles into nothingness. For example let's say you want to make X app and it takes you 2 full time months to go from an empty folder to shipping an MVP. Let's just call it 300 hours. But if you only put in 5 hours a week (about 1 hour a day) it will take you 60 weeks to finish it. That's over a year of chipping away on something which is a very long time. You'll probably drop it well before you finish it because it'll feel like it's dragging along forever.
- tiborsaas 7y ago
  Or it might help you to learn how to drop the useless things and just ship a bare essential MVP.
  - sergent_moon 7y ago
    Or, maybe even more, recognize that the fun was in the developing, and not in the shipping. Don't stress over it not getting done. I have a ton of abandoned side projects, and I don't regret a single one. I also don't regret stopping them when they stopped being fun.
    - tiborsaas 7y ago
      I've designed and shipped my side project after a year, presented it at meetups, social media, but now I'm struggling with marketing. I have very little motivation to work on it, but I have endless drive to polish the codebase and features :) But I also know that 2-3 visitors per day will case me to abandon the whole thing. It's tough, shipping is only the second step.
      - illegalsmile 7y ago
        I have a hard time with marketing too as it seems the most hustle oriented and requires constant vigilance. My motivation dwindles much past the website/product design but everyone likes the product. My project is stupid simple and has a niche customer base. I don't know but I'm thinking it might be best to hire a marketing person on fiverr or upwork and have them manage marketing. I don't know if the return would be worth it though. Have you looked into hiring someone to do the social/marketing work?
oarsinsync 7y ago
Some of us work in technology and aren't coders. Having to do requirements capture, design, coding, end user testing can be a hobby in itself if it's not what you do for your day job. My last side project took me about 50 hours of effort across two weeks, taught me a lot about python, and made me ~$6000. The previous one took me about 200 hours, and made me and a friend $9000. In both cases, I was motivated by the financial potentials (that never really lived up to what they were in my head), and the technical challenge. Getting paid to solve problems with friends is great fun, if it's not what you do for a living. In that sense, I don't understand how some of my friends play Factorio, but then most of them are programmers, so I guess it doesn't feel like work to them...
- fjp 7y ago
  Curious how you identify side projects with earning potential?
  - oarsinsync 7y ago
    I knew people who were struggling to find work, performing menial tasks online for scraps of change, and built systems for them to optimise their workflow. It still required them to put in a lot of time and effort, but I could increase their productive output by 5-50x depending on what they're doing. I did this in exchange for 20-50% of the proceeds. It was a win-win, however it ultimately helped them get back on their feet, get on top of their bills, and then have the mental capacity to look for real work again. Once they got a real job, they stopped. Which I suppose is a good thing overall.
adam12 7y ago
Apparently, Google's 20% project should really be called 120% work - it was in addition to and not in place of their work. https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/the-myth-of-google-s-20-time https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/the-my...
- lucideer 7y ago
  I worked on a Google.org project (my company was the beneficiary), and our time spent with Googlers was their designated paid CSR days (we're not even talking 20% time). They were fully expected to be always-on, taking calls and completing work to deadlines during their "volunteer" hours with us. Their contributions to our project were of very limited value, not through any fault of the individual contributors but just through the fact that they weren't really allowed any headspace to engage with our project.
cs02rm0 7y ago
Horses for courses. Do what works for you / your family. Whether that's a side project or not.
lucideer 7y ago
> If you have young children there is little chance. It's tough but (imho) well worth having a side-project if you don't have kids. I don't, but if I did I can't imagine how a side-project would even be possible.
- tlarkworthy 7y ago
  I managed a side project over the pregnancy, birth and to age 4 of my twin girls and full time job. I dropped down to 15 mins a day, but a tiny amount of forward progress aggregated over years can achieve a lot. And actually, I got so good at context switching by having clear todos, that those 15 minutes I got were worth a good 15 mins. You get to spend the rest of the day mulling about how to use those 15 mins that the quality was surprisingly high and going down the wrong path was rare. I had to save refactors for Christmas though.
  - tartoran 7y ago
    This is a good practice. I find that diligently doing like 15 min a day tasks sets you up to subconsciously put your mind to solve problems when you’re busy with less analitical cognitive tasks around the house/family or idle moments. The project’s always on the back of your mind this way and when you spend 15 minutes you’re in the save to disk mode.
whack 7y ago
> I really think with a proper full time job working long hours its unrealistic to spend much time on any side project. Its much healthier to try to spend time with friends and family, or hobbies. If you have young children there is little chance. I hear this comment every time this topic comes up, and quite honestly, it is BS. If you're in the minority of people who are spending every waking hour productively, maybe this is true. But for the majority, it certainly isn't. I know plenty of people who spend >10-20 hours every week on: - Watching TV - Surfing the web - Playing games - Watching sports - Going camping/hiking etc - Weekend trips - Fishing - etc etc etc When someone suggests hiking, reading and meditation as a good way to spend your free time, everyone nods along and talks about how wonderful it is. But when someone talks about building a side-project, suddenly everyone has twin babies and elderly parents with dementia who are taking up every waking minute. There's nothing wrong with any of the other alternatives listed above. If you're burnt out from coding, go ahead and do whatever gives you happiness and satisfaction. But please acknowledge that building side-projects is eminently realistic, and for some people, will give far more happiness and satisfaction than binging netflix.
- blub 7y ago
  Building a side project is work, spending time with family, camping, going on trips isn't. It's not so much that we can't accept that some people enjoy working, it's that they're screwing their health. There is no free lunch, staring at monitors for years on end will take its toll. Gaming and watching TV aren't healthy for computer workers either.
  - archi42 7y ago
    I partially agree with you: The notion of "programming as a hobby" starts to fade for some once they're doing this professionally. Since I'm working 40h/week as a software engineer I find much less motivation to do PC related stuff (this includes gaming). That was different, I used to do random programming after school just because I could. During university this became less. However, I do enjoy most of my work, so there is that. And this is why I originally started studying physics - I wanted to keep programming as a hobby, but figured out I probably wouldn't really enjoy working in physics and then switched to CS. Regarding health: I think with this you're wrong. It depends on the "how much". Staring at a monitor 8h at work, driving home, stare at a TV/monitor another 6h munching fast food, go to bed, wake up, repeat; this is probably quite bad. But get home by bike or foot (if feasible), program/game/watch TV for an hour or two, go outside, do some sport, reduce unhealthy food, and you can probably get by quite fine.
helpPeople 7y ago
Side project + hobby = euphoria. Find the intersection
mindcrime 7y ago
I really think with a proper full time job working long hours Why would you be working "long hours" at your full-time job?
- redisman 7y ago
  I mean the standard 40h + 3-10h commuting per week is already long hours IMHO. People usually work the hours their employer sets, so.
  - jlokier 7y ago
    I try to commute on a train. Sometimes it's feasible to work while on the train, and a long commute is less of a problem.
  - mindcrime 7y ago
    Ah, OK. I thought something different was being said by "long hours." To me, ~40 is "normal", but when you start talking 50+, that's "long hours". And I don't think anybody should be doing that unless they're being compensated appropriately.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
smcameron 7y ago
During my short time at Google, I never knew anyone that had time for a a 20% project, and such projects had to be approved by management and have some kind of alignment with the company objectives. I think the Google 20% project of old died a long time ago, before I ever worked there. I knew plenty of people there that had various open source side projects outside of work though.
TaylorAlexander 7y ago
Actually I managed to find a job where I’m doing what I love at a good pay rate but only 4 days/ 20 hours a week. So I have lots of time for my really big side projects and I still go hiking and see friends and family. If we’re talking life hacks in this thread then try to find a job that lets you work 20 or 30 hours a week.
- melvinroest 7y ago
  Probably obvious question, but needs to be asked: do you have any tips? I'd love a 30 hour work week. 20 would be too little for me, or so I'd like to believe.
  - souprock 7y ago
    Hmmm, just ask? Places that do timecards are probably more likely to say "yes". My employer allows it. Benefits other than health insurance (which is fully paid w/o any paycheck deduction) will be pro-rated to whatever you sign up for, but you can still work the extra hours for more pay. So for example if you promise 30 hours but work 36 hours, you'd get 75% benefits and 90% pay. If you promise 32 hours and work 50 hours, you'd get 80% benefits and 125% pay.
  - TaylorAlexander 7y ago
    Sure. Don't work salary, work hourly. I did it as a contractor at Google so the pay was still good, but I'm not "taking" anything from my employer if I leave early. Google also has the benefit of not needing to be as efficient as possible so they can absorb some amount of reduced output. Bill in 15 minute increments, and always be working if you're billing. If a coworker asks you how your weekends was, engage and say hello, but keep it under 5 minutes. Longer than 5 minute breaks, clock out (even if just mentally keeping track or keeping track on paper). If you work a solid 6-7 hours a day 5 days a week, you'll probably be just as productive as your salaried coworkers, so managers will only notice when they approve your hours. Be good at working alone. Its hard to work in a team if others work 40 hours a week and you work a lot less. Other team members think if you don't work as much you're not committed (IMO a spurious correlation). Continue this schedule unless a manager demands you work more. If they are passive about it ("we'd prefer you work more, but we won't actually ask that of you"), then continue with your 30-35 hour weeks. If you can continue doing it, it forces the organization to decide if your schedule is a real problem (and fire you) or just something they think looks weird but they are willing to deal with. Keep doing valuable work so the momentum of keeping you even at fewer hours is worth more than letting you go. Find some other passion work outside of work. Open source, robots, sewing, hiking, family time, etc. Tell your managers and coworkers how much you love your projects so they know you won't just say okay if they were to push you to work more. Also, finding stuff to enjoy is the point. Push to 30 hour weeks if you can. Five 5-6 hour days is 25-30 hours a week. I'd usually have one 3 hour day when I had to leave early for therapy appointments (and I would happily not come back in to work after!) and then one 8 hour day to balance it. Surf this wave of staying useful while working less as long as you can. In my case the maximum allowed two year contract was coming to an end and my half-assed efforts did not warrant hiring me full time (I didn't try or want that anyway). Then when looking for new jobs, I realized the biggest thing to me was working fewer hours. I applied to several places and one place I found really didn't care how much I worked. They key stipulation for me was that I would work 4 days a week, about 30 hours a week. They said that was fine, they cared mostly about total project cost not time taken. In reality I've settled in to about 20 hours a week and we're still making great progress on the project. So in summary: be pushy, prioritize yourself, accept some risk, and once you're used to that schedule make it a requirement for new jobs. It takes a lot of privilege to pull it off so not everyone can do it, but it's possible.
mk89 7y ago
So you are suggesting unpaid overwork, right? I agree that it can be educational, however, it can also give your boss the false pretense that you are gonna do it "outside the sprint". I personally did that mistake in the past, and I have seen people do the same. Never again. Again, the only good thing in that is the learning part and, if you want, the satisfaction. However, you can't even publish it, which means in terms of visibility, nobody knows what you do outside work. And what when they ask you "any side projects?" in job interviews?
eric_khun 7y ago
OP here , > full time job working long hours its unrealistic to spend much time on any side project. Something I don't mention in the post is you should focus to reduce time you are working for "others". I feel not great when my friends tells me they stay at work because it's written in their contracts and they have nothing to do. Also when I hear 50+ hours a week (that I do at rare occasions), it gives me chills. It's about company culture and if they're focus in work life/balance or not. Some companies try concepts like the 4 days work week that I think amazing! > Its much healthier to try to spend time with friends and family, or hobbies. If you have young children there is little chance. I agree! I don't have a wife or children, but I'm sure if I had, I'd also spend time with them :)

by rb808 7y ago

robohoe 7y ago

Agreed - having a pet project at work can really make you well known. It's far more realistic since you're already in the working mode in your brain. At the end of the long day you could not get me to code anything anymore. But while I'm at work I still have some mental strength left to do the code gymnastics. Who knows, that pet project might get picked up by the enterprise as a product or an internal tool that others might use. In my past experience, some of the pet project dashboards that I made to make my life easier have been picked up by higher ups since they improved troubleshooting/time to recovery metrics.

baxtr 7y ago

I really think it depends. You would not say that it’s a bad idea if someone did more sport, started a new language or went hiking. The point is: it might give you a lot of energy and doesn’t feel like an extra burden, and, may potentially develop into something bigger. In any case it’s better than binge watching Netflix

MS90 7y ago
But sports, languages, hiking, etc. are all different activities. I'm already coding at work 40+ hours a week, the last thing I want to do when I get home is code even more.
- johnward 7y ago
  I know a guy that codes for 40 hours. Goes home and codes. Spends other time preparing for conference talks. Goes to the bar and actually codes at the damn bar. This dude absolutely loves to code. I just do this for the money. I spend my free time with my wife and son.

comboy 7y ago

Side project at work is a different thing. I do recommend them (at home), but that's irrelevant. It's irrelevant, because if coding is something you love doing, you will have many side projects and enjoy them not caring all that much about their profitability or how do they look in your CV. And if you don't, why would you want one? Do the things you love. Possibly consider changing your career (but I guess this may be tough especially if you are a good coder).

nickjj 7y ago

Over the years I tried a number of ways to develop things on the side. Ultimately I've learned what works best for me is to put as much time as I can into something until it's done. One concern I have with a few hours a week is unless the project is really really tiny, you can begin to think that it'll never get done and it fizzles into nothingness. For example let's say you want to make X app and it takes you 2 full time months to go from an empty folder to shipping an MVP. Let's just call it 300 hours. But if you only put in 5 hours a week (about 1 hour a day) it will take you 60 weeks to finish it. That's over a year of chipping away on something which is a very long time. You'll probably drop it well before you finish it because it'll feel like it's dragging along forever.

tiborsaas 7y ago
Or it might help you to learn how to drop the useless things and just ship a bare essential MVP.
- sergent_moon 7y ago
  Or, maybe even more, recognize that the fun was in the developing, and not in the shipping. Don't stress over it not getting done. I have a ton of abandoned side projects, and I don't regret a single one. I also don't regret stopping them when they stopped being fun.
  - tiborsaas 7y ago
    I've designed and shipped my side project after a year, presented it at meetups, social media, but now I'm struggling with marketing. I have very little motivation to work on it, but I have endless drive to polish the codebase and features :) But I also know that 2-3 visitors per day will case me to abandon the whole thing. It's tough, shipping is only the second step.
    - illegalsmile 7y ago
      I have a hard time with marketing too as it seems the most hustle oriented and requires constant vigilance. My motivation dwindles much past the website/product design but everyone likes the product. My project is stupid simple and has a niche customer base. I don't know but I'm thinking it might be best to hire a marketing person on fiverr or upwork and have them manage marketing. I don't know if the return would be worth it though. Have you looked into hiring someone to do the social/marketing work?

oarsinsync 7y ago

Some of us work in technology and aren't coders. Having to do requirements capture, design, coding, end user testing can be a hobby in itself if it's not what you do for your day job. My last side project took me about 50 hours of effort across two weeks, taught me a lot about python, and made me ~$6000. The previous one took me about 200 hours, and made me and a friend $9000. In both cases, I was motivated by the financial potentials (that never really lived up to what they were in my head), and the technical challenge. Getting paid to solve problems with friends is great fun, if it's not what you do for a living. In that sense, I don't understand how some of my friends play Factorio, but then most of them are programmers, so I guess it doesn't feel like work to them...

fjp 7y ago
Curious how you identify side projects with earning potential?
- oarsinsync 7y ago
  I knew people who were struggling to find work, performing menial tasks online for scraps of change, and built systems for them to optimise their workflow. It still required them to put in a lot of time and effort, but I could increase their productive output by 5-50x depending on what they're doing. I did this in exchange for 20-50% of the proceeds. It was a win-win, however it ultimately helped them get back on their feet, get on top of their bills, and then have the mental capacity to look for real work again. Once they got a real job, they stopped. Which I suppose is a good thing overall.

adam12 7y ago

Apparently, Google's 20% project should really be called 120% work - it was in addition to and not in place of their work. https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/the-myth-of-google-s-20-time https://channels.theinnovationenterprise.com/articles/the-my...

lucideer 7y ago
I worked on a Google.org project (my company was the beneficiary), and our time spent with Googlers was their designated paid CSR days (we're not even talking 20% time). They were fully expected to be always-on, taking calls and completing work to deadlines during their "volunteer" hours with us. Their contributions to our project were of very limited value, not through any fault of the individual contributors but just through the fact that they weren't really allowed any headspace to engage with our project.

cs02rm0 7y ago

Horses for courses. Do what works for you / your family. Whether that's a side project or not.

lucideer 7y ago

> If you have young children there is little chance. It's tough but (imho) well worth having a side-project if you don't have kids. I don't, but if I did I can't imagine how a side-project would even be possible.

tlarkworthy 7y ago
I managed a side project over the pregnancy, birth and to age 4 of my twin girls and full time job. I dropped down to 15 mins a day, but a tiny amount of forward progress aggregated over years can achieve a lot. And actually, I got so good at context switching by having clear todos, that those 15 minutes I got were worth a good 15 mins. You get to spend the rest of the day mulling about how to use those 15 mins that the quality was surprisingly high and going down the wrong path was rare. I had to save refactors for Christmas though.
- tartoran 7y ago
  This is a good practice. I find that diligently doing like 15 min a day tasks sets you up to subconsciously put your mind to solve problems when you’re busy with less analitical cognitive tasks around the house/family or idle moments. The project’s always on the back of your mind this way and when you spend 15 minutes you’re in the save to disk mode.

whack 7y ago

> I really think with a proper full time job working long hours its unrealistic to spend much time on any side project. Its much healthier to try to spend time with friends and family, or hobbies. If you have young children there is little chance. I hear this comment every time this topic comes up, and quite honestly, it is BS. If you're in the minority of people who are spending every waking hour productively, maybe this is true. But for the majority, it certainly isn't. I know plenty of people who spend >10-20 hours every week on: - Watching TV - Surfing the web - Playing games - Watching sports - Going camping/hiking etc - Weekend trips - Fishing - etc etc etc When someone suggests hiking, reading and meditation as a good way to spend your free time, everyone nods along and talks about how wonderful it is. But when someone talks about building a side-project, suddenly everyone has twin babies and elderly parents with dementia who are taking up every waking minute. There's nothing wrong with any of the other alternatives listed above. If you're burnt out from coding, go ahead and do whatever gives you happiness and satisfaction. But please acknowledge that building side-projects is eminently realistic, and for some people, will give far more happiness and satisfaction than binging netflix.

blub 7y ago
Building a side project is work, spending time with family, camping, going on trips isn't. It's not so much that we can't accept that some people enjoy working, it's that they're screwing their health. There is no free lunch, staring at monitors for years on end will take its toll. Gaming and watching TV aren't healthy for computer workers either.
- archi42 7y ago
  I partially agree with you: The notion of "programming as a hobby" starts to fade for some once they're doing this professionally. Since I'm working 40h/week as a software engineer I find much less motivation to do PC related stuff (this includes gaming). That was different, I used to do random programming after school just because I could. During university this became less. However, I do enjoy most of my work, so there is that. And this is why I originally started studying physics - I wanted to keep programming as a hobby, but figured out I probably wouldn't really enjoy working in physics and then switched to CS. Regarding health: I think with this you're wrong. It depends on the "how much". Staring at a monitor 8h at work, driving home, stare at a TV/monitor another 6h munching fast food, go to bed, wake up, repeat; this is probably quite bad. But get home by bike or foot (if feasible), program/game/watch TV for an hour or two, go outside, do some sport, reduce unhealthy food, and you can probably get by quite fine.

helpPeople 7y ago

Side project + hobby = euphoria. Find the intersection

mindcrime 7y ago

I really think with a proper full time job working long hours Why would you be working "long hours" at your full-time job?

redisman 7y ago
I mean the standard 40h + 3-10h commuting per week is already long hours IMHO. People usually work the hours their employer sets, so.
- jlokier 7y ago
  I try to commute on a train. Sometimes it's feasible to work while on the train, and a long commute is less of a problem.
- mindcrime 7y ago
  Ah, OK. I thought something different was being said by "long hours." To me, ~40 is "normal", but when you start talking 50+, that's "long hours". And I don't think anybody should be doing that unless they're being compensated appropriately.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

smcameron 7y ago

During my short time at Google, I never knew anyone that had time for a a 20% project, and such projects had to be approved by management and have some kind of alignment with the company objectives. I think the Google 20% project of old died a long time ago, before I ever worked there. I knew plenty of people there that had various open source side projects outside of work though.

TaylorAlexander 7y ago

Actually I managed to find a job where I’m doing what I love at a good pay rate but only 4 days/ 20 hours a week. So I have lots of time for my really big side projects and I still go hiking and see friends and family. If we’re talking life hacks in this thread then try to find a job that lets you work 20 or 30 hours a week.

melvinroest 7y ago
Probably obvious question, but needs to be asked: do you have any tips? I'd love a 30 hour work week. 20 would be too little for me, or so I'd like to believe.
- souprock 7y ago
  Hmmm, just ask? Places that do timecards are probably more likely to say "yes". My employer allows it. Benefits other than health insurance (which is fully paid w/o any paycheck deduction) will be pro-rated to whatever you sign up for, but you can still work the extra hours for more pay. So for example if you promise 30 hours but work 36 hours, you'd get 75% benefits and 90% pay. If you promise 32 hours and work 50 hours, you'd get 80% benefits and 125% pay.
- TaylorAlexander 7y ago
  Sure. Don't work salary, work hourly. I did it as a contractor at Google so the pay was still good, but I'm not "taking" anything from my employer if I leave early. Google also has the benefit of not needing to be as efficient as possible so they can absorb some amount of reduced output. Bill in 15 minute increments, and always be working if you're billing. If a coworker asks you how your weekends was, engage and say hello, but keep it under 5 minutes. Longer than 5 minute breaks, clock out (even if just mentally keeping track or keeping track on paper). If you work a solid 6-7 hours a day 5 days a week, you'll probably be just as productive as your salaried coworkers, so managers will only notice when they approve your hours. Be good at working alone. Its hard to work in a team if others work 40 hours a week and you work a lot less. Other team members think if you don't work as much you're not committed (IMO a spurious correlation). Continue this schedule unless a manager demands you work more. If they are passive about it ("we'd prefer you work more, but we won't actually ask that of you"), then continue with your 30-35 hour weeks. If you can continue doing it, it forces the organization to decide if your schedule is a real problem (and fire you) or just something they think looks weird but they are willing to deal with. Keep doing valuable work so the momentum of keeping you even at fewer hours is worth more than letting you go. Find some other passion work outside of work. Open source, robots, sewing, hiking, family time, etc. Tell your managers and coworkers how much you love your projects so they know you won't just say okay if they were to push you to work more. Also, finding stuff to enjoy is the point. Push to 30 hour weeks if you can. Five 5-6 hour days is 25-30 hours a week. I'd usually have one 3 hour day when I had to leave early for therapy appointments (and I would happily not come back in to work after!) and then one 8 hour day to balance it. Surf this wave of staying useful while working less as long as you can. In my case the maximum allowed two year contract was coming to an end and my half-assed efforts did not warrant hiring me full time (I didn't try or want that anyway). Then when looking for new jobs, I realized the biggest thing to me was working fewer hours. I applied to several places and one place I found really didn't care how much I worked. They key stipulation for me was that I would work 4 days a week, about 30 hours a week. They said that was fine, they cared mostly about total project cost not time taken. In reality I've settled in to about 20 hours a week and we're still making great progress on the project. So in summary: be pushy, prioritize yourself, accept some risk, and once you're used to that schedule make it a requirement for new jobs. It takes a lot of privilege to pull it off so not everyone can do it, but it's possible.

mk89 7y ago

So you are suggesting unpaid overwork, right? I agree that it can be educational, however, it can also give your boss the false pretense that you are gonna do it "outside the sprint". I personally did that mistake in the past, and I have seen people do the same. Never again. Again, the only good thing in that is the learning part and, if you want, the satisfaction. However, you can't even publish it, which means in terms of visibility, nobody knows what you do outside work. And what when they ask you "any side projects?" in job interviews?

eric_khun 7y ago

OP here , > full time job working long hours its unrealistic to spend much time on any side project. Something I don't mention in the post is you should focus to reduce time you are working for "others". I feel not great when my friends tells me they stay at work because it's written in their contracts and they have nothing to do. Also when I hear 50+ hours a week (that I do at rare occasions), it gives me chills. It's about company culture and if they're focus in work life/balance or not. Some companies try concepts like the 4 days work week that I think amazing! > Its much healthier to try to spend time with friends and family, or hobbies. If you have young children there is little chance. I agree! I don't have a wife or children, but I'm sure if I had, I'd also spend time with them :)