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Ask HN: In my spare time, should I work more or do personal projects?

9 points by csnewb ↗ HN
I've overhauled my daily schedule to include more sleep, incorporate an exercise regime, and spend enough time with my girlfiend/friends. This leaves me with about one to two hours of free time at the end of the day and I'd like to use it productively to improve my programming skills. My goal is to enhance performance at a new job I recently started.

I'm debating between using that time to continue working on work stuff or developing a personal project that's related to what I do at work. I fear that working more will cause me to burn out, whereas a personal project could supplement my work knowledge and avoid burnout because it's something I'm passionate about. On the other hand, what if my project is a waste of time? And if I want to get better at work related things shouldn't I simply continue working on that? Any insight would be appreciated.

7 comments

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mazeway
You "shouldn't" do anything in your spare time. Just do what you want.
citrusx
As long as you're learning, you should do whatever feels right. Don't overthink it. You can always switch things up if you feel like you're overdoing anything.

One benefit to doing your own thing, is that it can help beef up your github "portfolio". But, don't feel beholden to that or anything.

jarfil
Unless you are really insecure about your proficiency in any work-related tasks, I would strongly suggest against doing anything work related in your spare time.

It would only dilute your salary (now you're working 1-2 extra hours every day for the same pay), and while it might provide you a slight productivity boost (unless you burn out), if you ever were to need those hours back it would be difficult to explain the lower performance at work.

If you want to improve your skills, I would suggest reading, taking a course, working on your own projects, anything by spending time on work-related stuff.

Unless you're the founder, in which case what are you doing not working 24/7.

dylanhassinger
lately i've been trying to kill 2 birds with one stone - using my spare time to create open source modules that support what I'm doing at work, but also are something I can take with me and use on my own projects.

To get away with it, I look ahead and predict what I'll be working on down the road, then I build some modules on the weekend. Then next week when the need arises, I can say "hey I built this thing that might help, want to use it?"

at this rate i should have a full framework done by the time i'm ready to move on

(this strategy works with OSS, but could be done with blogging too. like how Ryan Hoover blogged furiously about his previous job before ProductHunt.)

tmaly
I was in the same boat, I went with a personal project not related to work so I could have more control and learn new things. It ended up improving my skills at work so it was a win win.
ochronus
Practicing engineering manager here: if you're overly enthusiastic about your current project/task and you can learn from it then it's ok to work more but in general I'd suggest doing personal projects, widening the horizontal bar on your T-shape (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills) and/or getting your feet wet in different fields like UX, online marketing or product management. I'm always super excited and proud when I hear my engineers talk about their sideprojects on our 1on1s.

I find that (constant) overtime is just not worth it. While it may seem like good citizenship to put in constant extra effort but in the mid- or long run you'll feel that it becomes an expectation and you're not being compensated for it. It will lead to burn-out with time. If the projects are constantly badly planned/estimated use your extra time to get better at planning and estimation and coach your team on it - if you're slow and that's why you'd need to work more then use your extra time to get better in your trade with focused practice.

a_lifters_life
Develop something in your free time your really interested in. It gives you peace and mind to work on whatever you want, and design and develop a solution a new way. I would never say its a good idea to work OT, unless really justified.