A few tips I use to work a few hours per day on side projects: Skip TV, don't watch any news or read newspapers, have an ambitious goal and foresee time to lear

A few tips I use to work a few hours per day on side projects: Skip TV, don't watch any news or read newspapers, have an ambitious goal and foresee time to learn new skills or technologies. I can take days in this way to learn something new or to solve a bug, but spending a few hours per day over 6 months really adds up. When tired from your day job and feeling full from diner your body wants to be in the couch. But when you open your laptop, put on lounge music in the headphones, magic happens after 10 mins: you actually feel refreshed and happy you can work on something you like or learning some new things. The difficult part is to start. I never work on my side projects in my home office, but put myself in the kitchen or in the living room with the rest of the family. Although I can't use my second screen, it's still refreshing to be away from the home office desk. Do a simple calculation of how many hours of productive work you do during the day. With all interruptions, meetings, small talk.. you'd be lucky if you get 2-3 hours of focus time. You can easily get to 2-3 hours of quality time in the evening. So in fact it's the same net effect of a full normal workday, and you can work on stuff you like.