There's this typical entrepreneur story-line that everyone loves to tell. VC-backed entrepreneur that went "all in", quit their job, and produced a unicorn. TechCrunch loves this stuff.
I feel like this is so misleading and makes people feel like they need to quit their jobs in order to be successful in making side projects or businesses. In general, I feel like we need to eliminate dichotomies in life.
So I wrote from another point of view: one that I am currently living, working FT and building side projects. In many ways I think it's:
1) Doable
2) Perhaps the most healthy and thoughtful approach.
Interested to hear other people's thoughts. Do you really need to quit your job to build a successful business?
The crux is how you define success. There's a reason business is so cut-throat and usually amoral—it's hard to make a scalable business. If you want this kind of outlier success as an entrepreneur you need to go all-in.
On the other hand, keeping a day job and modest lifestyle enables a broader range of success where you build stuff on your own terms that maybe makes a few bucks or improves someone's life, but without the pressure to go big. The vast majority of ideas can't become massive corporations, but a lot of them might change the world in a much more positive way if you can find a way to take money out of the equation.
I'm currently going through the beginning stages of this and I'm finding it incredibly difficult to focus and build something while also having a full time dev job that of course requires over 40hrs of work, plus time spent commuting everyday.
It's really about not being financially independent that keeps me at my job but I can't see why you'd stay at your current job if you can afford to quit and focus entirely on your new venture.
To me it doesn't feel like a healthy option to be essentially working a part time job on top of your normal job while also trying to maintain balance in your life, there simply isn't enough time for it all.
Maybe this is crazy, but it almost feels like getting fired with a severance (something most of the big companies do, but not something you'd get from a startup I'd imagine) would be a blessing in disguise because you'd have a steady stream of income for a couple months allowing you to focus 100% on getting off the ground.
Of course if it doesn't take off then you'll have egg on your face and be in a much much worse position.
edit: It looks like most people are talking about doing this to build a unicorn billion dollar business, but I'm talking just generally I guess in regards to starting a new business.
This definitely strikes a chord with me. I feel that if it's just one person working on a side project then there is less pressure to deliver. On the other hand, when one is working with other people (in our case, I'm the sole developer) on creating a new business it becomes extremely exhausting to manage a full-time job, a new business, staying fit and still having time for social engagements. Fortunately, I have been able to take some time off from full-time work and spend more time on our new business and already feel so much more productive.
I think there are two kinds of entrepreneurs. One is those trying to replace their current job with a hobby they are passionate about and makes them roughly the same amount of money as their current job. Two is those that want to replace their current job with a new one that is 100x more monetarily lucrative than their current one. Your blog caters more to type one entrepreneurs whereas the TechCrunch glorified stories cater to type two entrepreneurs.
we quitted our jobs to make, it is a very challenge but fun journey. Now we make a decision to come back to work and still being makers. Nice article Stepth!
Agreed. Having one or more side projects, a full time job, relationship, etc. is great. People are aspiring to become 'makers' and turning otherwise relaxed side projects (couple hours here, couple hours there) into fully-fledged effort is a massive energy sink that requires some form of sacrifice, and therein lies the struggle.
Slacking off at work is a solution, albeit one that (despite risking career, if that's a de-motivator) could move you closer to burnout via laziness and / or turn a simple dissatisfaction towards your day job into contempt for each working day.
Which is why it's important to either A) know you're the type of person who can slug it out for potential future reward, or B) work on an idea you actually enjoy, will continue to enjoy, and can slack off every now and then
God I hope you're not a manager. When you see an employee's pictures of a strenuous hike they went on, is your first thought that they must be stealing that energy from the company?
GP is probably talking about themselves. I too feel very little energy to program my personal projects after spending the whole day programming for my company
It sounds like you're not that into it. Plus the assumption that people should spend their free time trying to make more money is weird despite being taken for granted around here. It's one heck of a doublethink, if you consider the combination of aspirational self-improvement talk with bald careerism.
Assuming you are right, do you think if I was actually into programming I wouldn't feel too tired for more programming after work?
I'm asking because not having the energy for more programming after doing it for the whole day seems pretty normal to me and not really indicative of being into programming or not but... am I wrong?
I don't think working out zaps work energy I think it would actually enhance it. But doing intellectual work on the job likely reduces capacity for intellectual work off the job at least in that same day.
I agree with you here. After 8 hours of intensive coding, or whatever I could squeeze out of myself that day, going home and doing more of the same is the last thing I want to do. I doubt we can code for 12-14 hours a day steadily for a long period of time.
> I doubt we can code for 12-14 hours a day steadily for a long period of time.
For me, it depends on what I'm coding. If I were to go home and work on something practical or "planned" - yeah, I might not like that much.
But if it's for something fun, or just "playing around" - then I can do that all day long. I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, I recall just "futzing around on my computer". Now, granted, this was in the 1980s - and my computer was an 8-bit TRS-80 - but I played.
That's what I like to do today. I'm not there to make anything revolutionary - but rather just to play around with an idea or concept. Maybe one day it's Python with some OpenGL or QT; maybe another it's maze generation algorithms in Javascript; on another day it might be some kind of sound generation code in QB64!
Just all for fun - for myself. Not for a business, not for anything else much except maybe learning something new, and having some fun!
Being a kid again, in a way; I'm 45 years old, btw.
This could really be anything; you could do the same with hardware - an Arduino project for fun, or maybe Lego (you could combine all three - fun coding on an Arduino to control your Lego motors or whatnot)...
The key is that it isn't work - it is instead play. Just because you're an adult, doesn't mean you can't play, or that you shouldn't play. That's a lie that society wants you to believe.
Instead of thinking "I need me time to make a business" instead just say "I need me time to play" - sure, it won't lead to you becoming rich monetarily, but it will make you happier, possibly healthier.
Call it a hobby, call it playing with your toys, just don't call it work - because it shouldn't be.
For me, this statement is definitely true. I can manage about 3-4 hours of concentrated problem-solving a day at work. While I do do side projects, I have noticed that the energy I spend on them takes some of the energy I normally spend on work.
In the evenings I sometimes don't have enough mental energy to even decide what dinner to cook, let alone work on side projects, so I do most of that on weekends "for fun." Personally, I can't imagine trying to monetize that - I'd burn out way too fast.
>I can manage about 3-4 hours of concentrated problem-solving a day at work.
>In the evenings I sometimes don't have enough mental energy
Here's my solution: Take your most valuable hours for yourself. Work in the morning and sell your less valuable hours. Is your employer going to notice? Extremely likely not.
I am sure your job isn't just heads-down code monkey and involves meetings and other planning that aren't as draining.
Different people will either admit your truth or prefer to remain in denial. We all only have a finite amount of energy every day. The best is when that energy peaks, so it goes to whatever we’re doing at that time. Other competing tasks will get shortchanged, no matter how skilled you think you are at compartmentalizing, time management, etc. Something always has to give.
Yeah I feel this a lot. It's my biggest struggle. I'm not trying to build a product at the moment just doing a year long deep dive into every part of the fundamentals. The aim is to hit 2hrs ~ 3hrs a night of study. The worst thing is when I haven't managed my energy levels correctly and I can only manage 1hr or 1.5hrs and I'm fighting to stay awake. It just feels like I'm losing the opportunity to make use of that time.
There is still plenty to work on in terms of managing energy levels. Most nights I can hit 2hrs but ideally if I could hit 3hr or even 2.5hrs consistently that adds up. It's not a trivial difference.
Sure, which is good information - if you want to keep that "extra 8 hours," don't have kids.
But surely the basic principles of organization and removing distraction can also be applied to those with kids? Kids are time consuming but not all-consuming, I suppose unless you don't have a partner to help out.
Kids are tiny adults in progress, not your personal maker project. They should be afforded as much autonomy as possible, where your only role is to keep them safe and healthy until they can reach an age where they can do so themselves. If anything it's more like having an employer that you do work for free, or even out of your own pocket.
Keeping them safe and healthy takes time. But, there are other things too. Teaching them to be good people, spending time with them to provide them with company and love (their friends aren't available round the clock). Bring up children is like being a small business owner. You nurture them so that they become solid, independent people when they grow up. The ROI is not money, but happiness, which is the ultimate goal of money.
> They should be afforded as much autonomy as possible, where your only role is to keep them safe and healthy until they can reach an age where they can do so themselves.
I don’t see how what they propose is contrary to an upbringing. The goal of parenting is to raise a self-sufficient adult. The sooner you empower them to be autonomous the better they will be.
Yeah, that's the first thing I thought of when I read that everyone has 8 hours a day of "me" time. Nope, no we don't.
630a - 8a: get myself ready, get kids ready
8a - 630p: commute and work (yes, the author does say she eliminated her commute, but this isn't feasible for everyone)
630p - 8p: dinner, get kids to bed
8p - ~9p: dishes, general cleanup, pay bills, etc...things most adults have to do to live
9p - 1030p: 1.5 hours of "me" time if we're going for 8 hours of sleep...no, more like...
9p - 12a: really the only window I have to live. often spent doing more work and really, usually too brain dead to start a side project. again, adulting and parenting are hard and energy intensive. Netflix sounds really good at this point.
1030p - 630a: 8 hours of sleep (haha - i'm really trying to live somewhat of a life so 1130/12 is a more regular bedtime)
I've been considering the 10p bedtime/5a wake up so I can do side projects in the morning, but this still only adds 1.5 hours of time for a total of 3 hours a day.
>I've been considering the 10p bedtime/5a wake up so I can do side projects in the morning, but this still only adds 1.5 hours of time for a total of 3 hours a day.
Do it.
3 hours per day, 5 days a week for an entire year is 720 hours. It's a marathon, not a sprint. And it's not like you need to always do it. Try it out, see if it is for you, worst case you cross the idea off your list.
My only important personal goal this year is to spend 500 hours working on personal goals. Pretty conservative pace (1 hour on 4 weekdays and 6 hours on the weekend), but sticking to anything consistently for an entire year would be a huge personal achievement.
Irony of ironies, I'm actually coming to understand the importance of having "tickets", a backlog, and revisiting progress on a bi-weekly basis (sprints)
Yes, exactly. Life is a marathon and if you put in consistent effort you'll make it to the "finish line". Perhaps slower than some others who had more time to move more quickly or with significant breaks, but you’ll get there.
Maybe a polarizing opinion, but if you put yourself in a box that “doesn’t have enough time” just because you have a commute, are a parent, [insert other excuse here], then it’s the equivalent of sitting at the start line and watching everyone, even the walkers, tread ahead. It's okay if that's what you want, but it is a choice.
That's pretty much how my schedule works out too. The only thing is, by the time I get my kids to bed around 9 or so, I'm so exhausted, mentally and physically, that investing time in my side business is just not gonna happen.
I would guess in an average week, I have about 5 quality hours where I do not have an obligation to someone or something else and am able to spend it as I see fit.
This is my schedule exactly. Cutting coffee made it so much easier to just crash out at 10, which shifts “me” time to the morning when I’m more in the mood to be productive.
Thats a more realistic breakdown. So thinking out loud, this means that maybe one needs to think and figure out the "what to do" ahead of time, while during other mundane activities, to the point of very clear tasks. And then do the tasks during the 1.5 "me" time.
Just a suggestion. It has worked for me before, but I am with you in general. Most days in the 1.5 hr "me" time that I have, Netflix/Hulu on the couch/chair with an IPA sounds pretty great at that point :)
I have a very similar schedule. I use 5am to 630pm to work on my side project. Sure, I only get 1.5 hours a day but it works for me, and over the past 4 years I've made enough progress to keep me happy. My primary motivator is the joy of working on my own idea, but hope to launch this in the next 2 years. (I'm working on an app.)
That's pretty close to my routine as well, and by the end of the day I was a lot of the time too tired to put much (if any) effort into my side project.
As a New Years Resolution, I've been getting up at 5:30 each morning to get 1.5 hours to do my own thing in the mornings, and so far it's been going well. I would still like more time, but constantly getting small amounts done is a great motivator.
I also start a new job in a few weeks that is 4 days a week so I can spend a full day each week on my project. I'll take a small financial hit, but I'm hoping that will be enough to get something worth shipping out the door. If it all goes up in flames, I can always go back to full time without having risked too much.
Outsource some of the work you do while you work and commute. Say, outsource 3-4 hours a day, pick up 1-2 hours as you can. Then your project moves 4-6 hrs a day. I do this, using my income for someone else to build by muse.
I'm single and don't have kids and it still doesn't apply. I have to commute, shower, cook, buy groceries, clean etc.
I'm all about self improvement, side-projects, etc, but his numbers start with the bullshit assumption that someone who spends 8 hours at work is instantly free as soon as the clock strikes 5.
You could interpret that, though, to mean building the lifestyle so that either your commute is easier, a job that you can control the hours better, or simpler living. For example, if you're riding commuter rail to work, that could potentially free up some time to maybe plan things, etc...
I'm pretty sure there's plenty of jobs/careers that this type of thinking wouldn't work at, but to counter that, there's also plenty more where it would.
WTF is this downvoted for? Right up top of the article it explicitly calls out that the author is a woman, yet someone here can’t even be arsed to get it right? Then the person who calls it out is downvoted?!
>start with the bullshit assumption that someone who spends 8 hours at work is instantly free as soon as the clock strikes 5
This is one of the things I noticed as well. About a year ago I started commuting via commuter rail (Boston), and my side project productivity sky rocketed.
I'm guaranteed a seat, and room to put my laptop on my lap for two 1 hour intervals, 5 days a week.
This is an option not many people have, especially in the US.
Previously I've commuted by driving (obviously can't get much coding done then), and subway (too crowded to pull out a laptop). By the time I got home, I'd have already worked at least 8 hours, and spent 2 miserable hours commuting. I was tired, hungry, and hadn't gotten any side project work done.
Now at least I can get 2 good hours in every day, and that productivity momentum sometimes will carry in to the evening now as well, since I'm already in the thick-of-it when I get home. But even if it doesn't I'm working 10 hours/week on something I enjoy, and can easily see steady progress in it. It doesn't even matter how much time I'm able to make for myself when at home now.
> About a year ago I started commuting via commuter rail (Boston), and my side project productivity sky rocketed.
>
> I'm guaranteed a seat, and room to put my laptop on my lap for two 1 hour intervals, 5 days a week.
> This is an option not many people have, especially in the US.
Yeah. Those of in the Bay Area are stuck with CalTrain. You're not guaranteed a train (passengers are regularly "bumped", or denied boarding and told to wait for the next train, particularly bikers), let alone a seat; the trains are just incredibly oversubscribed / underprovisioned.
Also, IIRC, doesn't the MBTA commuter rail also offer free WiFi? CalTrain does not, and cell reception along the CalTrain corridor is flaky at best and outright terrible in some spots (San Antonio — Palo Alto…)
(The T, and the commuter rail, are compartively well run, IMO, and one of, if not the best, public transit systems in the nation.)
Does MA have anything close to CA's legal requirements that employers don't own employee's work when done on their own time with their own equipment?[1] (I.e., does your employer require you to sell your soul to them?)
Way true. I wrote the second half of my novel on my iPhone on the train to and from work. (First half written during the mandatory three month paid “garden leave” when I resigned before I could start the second job).
Similarly, I thought I would be okay commuting by car for a bigger paycheck. A company matched my spoiled demands, and I got a nice fat paycheck.
But still sitting in traffic ~2 hours a day was completely non-monetizable for me, and at the time monetization potential was important to me and this was a total waste.
Now of course, people in the bay area were telling me "wow a 40 minute commute you are so lucky", as many do 1.5-3 hour commutes one way, or they work longer than 8 hours to avoid traffic - for the same salary they would get if they worked less than 8 hours/day for these companies.
But I don't compare myself to them, to the average, its a non-factor for my goals, and I do have luxury of not being subscribed to a commute and was able to quickly remedy the situation. At the expense of no longer working at that job at that high salary.
> I'm single and don't have kids and it still doesn't apply. I have to commute, shower, cook, buy groceries, clean etc.
Not once were you told during the article that all eight hours have to be dedicated to working, i.e. wake and grab your laptop and start hacking.
Obviously the author is more intelligent than that and understands people need to poo, get ill, or sometimes want to hit the cinema. That's made clear in the article also.
I think your conclusion misses the point that you're meant to take that eight hours and use what you can of it to focus on goals. That's why Steph points out that just one hour of work towards a goal over 365 days has a compounding, exponential result.
It's also not a solution for everyone. Take it or leave it.
Kids are a pretty big thing you make yourself with 1 cofounder and a couple team members tbh. Few other maker projects last as long. 18 years is a lot to invest in an MVP
No. You can have kids and still create things, even new businesses. It really is about choice, and good time management. Too often people don't have enough time, but when you really look at what they do, you see where they do have enough time, where they really do make choices. I say this having founded a startup before I was married, and having started a business after having kids, 15 years apart.
There is a spectrum of how engaged you are with your kids as a parent and it would be hard to have a full time job, a side job, and then also be a highly engaged parent.
Also I think it would be even more difficult as a mother.
I think throwaway-1283 isn't necessarily wrong, the author herself said as much -- she chose to forego a relationship for now and focus on side projects. Kids take even more time than just a relationship.
Not as a challenge to you, but just out of curiosity, how old were your kids when you started the latter business? I have an infant now and it's hard to imagine having time at all to do anything outside of work. There just isn't that sort of time. When I was "just" in a relationship or married, I didn't have any problems putting time and energy into both founding a startup and even engage in side projects (even as I work on my startup). Having a baby is a whole new story. I imagine things will get better as kid grows older -- probably better at school age, and then even better at high school/college age. But it'll be a long time. Maybe 15 years later like you said.
Their must-have time demands and wrecking-your-house tendencies don't seem to start to trend significantly downward until age 5 or so. Believe it or not they get much worse before they get better on those fronts, after the infant stage. Sleeping-through-the-night (call it 3 to 6 months) through ~18 months is a pretty great time. 18m to ~4yrs, depending on the kid, is... hellish.
I got a lot of reading done when my kids were infants. Way more than I do now, which is almost none. There's a good long span when you can just read them whatever, since they don't know WTF is going on anyway. Great time to knock a few titles off your own to-read list (yes for the record I did also read them plenty of picture books and such).
My wife and I have a newborn too, and I'm working on both an open-source project and a potential business. Most of the time, after work, I come home and take care of the baby for a bit to give my wife some rest. I basically put the baby in a sling and go about my day. I read her a little book, and play with her for about an hour. But otherwise, the rest of that time I use to work on my projects.
Children are wonderful, but they do not need your constant, undivided attention. I actually think it's better right now with a newborn. Once she starts walking and crawling. She'll need more monitoring.
> Not as a challenge to you, but just out of curiosity, how old were your kids when you started the latter business? I
After they started school. The wife started looking at turning a hobby into a business. A couple pivots along the journey, and it wasn't until last year that we hit on something solid (so about 4 years later, so obviously an "overnight" success). It's still a lot of work, and it's by no means guaranteed, but it's off to a great start.
It's also turning into something else we can build.
What does this require? A desire to make it happen. My wife is the one who deserves the credit. We are here because of her desire to build something. But it's that balance between kids in school and working after they go to bed, and still finding a way to balance work and life. Again, it comes down to choices.
One more minor note, both of our kids have autism, and one is non-verbal, so it's not like they are self-sufficient (the younger one is moreso).
And yes, having a baby is going to impact you right now. It's fine. Use this time to enjoy life. =)
Or not having a relationship or even much of a social life. I've gone through periods when I was single, spent much of my "me time" working on side projects, some of which shipped and made a little money and another one that got funded. Both OP and one of your replies say this is a "choice", which is true. You can have kids and choose to try to spend less time with them if you are not their primary caregiver. You can not spend time commuting or work on side projects during commute if you aren't driving if you choose and get the right job, etc. I think at some point for most people spending time with your kids or partner is more value than fucking around with side projects and "trying to start a business" that doesn't go anywhere. Sometimes you have to build something, and I think in that case you can figure out a way to do it, but just as often its aimlessly building vague ideas that don't ship or go anywhere. Burn out and mental fatigue are also real risks if you push this too far. Although side projects are fun, essentially working two or one and a half jobs for a long period of time (work, eat, work, sleep, repeat) with no real down time or social life will probably burn you out.
edit: That said, I still suggest you don't quit your day job. With the caveat of you should quit your day job if you have savings\runway\revenue\funding to do so, and you'll be ok with your project going nowhere and returning back to a regular day job after that runway expires.
Yeah, I get at most 5 hrs/day of "me time", and I'm just a 20 minute drive from my office with heavy traffic. 5 minutes if the roads are clear.
Granted, I spend hours on HN, reading articles, sometimes even short books, and sneak a YT video every once in a while during work.
I get paid like crap for not so trivial work, so might as well use that time to strive for something better, lol.
A few months ago we had a story here in HN claiming that parents spend more time with their kids now, or at least want to spend more time with them. Not to mention nowadays both parents take care of the kids - a few decades ago outside of dinner and going out on the weekend fathers didn't do much else. Maybe that's why you feel this way.
I have friends whose parents switched careers by studying or working late, and I know some junior developers who are parents who taught themselves to code. So obviously just because you have kids doesn't mean you can't do anything else with your free time. You just have to make choices with your time management, I guess. But I don't know, I don't have kids :-)
It's certainly possible, but as you say "You just have to make choices with your time management". You end up sacrificing what little free time you have to more work. If that's the most important thing to you then you do it, but for most it is not.
I only have one child. I get about 2.5 hours / day to myself (after his bed time, he's only five.) I could certainly spend that time programming, but at this point it's just not what I want to do. I'd rather learn something else or just be a lazy bum.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. It's all doable; my mother worked and went to law school with two children. But it's hard, and most people who say they want to do X but don't have time simply don't want to make the sacrifices doing X would require. People do the same with all sorts of things. Exercise is a big one. "No time" really means "I don't want to spend 30 minutes working out."
We all find time for the things that are important to us.
Or you can also outsource some of the work you do while you work and commute.Outsource 3-4 hours a day, pick up 2-4 hours if you can. Then your project moves 5-8 hrs a day. I do this, using my income for someone else to build by muse.
Sounds like Toptal has some good employment agreements. One restriction keeping people from making, side hustles, etc. are the onerous rules that larger tech companies place on their employees. There are agreements around non-competition, intellectual property ownership, conflict of interest, and other little gotchas. These can be very broad since modern tech companies sprawl across a lot of industries, so even if your specific role is far from the side hustle you want to do, your company might be quite close to it and therefore that is a conflict of interest.
I've actually had the situation where I was blocked from getting paid for tutoring on Codementor.io because it was "getting paid on the side to use skills and know-how that is part of his job".
Of course, this probably doesn't apply for things like bike shops or other types of maker activities that aren't technical. It also probably doesn't apply for pro bono things like open-source contributions.
[EDIT]: added "probably doesn't apply" since it seems like in some cases it can cause problems.
I worked for a Fortune 100 company whose backbone was intellectual property (involved in 100,000+ products) and as you might imagine, their view of what constituted "intellectual property" and any reasonable human being's view were quite different.
During onboarding someone asked about building a table and selling the plans and were told that "they would definitely need to talk to legal".
I've run in to places that wanted to pull "all your intellectual property belong to us", but I don't really think they really wanted this. I think they just want the right of first refusal. If I developed something illegal, then said "well... my employer owns it technically because I did this during working hours" they definitely would try to wriggle out of that IP.
Half the reason for these agreements is because they generally do want all your intellectual property: it means that there's less risk of one of their entrepreneurial employees quitting and starting a competitor, even in an ostensibly unrelated sector.
"Employee agrees that any and all intellectual properties, including, but not limited to, all ideas, concepts, themes, inventions, designs, improvements and discoveries conceived, developed or written by Employee, either individually or jointly in collaboration with others during the term of this Agreement, shall belong to and be the sole and exclusive property of the Company."
That's pretty broad. This doesn't even say "relating to your job", just "intellectual properties... conceived, developed or written by Employee... during the term of this Agreement".
I started working a company with this kind of attitude. I had them not only adjust the contract to only protect their existing IP from theft by me, but also had the General Manager sign a letter stating I was able to continue working on my side business.
Most businesses need you more than you need them. Choose wisely and negotiate.
Is this really a thing in the U.S.? Genuinely curious as I've worked for a major telecom company in Europe, and the the IP ownership belonged to the company only for stuff done during work hours and/or done using company's equipment.
All companies I have worked for over a certain size have come with non-negotiable [1] IP assignment agreements that effectively said the company owns everything you do, at work or at home, on work equipment or on personal equipment. It’s universal as far as I’ve seen.
1: Yes, I have tried the cute “cross out that section yourself and initial it” trick. The response from legal was a stern, unambiguous “Sign it unmodified or GTFO!”
That's quipy but it's true. Some people enjoy burning time in front of a television, but other people have hobbies they enjoy just as much (if not more) and which can be made to break even or even generate a profit.
Gotta agree on don't have enough time argument. I think there are ways to manage time more effectively. There are so many distractions now-days, social media, whatsapp etc, people waste time too much. An ex-Google Tech Lead talks about this here - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-W_VsLXmjJU.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of people that are legally not allowed to make in their free time because the company they work for owns the rights to things they make, even if made fully using their own time. Or the company may forbid working on open source projects under fears of developers sharing ideas that said company believes they're entitled to.
Until the law is changed so that companies don't own things developers make like that, there are many people that lose the motivation to make things in their free time.
I’m an entrepreneur, 2 employees. I may be running to my loss in theory, but by all means I help employees starting their side projects. It is much better to give them ideas for things where you know it won’t collide, and they come back knowing React and SQL.
It has worked so far. A previous one has left for consulting gigs, after a few months trying his gigs under my umbrella company. That was the best « smooth transition », he saw for himself, I got a ~20% cut, and now he’s dying under paperwork to create his own company (we live in France, which explains why it would have been even harder for him to create his company when he was unsure he liked it), and I have set a nice example of « promoting » which helps me recruit.
Employees are not owned. They were where I was 10 years ago. People change jobs. It’s part of the success of a career. They go through our companies but I’m tired of employers acting like their employees don’t exist after the end of their period or as if they owned property.
The last time I was job hunting (in Texas), I brought a copy of California Labor Code section 2870 with me and made it clear that this needed to be part of my employment contract.
If job hunting isn't realistic for you, at the very least you should have a serious conversation with your boss. The next time you are up for a promotion or a raise, hand them a copy of 2870 and say "that's nice, but this is what I really want".
Print it out. Bring it up in your 1-on-1's. At the very least, make sure your boss isn't surprised as to the reason why you eventually jump ship.
I have freely ignored these agreements in the past without any consequence. Once I got a "talking to" by a VP about my level of commitment. I also had one employment agreement claim I was not allowed to have any sort of side business. I disagreed, and actually sold services to my current employer while I was there. Many employers don't even know what is in their own contacts. It's boiler plate.
This was in the past and there was not much risk. These days I freely disclose my outside endeavors before the offer is signed. It’s never been a problem.
I have gotten really serious at trying to start a business this year.
I devote Monday through Thursday to working on my business. After work I take an hour to an hour and a half break. Then I work for five to six hours, then thirty minutes break before bed.
Friday through Sunday, I devote to writing, resting, or other things. Honestly it's mostly resting, because I'm way beyond burnt out.
The thing is I'm spent after my work day. I'm making more errors at night, causing more rework and frustration. I was also concerned about layoffs/loss of job. So I was dipping time into job searching.
That's not even getting into the existential what am I doing with my life. I'm early 30s and wasting the bulk of my youth trying to start a company. It's depressing to me to be locked to my computer for 13 to 14 hours a day. I love working on my business idea. But I have music I want to work on, novels, etc. Places I want to see.
This past weekend I went to a weekend startup accelerator. It has been years since I felt like that. My brain was firing on all cylinders, and I was working on a team. The past several years of my career. Have been death marches, and projects that are cancelled mid stream, and I'm flying solo. This is why I want to start a business, but I'm just so exhausted all the time.
I have done the quit and take a few months off in the past. Those were the happiest I've been in my career. But something has yanked me back to a full time job, because I need money asap.
Then the last portion as someone else mentioned. The inane invention assignment clauses. My last role took ownership of everything past, present, and future I thought. Irregardless of medium. My current role tried that, but I got an addendum to the contract. I had a past employer try and sue me because we left on bad terms, and they drowned me in legal fees.
Sure you don't need to quit. But if you want your sanity, and some legal peace of mind it's the best thing.
I don't have a business, but I have been working on a side project for almost 5 years after hours, I commit about 20 hours a week to it. At the beginning I tried what I called 'super days' that sound a lot like yours. What I found is that while I was 'working' those 5-6 hours at night I was not very productive mostly due to mental exhaustion. Then on 'off days' I was way too exhausted to do anything, and I never fully recovered. For my project (creative in nature) this caused crippling Creative Productivity Anxiety and depression.
About 1.5 years into the project I broke my foot (long story) which meant I had to change things, then I had a kid about a year later, which caused me to change again. Both of those were really good developments
What I found is that a far better schedule for me was to spread things out. Now I still put in about 20 hours a week, but it is in the form of 1.5 hours at night on week nights and 6 hours on Saturday and 6 hours on Sunday. The Saturday and Sunday time is generally split three ways (morning before family wakes up, kid's nap time, evening after kid goes to sleep) I feel like I get more work done because I have the mental ability to actually work for each of those pieces of time.
Schedule may look different for you, hobbies, family, etc. But I would definitely suggest with exploring smaller pieces of Second Work, especially on week days.
With kids, I've adopted a similar way of working on my projects. During the week I really only have ~1.5 hours a day of focused time that I can spend on my projects. I've found a great system that help a lot with that:
1. Plan specifics and next-steps while watching the kids. This is not to say you should ignore them or anything. An hour of dedicated play with the kids is usually followed by an hour of them playing with each other or doing something independent quietly (super important skills for them to learn IMO). When they are watching Sesame Street or playing with each other I have a note-taking app and Google Docs on my phone. I can plan next steps, write content, manage the project's social media, etc. from basically anywhere while still keeping an eye on the kids. I also make and maintain a TODO list broken down into bite-sized tasks in the note taking app (the default notes app that comes with Android). Using a phone in this way is more rewarding than surfing Reddit/HN anyways, and it will fundamentally change your relationship with your phone for the better.
2. Since most planning is already done (see step 1), when I have dedicated time to work on the project I already have a list of bite-sized tasks I can accomplish. Doing even one tiny task a day adds up way more quickly than you would believe. e.g. I do furniture, so on one day I photograph a completed chair, another day I cut fabric for cushions, etc. Maintained over the long-term, this adds up to a ton of progress without burnout. My guiding philosophy for this is "consistency + effort = improvement".
This system also works great for people with long commutes (assuming you're not driving)!
> them playing with each other or doing something independent quietly (super important skills for them to learn IMO)
+100 for this. Our kids just don't. Maybe 5 min, and then "mom! dad!". And we drop everything and go relieve them of their duty to entertain themselves. I feel like this is a failing on our part as parents. And it makes everything worse for everyone.
I'm curious if you have any practical measures you've followed to get past this.
Everyone will have different experiences with this, but I wonder how old your kids are? We didn't really experience a lot of the self-entertainment until our kids were 5 and 3 - at that point they began being able to cooperate and play well enough with each other that they could get engrossed (either in parallel or together) and allow us to focus primarily on non-kid-stuff.
Not sure it's the right thing(tm) to do but I generally make it "worse" for both of them if they ask me to solve their fights. E.g. if they fight and shout "Mom! Dad!" I'll tell them "Great that you're not playing any more, here are some chores that need doing".
IME, once they learn to read (and assuming you can instill or kindle [pun not consciously intended, but left] a love of reading), that problem will more than solve itself.
All kids are different. Within a reason, there is no "failing" as each combination is unique and there is no way to compare or run A/B test to say that one particular way is "failure" and one is "success"
This damn clause is the bane of my existence. It is the main thing stopping me from pursuing a side project because even if the project succeeds, I won’t own the rights to it anyway.
I’ll probably ask my employer to approve some side projects as independent work and have them excluded from their ownership, but I feel like even asking that question paints me as someone who isn’t dedicated to my full time job. I’ve been at my current company for less than a year so I’ll probably wait a bit longer before submitting the request.
I just put a line through it and my initials and signed it and handed it to my boss, he flipped through and signed and that was the end of it.
I don't have any commercial projects outside of work but the idea that an employer can claim ownership of something that comes out of my head into my machine in my time is bonkers.
If you want to own the other 8 awake hours of my life after the first 8 you have to double my pay.
I've done that on my last 3 employment contracts and no-one has ever even commented.
Your story seems similar to a number of other people I know or have met. Here are my thoughts (hope you find them useful/valuable in some way):
(1) Get your diet and sleep taken care of. Nothing fancy. Just find something in both areas (diet and sleep) that improves your energy levels and is easy to maintain.
(2) You are working long hours at your current job. Try taking short ~2-5 min. breaks every ~20-30 minutes and attempt a longer break (~10-15 mins.) about every two hours. Your breaks can be as simple as staring at your screen or at your desk and daydreaming. The point is to get your mind off the current task for just a little bit and then step back into your workflow. Ironically, I have found that taking those short ~2-5 min. breaks has often been diffcult because I feel like I can just keep going and my energy levels won't be affected. Rid yourself of that feeling if it comes up. The short breaks have given me a lot more energy daily, weekly, etc.
(3) Find someone to bounce ideas off of for whatever business you are working on. Doesn't need to be a co-founder or a mentor or whatever. Just find someone to talk with about the project you are excited about working on.
(4) Make finding your first customer a top priority. There will be a wealth of benefits (tangible and intangible) for you when you get that first sale; when someone gives you real money in exchange for something you built. If you've already made some sales, then plan and execute on furthering sales and getting more traction (self-evident). I can't stress enough, though, the importance of getting your first customer if you haven't already.
(5) Filter everything for what is relevant, so as to optimize time spent and energy expended. One of the best pieces of advice that was given to me came from my undergrad thesis advisor. I was 21, and up until that point in life typically read all or most of the books I ever started reading. It felt unnatural and awkward to not complete a book, because not doing so seemed like I would miss something important or that I was doing an intellectual disservice to the author.
Together with my advisor, I had selected ~35 books that would form the basis of my research. I still remember sitting excitedly in his office with the books stacked beside his desk, as I looked forward to diving into the research. He told me (paraphrasing), "Look, there is absolutely no need to read all of the material in any of these books. Flip through them to find the portions relevant to your project and disregard the rest."
That was a freeing moment for me, and one which eventually led to a heightened ability to nearly always sift for only what is relevant (regardless of domain, function, project, deliverable, task, etc.).
>But I have music I want to work on, novels, etc. Places I want to see.
I'd like to do all of those (and have made some movies and music beyond software work), but one has to ask: does the world really need (or could use) more music, novels, and SaaS?
And why would it need mine? Do I have a 1 in 10 million unique take on those things and unique talent? Or am I piling to the rest of the noise?
At some point I think for most the motivation is not some primal urge / can't do without (else they'd be doing it already as their first focus), but just "it would be fancy to write a book/make a movie/release an album".
That's the hobby part though. We were discussing the "wanna leave my job / do that other stuff" part.
And while I can understand music, is novels and movies something people routinely non-professionally as a hobby for "self-actualization"? Those are more wannabe lifestyles.
I recently got serious about writing fiction (still mainly for myself, though) and I did notice that I tended to be quite burned out after work, especially toward the end of the week. I was irritated that The Man was getting my best hours, which mostly seemed to happen in the morning.
So, I got one of those wake-up lamps and started getting up very early (4-5). I get plenty of time to wake up and then concentrate on my own thing with zero distractions before I head to work at 9-ish.
I have never been a morning person but this arrangement has made me feel more personally fulfilled and happier at work too because I'm not worried about getting home and then having to write, or saving my mental energy for my own purposes.
The only problem is I tend to get sleepy around 9 or so, but I can stay up when I want to and if anything it means I drink less and get more sleep.
I'm not a hard-working, sleep-deprived entrepreneur. I just have a hobby that requires clarity, presence, and focus for me to be happy with the results, and I've found that the morning is the best time for that state of mind.
You sound like someone who wants to do a lot of different, separate things, and probably puts pressure on themselves: even when working hard on your business you’re asking “why haven’t I completed that music yet!” Etc
It may help to think of your life as “epochs” or “seasons”. Sometimes you’re in a work period, or in a startup epoch. Another time you’re in a travelling season. It’s easier to split your interests over time than to parallelise in the present. The season idea can be greatly reassuring - “oh, I’m not doing enough music now, but that’s because I’m in a work period. Focus on work, do that, that’s enough. Spare time - rest, recuperate, so I can do better work tomorrow.”
I think there are certainly some benefits of focusing on one thing or epoch, but I do wonder if most of my energy going toward one thing would make me no longer enjoy that particular thing. Regardless, I like the concept and how it perhaps pertains to people's continuous change/growth.
In my view, instead of cutting down on your fun time and activities, you can cut down on your expanses, so that you need to work less and thus create more free time for yourself. It's much healthier to work half-time or 3 days a week or something like that - and then use that extra time for your own projects and still have enough of it left for a normal life, family, friends, reading books, going out. What author proposes is certainly doable, but not something I'd really want to do to myself: no relationships, no tv (or books or games or sport), no much social life, just work and sleep. Maybe I'd do it for a while if I had a really promising, unicorn kind of idea, but just to fool around with side-projects and learn new stuff it seems like a hell of a sacrifice on his side.
Yeah kids and commuting eat at least half that. Take another hour off, minimum, for basic chores to make sure you have food and your house doesn't turn into such a disgusting mess that makes the nightly news.
Also all hours aren't created equal and congratulations, you now have what are probably your three—at most—worst hours left to try to "make" in, without cutting into sleep. BTW unlike a job the time commitment is barely better on the weekends. Hope you can work productively while having 1-10 minute interruptions every 1-10 minutes. If not then the math's identical to that for a weekday.
I heard this advice from various people over the years. It's not bad advice, but it's missing some details
This advice only works if your side project and your day job aren't equally intense ie. if you're programing for your day job and your side project involves more programming, you will burn out. You can pretend that you relax with even more programming, but your body will disagree.
To make this work beyond a few months or a year as a programmer, you will either need to do an easier side project where ideally you're not doing the programming; or better yet you will need a very easy day job that doesn't use up the bulk of your daily creativity and problem solving stamina. Yes, it is a finite resource. The true ideal situation is being able to work on your personal projects during down time at your day job...
Also as someone else already mentioned, read your employment contract. Outside of places like California, the IP portions of that contract are draconian ie. your employer will own any idea that you generate whether it is on the job during office hours, or in your sleep or free time at home. This is even more important to keep in mind if you work remotely even just part of the time.
> if you're programing for your day job and your side project involves more programming, you will burn out.
Then as stated in the article, only work on the side project for an hour a day over 365 days. Time is on your side and it's OK if it takes a year to get to an MVP. Look at Stardew Valley, for example.
> better yet you will need a very easy day job that doesn't use up the bulk of your daily creativity and problem solving stamina. Yes, it is a finite resource.
This is a fair point. That being said you can always focus on side projects that aren't related to the day job (and in some cases that might have to be the case contractually.) For example I'm a DevOp by day, but my business is moving into VR.
Stardew Valley is a weird example because the guy spent four and a half years working 12-hour days and did _everything_ themselves.. not sure that's the comparison you want here.
(and their family/girlfriend supported them, they did work as a theatre usher occasionally apparently, but their "day job" was largely the game above even normal standards)
> Stardew Valley is a weird example because the guy spent four and a half years working 12-hour days and did _everything_ themselves.. not sure that's the comparison you want here
That's exactly the comparison I want: he took his time and demonstrated that it can be done give the time available to us. If you can only give six hours, then I guess it would take eight years. There's also another lesson to be learnt here: don't do everything form scratch :P
> and their family/girlfriend supported them
I'd replace a girlfriend that doesn't support me; I'd disconnect from a family who doesn't support me.
You were saying "1 hour a day!" and then mentioned a guy who didn't work anything close to full time at a paying job for nearly 5 years to work 12 hours 7 days a week on something that _might_ pay on release..
He worked on something over a long period of time knowing simply that it's OK for something to take time to complete. He understood the challenges ahead and planned his days accordingly.
The point of the Steph's article isn't to only think inside of eight hours, but to think about time management, patience, focus, and other key aspects as a whole, to get the better picture of the path forward.
It doesn't matter if it takes four months or forty years to make a project: it's making it that counts.
It actually runs counter to your point and aligns with mine better. His day job as an usher was not mentally draining compared to his work on Stardew Valley
> Then as stated in the article, only work on the side project for an hour a day over 365 days. Time is on your side and it's OK if it takes a year to get to an MVP. Look at Stardew Valley, for example.
That's actually not true. According to the GQ interview:
"It took him four and a half years to design, program, animate, draw, compose, record, and write everything in the game, working 12-hour days, seven days a week."
Stardew Valley is the antithesis to the article. Eric Barone worked full time on the game while his girlfriend supported him.
imo if you're programming, it'll take a lot longer to finish anything if you're only doing it in 1 hour daily increments vs a few hours in a single day a week. Flow is important. That's not counting the mental stamina that's been drained by the day job.
The other scenario that can happen is that your performance at your day job will suffer, if you continue programming after your typical 10-14 hour programmer work shift.
I never said it took him 12 months to complete the game. I never stated he worked on the game on the side. My point is simply that it's OK for something simple to take a long time; it's OK to work on something over a long period of time, on the side or otherwise.
If you want to make something and it takes five years: OK. If you want to make something and it takes five months: OK. The point is: do it, and do it by managing time better and staying focused.
When asked what surprised him about humanity the most, the Dalai Lama replied:
“Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
On the flip side, if no one was anxious and everyone was perfectly enjoying the present, it could be that no one would ever bother to even invent the wheel.
On the flip side's flip side, if people weren't so anxious about carving their life out, it could be that we'd have plenty more Edison's and da Vinci's inventing great things for the fun of it.
On the flip side's flip side's flip side, if people weren't anxious about making money and building a future all those fun ideas might not have gotten monopolized for use
They may have gotten the idea while idling, but it still took work to design and test prototypes. This would obviously be more true for the many more advanced inventions that have come since.
I highly doubt a single person created the wheel out of nothing. The idea of a circle is part of our innate biology we are hard wired to recognize or create circular shapes.
Most likely several people tried to create the wheel and ideas on what to do with a circular shape were thought of, some cross pollination from physics resulted in it being used for transportation.
So I’d argue it was not done on a sunny day but mostly as an obsession just like most every other game changing idea
The wheel is trivial and obviously anyone could come up with the idea. The reason wheels weren't used universally from the dawn of time is that axels had to be invented first. In order to invent a cart that can support enough weight to be more useful than a donkey, you first need to invent metallurgy.
The simplest form of a wheel is a wooden log. The prototypes were readily available and supplied by nature.
Now to make an actual wheel, with spokes and mostly 'hollow' inside and to put it on an axle - would have required better tools, so the wheel was probably created/invented quite naturally alongside the advances in metallurgy.
I think there can be a balance. Even compared to when I grew up in the 70s everything seems more accelerated now to the point of overwhelming. I think we can have progress without going crazy.
In our society, I fear that our fear is not that no one would bother to invent the wheel, but rather that no one will buy our automatically-renewing annual subscription to the wheel.
I've done a bit of Buddhist study my self and it wasn't for me. It was as if it was telling me to sit still and just relax. Well, I'm keen on relaxing and such, but there's also problems to be solved.
So enjoy the present, be in the moment, but don't neglect the future (or your health) as if it's not going to come.
> On the flip side, if no one was anxious and everyone was perfectly enjoying the present, it could be that no one would ever bother to even invent the wheel.
I don't think the idea is that people should stop investing in the future but that they should enjoy the path to get there as well.
The idea that you should just be unhappy but it will all be worth it once X happens is not good for your well being. Life can be hard and even stressful but that doesn't preclude you from being happy or fulfilled. For example, if you are working your butt off, you can feel happy that you did so.
I started piano at 20 years old which is really old compared to most serious pianists. I practice 4 hours a day despite working full time. I know that it is entirely possible I will never reach the level as the greatest pianists but I try anyway. I think the fact that I am not depending on being great to be happy makes it easier for me to keep going because each week I feel improvement and I know I worked hard and that makes me happy.
That’s a bit rich coming from Tenzin Gyatso — a man who lived in utter opulence as the leader of an elite priest-class and ruled over serfs who would be tortured if they didn’t do as they were told.
>Until 1959, when China cracked down on Tibetan rebels and the Dalai Lama fled to northern India, around 98% of the population was enslaved in serfdom. Drepung monastery, on the outskirts of Lhasa, was one of the world's largest landowners with 185 manors, 25,000 serfs, 300 pastures, and 16,000 herdsmen. High-ranking lamas and secular landowners imposed crippling taxes, forced boys into monastic slavery and pilfered most of the country's wealth – torturing disobedient serfs by gouging out their eyes or severing their hamstrings.
This was just the first google result for 'dalai lama slaves' (no quotes). The West wants to think that Tibet is the the good guy, since China is _obviously_ the bad guy, but it turns out that history doesn't have good guys and bad guys; it has humans, and humans at the top of large-scale traditional hierarchies tend to be cruel to humans at the bottom of those hierarchies. So it goes.
Pretty sure the Tibet was invaded before the Dalai Lama even had a chance to show what sort of ruler he would have been. The only people who speak negatively of him are Chinese.
Here's one of the comments from the guardian under that article:
buddhabuddha
12 Feb 2009 2:55
0
1
As Cheese Commando pointed out in the very first comment in this string, Sorrel Neiss did indeed used to work for China Daily in Beijing -- China's English language Pravda.
Ho hum though -- plurality of opinion and all that: we wouldn't want to sink to Beijing's level and censor her, right? (We can correct her though on those waaaay wayward notions of China's hospitals in Tibet, etc.)
As the Dalai Lama himself concedes, Tibet was indeed quite a dark and savage place; many other places in Asia, Africa and Europe were also dark and savage at the same time -- including of course China.
Indeed, the Dalai Lama was on the point of instituting a series of social and governmental reforms in Tibet -- who knows if they would or wouldn't have worked -- when the Chinese People's Liberation Army invaded.
Many people strive to achieve which leads to a greater satisfaction than anything else. Of course it all sounds bad when you completely take away accomplishments and fulfilment.
I think it depends on the business you are building and also on yourself. I don't think everyone will be able to build something good without quitting. I also don't think it's not impossible to build a business while having a job.
I think what most people fail to recognize is that building a business can take years. Everyone thinks (including me, welp) that you can build next big SaaS in a couple of weeks. The truth is that you can't. It will take probably a couple of months at least. The sooner you realize it, the sooner you will succeed.
Our policies are very vague, and when i followed them and honestly notified my company that i want to try something on the side (even using my PTOs) which had no conflict of interest - i was denied.
So, had to chose by current stable job and an adventure.
Here's the sequence that worked for me, though it may be possible to go straight to step 4, idk:
1. Stop drinking. Enough said there.
2. Get away from work for a week or two. Go on a vacation and remove all your VPN, Outlook, etc from your computer and your phone. Tell your coworkers you will be off the grid, and trust them to handle whatever might arise (they can!). Remove any bookmarks related to work. Do everything you can to keep work out of your mind and hard to access.
3. Get rid of other distractions while you're away. For me it's books. So don't take books with you or go anywhere near a bookstore. (My inlaws' house was great for this!). Remove time suck apps from your phone, bookmarks from your browsers, and set up website blockers for HN etc.
3a. Quit expecting to find enlightenment by reading. A quote from some "Einstein" guy: "Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking."
4. Get started. There was an article a few days ago about writing a book in 10 min per day. The important part is doing something each day. Start one day by writing 10 min of code toward the thing you've been thinking about. (10 min of thinking doesn't count). And make that dedication to do so every day. For the first few days you'll probably find 10 minutes going to ten hours, and you'll have made some meaningful progress on the thing you've been thinking about.
Eventually life will take over again but you have to keep the commitment to the 10 minutes. And whatever it turns into each day. This can be done with work, school, kids, etc.
And since you've already removed the distractions, don't bring them back for a while. You'll get used to life without them and eventually you won't need them anymore. And it's amazing how the quality of life improves without the constant tug to follow every inane analysis of every inane tweet by Trump or AOC (if you're not a billionaire there's nothing you can do about it anyway--sure vote and campaign etc but following tweets doesn't help that, and if it's important enough news you'll find out somehow), or every iPhone rumor or whatever else consumes too many neurons for you currently.
And seriously, get away from work when you're away from work. Evenings included. The always-connected thing is not as necessary as it seems, and the modern ideal of it seems to be a bane on our individualism as a species. Make logging in, checking emails, etc during off-hours the exception to the norm.
The one MAJOR caveat I have with this is that, depending on what you have signed with your employer, there’s a pretty good chance that your employer can claim ownership of what you’re doing. And it’s one thing if you’re making art or something in my spare time, but a side-business may well turn into working for free for your employer.
“Relate at the time of conception or reduction to practice of the invention to the employer’s business, or actual or demonstrably anticipated research or development of the employer” — for large enough employers, this encompasses a lot.
honestly, I worked it out between commute and family responsibilities, plus taking care of myself I have 500 ~ 750 hours of "me time". Not 3000. 500 ~ 750.
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 303 ms ] threadI feel like this is so misleading and makes people feel like they need to quit their jobs in order to be successful in making side projects or businesses. In general, I feel like we need to eliminate dichotomies in life.
So I wrote from another point of view: one that I am currently living, working FT and building side projects. In many ways I think it's: 1) Doable 2) Perhaps the most healthy and thoughtful approach.
Interested to hear other people's thoughts. Do you really need to quit your job to build a successful business?
On the other hand, keeping a day job and modest lifestyle enables a broader range of success where you build stuff on your own terms that maybe makes a few bucks or improves someone's life, but without the pressure to go big. The vast majority of ideas can't become massive corporations, but a lot of them might change the world in a much more positive way if you can find a way to take money out of the equation.
Not every company needs to be next Fb/Google/Amazon. Nothing wrong with having revenue in millions and not billions if you are profitable.
I don't want to assume anything, but from what you've said, it seems like scaling his time up and down as needed would've been very easy.
People with hardset 35 - 40 hour / week jobs where they aren't their own boss can't really scale time commitments that easily.
Otherwise, I definitely agree.
It's really about not being financially independent that keeps me at my job but I can't see why you'd stay at your current job if you can afford to quit and focus entirely on your new venture.
To me it doesn't feel like a healthy option to be essentially working a part time job on top of your normal job while also trying to maintain balance in your life, there simply isn't enough time for it all.
Maybe this is crazy, but it almost feels like getting fired with a severance (something most of the big companies do, but not something you'd get from a startup I'd imagine) would be a blessing in disguise because you'd have a steady stream of income for a couple months allowing you to focus 100% on getting off the ground.
Of course if it doesn't take off then you'll have egg on your face and be in a much much worse position.
edit: It looks like most people are talking about doing this to build a unicorn billion dollar business, but I'm talking just generally I guess in regards to starting a new business.
If you slack enough at your main job to have the energy to push your side project you're doing a disservice to your employer.
Slacking off at work is a solution, albeit one that (despite risking career, if that's a de-motivator) could move you closer to burnout via laziness and / or turn a simple dissatisfaction towards your day job into contempt for each working day.
Which is why it's important to either A) know you're the type of person who can slug it out for potential future reward, or B) work on an idea you actually enjoy, will continue to enjoy, and can slack off every now and then
Assuming you are right, do you think if I was actually into programming I wouldn't feel too tired for more programming after work?
I'm asking because not having the energy for more programming after doing it for the whole day seems pretty normal to me and not really indicative of being into programming or not but... am I wrong?
I can't see why it would matter if those hours were spent at home or in an office.
So yeah, I'm sure that it's not sustainable long-term.
For me, it depends on what I'm coding. If I were to go home and work on something practical or "planned" - yeah, I might not like that much.
But if it's for something fun, or just "playing around" - then I can do that all day long. I don't know about you, but when I was a kid, I recall just "futzing around on my computer". Now, granted, this was in the 1980s - and my computer was an 8-bit TRS-80 - but I played.
That's what I like to do today. I'm not there to make anything revolutionary - but rather just to play around with an idea or concept. Maybe one day it's Python with some OpenGL or QT; maybe another it's maze generation algorithms in Javascript; on another day it might be some kind of sound generation code in QB64!
Just all for fun - for myself. Not for a business, not for anything else much except maybe learning something new, and having some fun!
Being a kid again, in a way; I'm 45 years old, btw.
This could really be anything; you could do the same with hardware - an Arduino project for fun, or maybe Lego (you could combine all three - fun coding on an Arduino to control your Lego motors or whatnot)...
The key is that it isn't work - it is instead play. Just because you're an adult, doesn't mean you can't play, or that you shouldn't play. That's a lie that society wants you to believe.
Instead of thinking "I need me time to make a business" instead just say "I need me time to play" - sure, it won't lead to you becoming rich monetarily, but it will make you happier, possibly healthier.
Call it a hobby, call it playing with your toys, just don't call it work - because it shouldn't be.
In the evenings I sometimes don't have enough mental energy to even decide what dinner to cook, let alone work on side projects, so I do most of that on weekends "for fun." Personally, I can't imagine trying to monetize that - I'd burn out way too fast.
Different people are different, though.
>In the evenings I sometimes don't have enough mental energy
Here's my solution: Take your most valuable hours for yourself. Work in the morning and sell your less valuable hours. Is your employer going to notice? Extremely likely not.
I am sure your job isn't just heads-down code monkey and involves meetings and other planning that aren't as draining.
These are generally the MOST draining activities.
There is still plenty to work on in terms of managing energy levels. Most nights I can hit 2hrs but ideally if I could hit 3hr or even 2.5hrs consistently that adds up. It's not a trivial difference.
But surely the basic principles of organization and removing distraction can also be applied to those with kids? Kids are time consuming but not all-consuming, I suppose unless you don't have a partner to help out.
You don't believe in upbringing?
630a - 8a: get myself ready, get kids ready
8a - 630p: commute and work (yes, the author does say she eliminated her commute, but this isn't feasible for everyone)
630p - 8p: dinner, get kids to bed
8p - ~9p: dishes, general cleanup, pay bills, etc...things most adults have to do to live
9p - 1030p: 1.5 hours of "me" time if we're going for 8 hours of sleep...no, more like...
9p - 12a: really the only window I have to live. often spent doing more work and really, usually too brain dead to start a side project. again, adulting and parenting are hard and energy intensive. Netflix sounds really good at this point.
1030p - 630a: 8 hours of sleep (haha - i'm really trying to live somewhat of a life so 1130/12 is a more regular bedtime)
I've been considering the 10p bedtime/5a wake up so I can do side projects in the morning, but this still only adds 1.5 hours of time for a total of 3 hours a day.
Do it.
3 hours per day, 5 days a week for an entire year is 720 hours. It's a marathon, not a sprint. And it's not like you need to always do it. Try it out, see if it is for you, worst case you cross the idea off your list.
Maybe a polarizing opinion, but if you put yourself in a box that “doesn’t have enough time” just because you have a commute, are a parent, [insert other excuse here], then it’s the equivalent of sitting at the start line and watching everyone, even the walkers, tread ahead. It's okay if that's what you want, but it is a choice.
I would guess in an average week, I have about 5 quality hours where I do not have an obligation to someone or something else and am able to spend it as I see fit.
Just a suggestion. It has worked for me before, but I am with you in general. Most days in the 1.5 hr "me" time that I have, Netflix/Hulu on the couch/chair with an IPA sounds pretty great at that point :)
As a New Years Resolution, I've been getting up at 5:30 each morning to get 1.5 hours to do my own thing in the mornings, and so far it's been going well. I would still like more time, but constantly getting small amounts done is a great motivator.
I also start a new job in a few weeks that is 4 days a week so I can spend a full day each week on my project. I'll take a small financial hit, but I'm hoping that will be enough to get something worth shipping out the door. If it all goes up in flames, I can always go back to full time without having risked too much.
I'm all about self improvement, side-projects, etc, but his numbers start with the bullshit assumption that someone who spends 8 hours at work is instantly free as soon as the clock strikes 5.
I'm pretty sure there's plenty of jobs/careers that this type of thinking wouldn't work at, but to counter that, there's also plenty more where it would.
Her. Not just men are becoming makers. :)
Shame, HN.
This is one of the things I noticed as well. About a year ago I started commuting via commuter rail (Boston), and my side project productivity sky rocketed.
I'm guaranteed a seat, and room to put my laptop on my lap for two 1 hour intervals, 5 days a week.
This is an option not many people have, especially in the US.
Previously I've commuted by driving (obviously can't get much coding done then), and subway (too crowded to pull out a laptop). By the time I got home, I'd have already worked at least 8 hours, and spent 2 miserable hours commuting. I was tired, hungry, and hadn't gotten any side project work done.
Now at least I can get 2 good hours in every day, and that productivity momentum sometimes will carry in to the evening now as well, since I'm already in the thick-of-it when I get home. But even if it doesn't I'm working 10 hours/week on something I enjoy, and can easily see steady progress in it. It doesn't even matter how much time I'm able to make for myself when at home now.
> This is an option not many people have, especially in the US.
Yeah. Those of in the Bay Area are stuck with CalTrain. You're not guaranteed a train (passengers are regularly "bumped", or denied boarding and told to wait for the next train, particularly bikers), let alone a seat; the trains are just incredibly oversubscribed / underprovisioned.
Also, IIRC, doesn't the MBTA commuter rail also offer free WiFi? CalTrain does not, and cell reception along the CalTrain corridor is flaky at best and outright terrible in some spots (San Antonio — Palo Alto…)
(The T, and the commuter rail, are compartively well run, IMO, and one of, if not the best, public transit systems in the nation.)
Does MA have anything close to CA's legal requirements that employers don't own employee's work when done on their own time with their own equipment?[1] (I.e., does your employer require you to sell your soul to them?)
[1]: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
But still sitting in traffic ~2 hours a day was completely non-monetizable for me, and at the time monetization potential was important to me and this was a total waste.
Now of course, people in the bay area were telling me "wow a 40 minute commute you are so lucky", as many do 1.5-3 hour commutes one way, or they work longer than 8 hours to avoid traffic - for the same salary they would get if they worked less than 8 hours/day for these companies.
But I don't compare myself to them, to the average, its a non-factor for my goals, and I do have luxury of not being subscribed to a commute and was able to quickly remedy the situation. At the expense of no longer working at that job at that high salary.
Not once were you told during the article that all eight hours have to be dedicated to working, i.e. wake and grab your laptop and start hacking.
Obviously the author is more intelligent than that and understands people need to poo, get ill, or sometimes want to hit the cinema. That's made clear in the article also.
I think your conclusion misses the point that you're meant to take that eight hours and use what you can of it to focus on goals. That's why Steph points out that just one hour of work towards a goal over 365 days has a compounding, exponential result.
It's also not a solution for everyone. Take it or leave it.
It's about the choices you make.
Also I think it would be even more difficult as a mother.
Not as a challenge to you, but just out of curiosity, how old were your kids when you started the latter business? I have an infant now and it's hard to imagine having time at all to do anything outside of work. There just isn't that sort of time. When I was "just" in a relationship or married, I didn't have any problems putting time and energy into both founding a startup and even engage in side projects (even as I work on my startup). Having a baby is a whole new story. I imagine things will get better as kid grows older -- probably better at school age, and then even better at high school/college age. But it'll be a long time. Maybe 15 years later like you said.
I got a lot of reading done when my kids were infants. Way more than I do now, which is almost none. There's a good long span when you can just read them whatever, since they don't know WTF is going on anyway. Great time to knock a few titles off your own to-read list (yes for the record I did also read them plenty of picture books and such).
Children are wonderful, but they do not need your constant, undivided attention. I actually think it's better right now with a newborn. Once she starts walking and crawling. She'll need more monitoring.
After they started school. The wife started looking at turning a hobby into a business. A couple pivots along the journey, and it wasn't until last year that we hit on something solid (so about 4 years later, so obviously an "overnight" success). It's still a lot of work, and it's by no means guaranteed, but it's off to a great start.
It's also turning into something else we can build.
What does this require? A desire to make it happen. My wife is the one who deserves the credit. We are here because of her desire to build something. But it's that balance between kids in school and working after they go to bed, and still finding a way to balance work and life. Again, it comes down to choices.
One more minor note, both of our kids have autism, and one is non-verbal, so it's not like they are self-sufficient (the younger one is moreso).
And yes, having a baby is going to impact you right now. It's fine. Use this time to enjoy life. =)
edit: That said, I still suggest you don't quit your day job. With the caveat of you should quit your day job if you have savings\runway\revenue\funding to do so, and you'll be ok with your project going nowhere and returning back to a regular day job after that runway expires.
I have friends whose parents switched careers by studying or working late, and I know some junior developers who are parents who taught themselves to code. So obviously just because you have kids doesn't mean you can't do anything else with your free time. You just have to make choices with your time management, I guess. But I don't know, I don't have kids :-)
I only have one child. I get about 2.5 hours / day to myself (after his bed time, he's only five.) I could certainly spend that time programming, but at this point it's just not what I want to do. I'd rather learn something else or just be a lazy bum.
You can't have your cake and eat it too. It's all doable; my mother worked and went to law school with two children. But it's hard, and most people who say they want to do X but don't have time simply don't want to make the sacrifices doing X would require. People do the same with all sorts of things. Exercise is a big one. "No time" really means "I don't want to spend 30 minutes working out."
We all find time for the things that are important to us.
I've actually had the situation where I was blocked from getting paid for tutoring on Codementor.io because it was "getting paid on the side to use skills and know-how that is part of his job".
Of course, this probably doesn't apply for things like bike shops or other types of maker activities that aren't technical. It also probably doesn't apply for pro bono things like open-source contributions.
[EDIT]: added "probably doesn't apply" since it seems like in some cases it can cause problems.
During onboarding someone asked about building a table and selling the plans and were told that "they would definitely need to talk to legal".
That's pretty broad. This doesn't even say "relating to your job", just "intellectual properties... conceived, developed or written by Employee... during the term of this Agreement".
Most businesses need you more than you need them. Choose wisely and negotiate.
1: Yes, I have tried the cute “cross out that section yourself and initial it” trick. The response from legal was a stern, unambiguous “Sign it unmodified or GTFO!”
Yeah, no thanks.
That's quipy but it's true. Some people enjoy burning time in front of a television, but other people have hobbies they enjoy just as much (if not more) and which can be made to break even or even generate a profit.
Until the law is changed so that companies don't own things developers make like that, there are many people that lose the motivation to make things in their free time.
It has worked so far. A previous one has left for consulting gigs, after a few months trying his gigs under my umbrella company. That was the best « smooth transition », he saw for himself, I got a ~20% cut, and now he’s dying under paperwork to create his own company (we live in France, which explains why it would have been even harder for him to create his company when he was unsure he liked it), and I have set a nice example of « promoting » which helps me recruit.
Employees are not owned. They were where I was 10 years ago. People change jobs. It’s part of the success of a career. They go through our companies but I’m tired of employers acting like their employees don’t exist after the end of their period or as if they owned property.
If job hunting isn't realistic for you, at the very least you should have a serious conversation with your boss. The next time you are up for a promotion or a raise, hand them a copy of 2870 and say "that's nice, but this is what I really want".
Print it out. Bring it up in your 1-on-1's. At the very least, make sure your boss isn't surprised as to the reason why you eventually jump ship.
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySectio...
I devote Monday through Thursday to working on my business. After work I take an hour to an hour and a half break. Then I work for five to six hours, then thirty minutes break before bed.
Friday through Sunday, I devote to writing, resting, or other things. Honestly it's mostly resting, because I'm way beyond burnt out.
The thing is I'm spent after my work day. I'm making more errors at night, causing more rework and frustration. I was also concerned about layoffs/loss of job. So I was dipping time into job searching.
That's not even getting into the existential what am I doing with my life. I'm early 30s and wasting the bulk of my youth trying to start a company. It's depressing to me to be locked to my computer for 13 to 14 hours a day. I love working on my business idea. But I have music I want to work on, novels, etc. Places I want to see.
This past weekend I went to a weekend startup accelerator. It has been years since I felt like that. My brain was firing on all cylinders, and I was working on a team. The past several years of my career. Have been death marches, and projects that are cancelled mid stream, and I'm flying solo. This is why I want to start a business, but I'm just so exhausted all the time.
I have done the quit and take a few months off in the past. Those were the happiest I've been in my career. But something has yanked me back to a full time job, because I need money asap.
Then the last portion as someone else mentioned. The inane invention assignment clauses. My last role took ownership of everything past, present, and future I thought. Irregardless of medium. My current role tried that, but I got an addendum to the contract. I had a past employer try and sue me because we left on bad terms, and they drowned me in legal fees.
Sure you don't need to quit. But if you want your sanity, and some legal peace of mind it's the best thing.
About 1.5 years into the project I broke my foot (long story) which meant I had to change things, then I had a kid about a year later, which caused me to change again. Both of those were really good developments
What I found is that a far better schedule for me was to spread things out. Now I still put in about 20 hours a week, but it is in the form of 1.5 hours at night on week nights and 6 hours on Saturday and 6 hours on Sunday. The Saturday and Sunday time is generally split three ways (morning before family wakes up, kid's nap time, evening after kid goes to sleep) I feel like I get more work done because I have the mental ability to actually work for each of those pieces of time.
Schedule may look different for you, hobbies, family, etc. But I would definitely suggest with exploring smaller pieces of Second Work, especially on week days.
1. Plan specifics and next-steps while watching the kids. This is not to say you should ignore them or anything. An hour of dedicated play with the kids is usually followed by an hour of them playing with each other or doing something independent quietly (super important skills for them to learn IMO). When they are watching Sesame Street or playing with each other I have a note-taking app and Google Docs on my phone. I can plan next steps, write content, manage the project's social media, etc. from basically anywhere while still keeping an eye on the kids. I also make and maintain a TODO list broken down into bite-sized tasks in the note taking app (the default notes app that comes with Android). Using a phone in this way is more rewarding than surfing Reddit/HN anyways, and it will fundamentally change your relationship with your phone for the better.
2. Since most planning is already done (see step 1), when I have dedicated time to work on the project I already have a list of bite-sized tasks I can accomplish. Doing even one tiny task a day adds up way more quickly than you would believe. e.g. I do furniture, so on one day I photograph a completed chair, another day I cut fabric for cushions, etc. Maintained over the long-term, this adds up to a ton of progress without burnout. My guiding philosophy for this is "consistency + effort = improvement".
This system also works great for people with long commutes (assuming you're not driving)!
+100 for this. Our kids just don't. Maybe 5 min, and then "mom! dad!". And we drop everything and go relieve them of their duty to entertain themselves. I feel like this is a failing on our part as parents. And it makes everything worse for everyone.
I'm curious if you have any practical measures you've followed to get past this.
This damn clause is the bane of my existence. It is the main thing stopping me from pursuing a side project because even if the project succeeds, I won’t own the rights to it anyway.
I’ll probably ask my employer to approve some side projects as independent work and have them excluded from their ownership, but I feel like even asking that question paints me as someone who isn’t dedicated to my full time job. I’ve been at my current company for less than a year so I’ll probably wait a bit longer before submitting the request.
I don't have any commercial projects outside of work but the idea that an employer can claim ownership of something that comes out of my head into my machine in my time is bonkers.
If you want to own the other 8 awake hours of my life after the first 8 you have to double my pay.
I've done that on my last 3 employment contracts and no-one has ever even commented.
A broad exclusive license to and ownership of every line of code I write shouldn't be free after all.
(1) Get your diet and sleep taken care of. Nothing fancy. Just find something in both areas (diet and sleep) that improves your energy levels and is easy to maintain.
(2) You are working long hours at your current job. Try taking short ~2-5 min. breaks every ~20-30 minutes and attempt a longer break (~10-15 mins.) about every two hours. Your breaks can be as simple as staring at your screen or at your desk and daydreaming. The point is to get your mind off the current task for just a little bit and then step back into your workflow. Ironically, I have found that taking those short ~2-5 min. breaks has often been diffcult because I feel like I can just keep going and my energy levels won't be affected. Rid yourself of that feeling if it comes up. The short breaks have given me a lot more energy daily, weekly, etc.
(3) Find someone to bounce ideas off of for whatever business you are working on. Doesn't need to be a co-founder or a mentor or whatever. Just find someone to talk with about the project you are excited about working on.
(4) Make finding your first customer a top priority. There will be a wealth of benefits (tangible and intangible) for you when you get that first sale; when someone gives you real money in exchange for something you built. If you've already made some sales, then plan and execute on furthering sales and getting more traction (self-evident). I can't stress enough, though, the importance of getting your first customer if you haven't already.
(5) Filter everything for what is relevant, so as to optimize time spent and energy expended. One of the best pieces of advice that was given to me came from my undergrad thesis advisor. I was 21, and up until that point in life typically read all or most of the books I ever started reading. It felt unnatural and awkward to not complete a book, because not doing so seemed like I would miss something important or that I was doing an intellectual disservice to the author.
Together with my advisor, I had selected ~35 books that would form the basis of my research. I still remember sitting excitedly in his office with the books stacked beside his desk, as I looked forward to diving into the research. He told me (paraphrasing), "Look, there is absolutely no need to read all of the material in any of these books. Flip through them to find the portions relevant to your project and disregard the rest."
That was a freeing moment for me, and one which eventually led to a heightened ability to nearly always sift for only what is relevant (regardless of domain, function, project, deliverable, task, etc.).
I'd like to do all of those (and have made some movies and music beyond software work), but one has to ask: does the world really need (or could use) more music, novels, and SaaS?
And why would it need mine? Do I have a 1 in 10 million unique take on those things and unique talent? Or am I piling to the rest of the noise?
At some point I think for most the motivation is not some primal urge / can't do without (else they'd be doing it already as their first focus), but just "it would be fancy to write a book/make a movie/release an album".
The results may not be super profound, but the process of creation is self-actualizing and good for the mind.
And while I can understand music, is novels and movies something people routinely non-professionally as a hobby for "self-actualization"? Those are more wannabe lifestyles.
So, I got one of those wake-up lamps and started getting up very early (4-5). I get plenty of time to wake up and then concentrate on my own thing with zero distractions before I head to work at 9-ish.
I have never been a morning person but this arrangement has made me feel more personally fulfilled and happier at work too because I'm not worried about getting home and then having to write, or saving my mental energy for my own purposes.
The only problem is I tend to get sleepy around 9 or so, but I can stay up when I want to and if anything it means I drink less and get more sleep.
I'm not a hard-working, sleep-deprived entrepreneur. I just have a hobby that requires clarity, presence, and focus for me to be happy with the results, and I've found that the morning is the best time for that state of mind.
It may help to think of your life as “epochs” or “seasons”. Sometimes you’re in a work period, or in a startup epoch. Another time you’re in a travelling season. It’s easier to split your interests over time than to parallelise in the present. The season idea can be greatly reassuring - “oh, I’m not doing enough music now, but that’s because I’m in a work period. Focus on work, do that, that’s enough. Spare time - rest, recuperate, so I can do better work tomorrow.”
I think there are certainly some benefits of focusing on one thing or epoch, but I do wonder if most of my energy going toward one thing would make me no longer enjoy that particular thing. Regardless, I like the concept and how it perhaps pertains to people's continuous change/growth.
I would like to make something. I would love to make money making something.
My problem is that I don't know what to make.
Also all hours aren't created equal and congratulations, you now have what are probably your three—at most—worst hours left to try to "make" in, without cutting into sleep. BTW unlike a job the time commitment is barely better on the weekends. Hope you can work productively while having 1-10 minute interruptions every 1-10 minutes. If not then the math's identical to that for a weekday.
Excuses incoming.
This advice only works if your side project and your day job aren't equally intense ie. if you're programing for your day job and your side project involves more programming, you will burn out. You can pretend that you relax with even more programming, but your body will disagree.
To make this work beyond a few months or a year as a programmer, you will either need to do an easier side project where ideally you're not doing the programming; or better yet you will need a very easy day job that doesn't use up the bulk of your daily creativity and problem solving stamina. Yes, it is a finite resource. The true ideal situation is being able to work on your personal projects during down time at your day job...
Also as someone else already mentioned, read your employment contract. Outside of places like California, the IP portions of that contract are draconian ie. your employer will own any idea that you generate whether it is on the job during office hours, or in your sleep or free time at home. This is even more important to keep in mind if you work remotely even just part of the time.
Then as stated in the article, only work on the side project for an hour a day over 365 days. Time is on your side and it's OK if it takes a year to get to an MVP. Look at Stardew Valley, for example.
> better yet you will need a very easy day job that doesn't use up the bulk of your daily creativity and problem solving stamina. Yes, it is a finite resource.
This is a fair point. That being said you can always focus on side projects that aren't related to the day job (and in some cases that might have to be the case contractually.) For example I'm a DevOp by day, but my business is moving into VR.
That's exactly the comparison I want: he took his time and demonstrated that it can be done give the time available to us. If you can only give six hours, then I guess it would take eight years. There's also another lesson to be learnt here: don't do everything form scratch :P
> and their family/girlfriend supported them
I'd replace a girlfriend that doesn't support me; I'd disconnect from a family who doesn't support me.
The unknowns where how much time it would take a single developer to make such an ambitious project and the degree of the payoff.
He worked on something over a long period of time knowing simply that it's OK for something to take time to complete. He understood the challenges ahead and planned his days accordingly.
The point of the Steph's article isn't to only think inside of eight hours, but to think about time management, patience, focus, and other key aspects as a whole, to get the better picture of the path forward.
It doesn't matter if it takes four months or forty years to make a project: it's making it that counts.
It actually runs counter to your point and aligns with mine better. His day job as an usher was not mentally draining compared to his work on Stardew Valley
And with an hour a day it would have taken fifty years...
That's actually not true. According to the GQ interview:
"It took him four and a half years to design, program, animate, draw, compose, record, and write everything in the game, working 12-hour days, seven days a week."
Stardew Valley is the antithesis to the article. Eric Barone worked full time on the game while his girlfriend supported him.
https://www.gq.com/story/stardew-valley-eric-barone-profile
imo if you're programming, it'll take a lot longer to finish anything if you're only doing it in 1 hour daily increments vs a few hours in a single day a week. Flow is important. That's not counting the mental stamina that's been drained by the day job.
The other scenario that can happen is that your performance at your day job will suffer, if you continue programming after your typical 10-14 hour programmer work shift.
I never said it took him 12 months to complete the game. I never stated he worked on the game on the side. My point is simply that it's OK for something simple to take a long time; it's OK to work on something over a long period of time, on the side or otherwise.
If you want to make something and it takes five years: OK. If you want to make something and it takes five months: OK. The point is: do it, and do it by managing time better and staying focused.
“Man. Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”
Most likely several people tried to create the wheel and ideas on what to do with a circular shape were thought of, some cross pollination from physics resulted in it being used for transportation.
So I’d argue it was not done on a sunny day but mostly as an obsession just like most every other game changing idea
Now to make an actual wheel, with spokes and mostly 'hollow' inside and to put it on an axle - would have required better tools, so the wheel was probably created/invented quite naturally alongside the advances in metallurgy.
I've done a bit of Buddhist study my self and it wasn't for me. It was as if it was telling me to sit still and just relax. Well, I'm keen on relaxing and such, but there's also problems to be solved.
So enjoy the present, be in the moment, but don't neglect the future (or your health) as if it's not going to come.
> After enlightenment: chop wood, carry water.
-- Zen Proverb
I don't think the idea is that people should stop investing in the future but that they should enjoy the path to get there as well.
The idea that you should just be unhappy but it will all be worth it once X happens is not good for your well being. Life can be hard and even stressful but that doesn't preclude you from being happy or fulfilled. For example, if you are working your butt off, you can feel happy that you did so.
I started piano at 20 years old which is really old compared to most serious pianists. I practice 4 hours a day despite working full time. I know that it is entirely possible I will never reach the level as the greatest pianists but I try anyway. I think the fact that I am not depending on being great to be happy makes it easier for me to keep going because each week I feel improvement and I know I worked hard and that makes me happy.
http://www.michaelparenti.org/Tibet.html
Sauce: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/feb/10/tibet-...
This was just the first google result for 'dalai lama slaves' (no quotes). The West wants to think that Tibet is the the good guy, since China is _obviously_ the bad guy, but it turns out that history doesn't have good guys and bad guys; it has humans, and humans at the top of large-scale traditional hierarchies tend to be cruel to humans at the bottom of those hierarchies. So it goes.
buddhabuddha 12 Feb 2009 2:55
0 1 As Cheese Commando pointed out in the very first comment in this string, Sorrel Neiss did indeed used to work for China Daily in Beijing -- China's English language Pravda.
Ho hum though -- plurality of opinion and all that: we wouldn't want to sink to Beijing's level and censor her, right? (We can correct her though on those waaaay wayward notions of China's hospitals in Tibet, etc.)
As the Dalai Lama himself concedes, Tibet was indeed quite a dark and savage place; many other places in Asia, Africa and Europe were also dark and savage at the same time -- including of course China.
Indeed, the Dalai Lama was on the point of instituting a series of social and governmental reforms in Tibet -- who knows if they would or wouldn't have worked -- when the Chinese People's Liberation Army invaded.
Just so's ya know.
I think what most people fail to recognize is that building a business can take years. Everyone thinks (including me, welp) that you can build next big SaaS in a couple of weeks. The truth is that you can't. It will take probably a couple of months at least. The sooner you realize it, the sooner you will succeed.
Our policies are very vague, and when i followed them and honestly notified my company that i want to try something on the side (even using my PTOs) which had no conflict of interest - i was denied. So, had to chose by current stable job and an adventure.
I chose adventure.
1. Stop drinking. Enough said there.
2. Get away from work for a week or two. Go on a vacation and remove all your VPN, Outlook, etc from your computer and your phone. Tell your coworkers you will be off the grid, and trust them to handle whatever might arise (they can!). Remove any bookmarks related to work. Do everything you can to keep work out of your mind and hard to access.
3. Get rid of other distractions while you're away. For me it's books. So don't take books with you or go anywhere near a bookstore. (My inlaws' house was great for this!). Remove time suck apps from your phone, bookmarks from your browsers, and set up website blockers for HN etc.
3a. Quit expecting to find enlightenment by reading. A quote from some "Einstein" guy: "Reading, after a certain age, diverts the mind too much from its creative pursuits. Any man who reads too much and uses his own brain too little falls into lazy habits of thinking."
4. Get started. There was an article a few days ago about writing a book in 10 min per day. The important part is doing something each day. Start one day by writing 10 min of code toward the thing you've been thinking about. (10 min of thinking doesn't count). And make that dedication to do so every day. For the first few days you'll probably find 10 minutes going to ten hours, and you'll have made some meaningful progress on the thing you've been thinking about.
Eventually life will take over again but you have to keep the commitment to the 10 minutes. And whatever it turns into each day. This can be done with work, school, kids, etc.
And since you've already removed the distractions, don't bring them back for a while. You'll get used to life without them and eventually you won't need them anymore. And it's amazing how the quality of life improves without the constant tug to follow every inane analysis of every inane tweet by Trump or AOC (if you're not a billionaire there's nothing you can do about it anyway--sure vote and campaign etc but following tweets doesn't help that, and if it's important enough news you'll find out somehow), or every iPhone rumor or whatever else consumes too many neurons for you currently.
And seriously, get away from work when you're away from work. Evenings included. The always-connected thing is not as necessary as it seems, and the modern ideal of it seems to be a bane on our individualism as a species. Make logging in, checking emails, etc during off-hours the exception to the norm.
Tl;dr Take the 8 hours of free time you have and devote it mostly to make. Now you don’t need to quit your job.
Really groundbreaking thoughts here.
https://law.justia.com/codes/california/2011/lab/division-3/...
This supersedes anything stated to the contrary in employment contracts.