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Hi Matt, Congrats on making it! I'd never heard of your projects but will give them a serious look now. How did you go about managing work/side-work/life bala

by primax 4y ago

Hi Matt, Congrats on making it! I'd never heard of your projects but will give them a serious look now. How did you go about managing work/side-work/life balance with 4 kids? I really struggle with just 1 and a half.

dmueller39 4y ago
Not Matt, but I have a similar situation (3 kids, FT job, side project). My side project has been running for a few years now, but I am able to be pretty productive on it. First, I wake up early, and make sure the side project is the first thing I do every day. There's a book "the richest man in Babylon" and one of the ideas is "pay yourself first". I take that principle to my side project. I work on the side project first thing in the morning, to ensure I give it my best. I still want to learn and deliver good work at my FT job, but I've always ensured that from a time perspective I've paid into the side project first, because I believe thats the best long term career investment. Unfortunately, yes, this means that you need to set an alarm, but I enjoy the work, so I don't feel like I'm dragging myself out of bed. That leads me to my second point which is make sure you enjoy the side project. I've worked on multiple and the biggest mistake I've made is building something I didn't need or want. I built a few projects because they were technically interesting, not because I really needed them. For SAAS you might not necessarily directly need or enjoy the tool you build, but you better enjoy building it, and enabling others to use it! If not, it will be difficult to keep up motivation when things get tough. GL!
matt1 4y ago
In Preceden's early days, I didn't have any kids, so could work on some nights and weekends and it was no issue. When we started having kids and I was still full time, I greatly reduced much time I had to work on side projects. That eventually led me to switching to a contractor role with reduced hours because it was too hard to juggle a full time job, a SaaS, multiple kids, and my sanity. I never worked on Preceden when I should have been working on my full time job, and tried not to work on it much when I should have been spending time with my family. Definitely figure out your priorities and work with your spouse to come up with some ground rules that help you make it work long term.

by primax 4y ago

dmueller39 4y ago

Not Matt, but I have a similar situation (3 kids, FT job, side project). My side project has been running for a few years now, but I am able to be pretty productive on it. First, I wake up early, and make sure the side project is the first thing I do every day. There's a book "the richest man in Babylon" and one of the ideas is "pay yourself first". I take that principle to my side project. I work on the side project first thing in the morning, to ensure I give it my best. I still want to learn and deliver good work at my FT job, but I've always ensured that from a time perspective I've paid into the side project first, because I believe thats the best long term career investment. Unfortunately, yes, this means that you need to set an alarm, but I enjoy the work, so I don't feel like I'm dragging myself out of bed. That leads me to my second point which is make sure you enjoy the side project. I've worked on multiple and the biggest mistake I've made is building something I didn't need or want. I built a few projects because they were technically interesting, not because I really needed them. For SAAS you might not necessarily directly need or enjoy the tool you build, but you better enjoy building it, and enabling others to use it! If not, it will be difficult to keep up motivation when things get tough. GL!

matt1 4y ago

In Preceden's early days, I didn't have any kids, so could work on some nights and weekends and it was no issue. When we started having kids and I was still full time, I greatly reduced much time I had to work on side projects. That eventually led me to switching to a contractor role with reduced hours because it was too hard to juggle a full time job, a SaaS, multiple kids, and my sanity. I never worked on Preceden when I should have been working on my full time job, and tried not to work on it much when I should have been spending time with my family. Definitely figure out your priorities and work with your spouse to come up with some ground rules that help you make it work long term.