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Some nice pointers, well done to the author for keeping up with it. I would love to see similar tips adapted for parents of small children. Ones that start wit

Some nice pointers, well done to the author for keeping up with it. I would love to see similar tips adapted for parents of small children. Ones that start with “I wake up at 6 am by my toddler who just woke up, is already going 100% and wants to play Snow White”. Or “I break my fast at 11 am because I didn’t have time to eat before, and then I forgot”. I find myself using the phone to just switch off my mind from the usual overdrive of looking after kids, it’s probably not healthy but a tired mind craves something outside of toys and child dramas.

roland35 5y ago
Exactly! I found that a strict schedule goes out the window pretty quick with small children. What I try to do is have a few "anchor points" throughout the day - 11am is always lunch, 1 pm is nap time, 7:30 is bedtime. The rest of the day is pretty flexible. In order to get work done, I try to package my workflow so the feedback loop is as tight as possible. For coding, that means small tasks, good test loop, easy to deploy. I try to do at least a little each day, even 15 minutes, just to prevent myself from forgetting how everything works. It may not seem optimized, but I know the kids are quickly getting older and I'll both have more free time later and also miss spending lots of time with them when they were small!
mrweasel 5y ago
I’m currently struggling with this, I have a three year old, and a wife who work in retail. On the positive side, also every afternoon is set aside for my kid. The downside is that project of any kind is more or less relegated to a few hours in the evening or the few weekends with no other plans. As children get older they love helping with project around the house, but still, finding time is hard. My biggest success is keeping a list of small tasks, stuff which can be done in less than 15 minutes. You can actually churn through quite a few of those during an afternoon.

roland35 5y ago

Exactly! I found that a strict schedule goes out the window pretty quick with small children. What I try to do is have a few "anchor points" throughout the day - 11am is always lunch, 1 pm is nap time, 7:30 is bedtime. The rest of the day is pretty flexible. In order to get work done, I try to package my workflow so the feedback loop is as tight as possible. For coding, that means small tasks, good test loop, easy to deploy. I try to do at least a little each day, even 15 minutes, just to prevent myself from forgetting how everything works. It may not seem optimized, but I know the kids are quickly getting older and I'll both have more free time later and also miss spending lots of time with them when they were small!

mrweasel 5y ago

I’m currently struggling with this, I have a three year old, and a wife who work in retail. On the positive side, also every afternoon is set aside for my kid. The downside is that project of any kind is more or less relegated to a few hours in the evening or the few weekends with no other plans. As children get older they love helping with project around the house, but still, finding time is hard. My biggest success is keeping a list of small tasks, stuff which can be done in less than 15 minutes. You can actually churn through quite a few of those during an afternoon.