Ask HN: How do you balace work, family and personal interests?

4 points by cesarbs 13y ago ↗ HN

I guess the problem is that I'm new to all of this (recently married and recently moved to the US to work for a large corporation), but I can't seem to be able to balance those three factors in my life. I always have to pick two. From blog posts and comments here on HN, there seems to be a lot of people that are able to manage working a lot, having a family (with kids) and also working on personal interests such as studying things and working on side projects. I wonder how those people are able to do it :)

2 comments

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markwillis82 13y ago ↗

I've had 3 kids and juggling work, family and hobbies is a challenge. I tend not to think about work out of hours (unless overtime / something crashes during the night)

I work on my hobbies 2/3 nights a week (about 6-9 hours a week) and then the rest is family and kids. Trying to leave the weekends for them.

With my commute I see the kids for about an hour and a half on weekdays (45 mins in morning and the same in the evening before they to to bed) so the weekends are when we make it up. Out all day, the park/beach anywhere outside.

arn 13y ago ↗

I personally don't think it can be done - at least not without neglecting one or more of them. I always had my day job and my side projects. Once I had kids, I found, as you did - one had to give. It's like having 3 full time jobs, and I think you can really only handle two.

I was fortunate that my side project had done well enough that I could quit my day job. But there was still an exhausting year of overlap and I got a lot less sleep that year.