How do you find the time?

Hey John! I'm Tigran and I'm currently a full-time developer at Buffer (www.buffer.com). In the past, I have built Booknshelf (www.booknshelf.com) and currently working to launch my first ever paid SaaS product (www.cronhub.io).

First of all congrats on learning to code just by yourself. I think that itself talks about how self-committed you are. Keep it up!

Having a full-time job and working on side-projects, not an easy task and if it was easy everyone would do it hehe :)

Here are couple things that helped me a lot along the way to build projects and launch them:

1. Ship every day. it's all about building the habit. Even if it's a single commit or single line of change in your code just go for it. This way you adapt your brain to this activity and it becomes a normal routine. It gets easier over time.

2. Keep the project scope very small. Making your scope large won't help you. You get distracted and end up launching nothing. Instead, focus on small launches. Added a new tiny feature that can add value to your users? Then ship that part and you have it here!

I hope this helps a bit!

I find it's great to just work on something for 30 minutes every day

30 minutes is not a lot, but it becomes a lot if you do it every day. the hard part is doing it every day

How much do you care about the end result? That’s what it really comes down to.

While it’s best to work in a setting where you’re at peak performance you have to work with what you have. You have to motivate yourself if you care about what you’re working on and harness that motivation to complete the project.

I understand you have a family and they come first, but Netflix isn’t an excuse if you want to get things done. While you’re watching Netflix someone’s hustling to take your market share.

Stop watching Netflix, zone-in on the task at hand and get s**t done. 👍🏻

This book might be in help:
https://www.amazon.com/Deep-Work-Focused-Success-Distracted/dp/1455586692

The first thing I can suggest is, form a habit and lose distractions. For example, get up before anybody wakes up and work for an hour.
An hour might look less, but if you keep your concentration high, you should be able to accomplish much more than you expected.

Second, plan your whole day. You will probably end up with more time than you expected. I use the calendar app on iPhone and mac. Now finally I can find time to get things done.

John, I am in similar spot (father of two, but with fulltime job).

What I found useful is to set up some routines and make it as a habit. For example work on your side project for an hour a day before you go to your job. Or half an hour. Or whatever you can afford. But main thing is focus on a "progress" (the fact that you are constantly doing some progress) rather than "result" (because you always will be frustrating that you do not reach what you wish to).

Recently I've read nice book about forming habbits https://www.amazon.com/Superhuman-Habit-Becoming-Possible-Yourself-ebook/dp/B00NGC8I9E. Maybe it will get you inspired same I as it did for me.

Hi i am a freelancer and last few months working (officially) only 3 days a week. That gives me enough time to work on my own product. I find time mostly deep in the night or sometimes early in the morning (if i dont have to my job next day) also weekends = more work on my own. I probably work more then 80 hours a week in total (but i am not sure)

also i dont have much social life and no wife/gf or children.

i love my project its about passion.

As a father of 2 and business owner myself, I can relate :)

Try to work everyday for a small amount of time. After the kids are to bed, work for 30 minutes before you start watch Netflix with your wife and schedule an evening of work once every week.

Take useful notes during the day (on the toilet, waiting for the bus, under the shower), so you're very productive during those 30 minutes a day.

Good luck!

I'm also a married father with a full time job who would rather be watching TV when I have unallocated time. I was having trouble finding energy to work on my project too. So I set a schedule. Every Tuesday and Thursday evening and Saturday morning, I work on it whether I want to or not. Once it became a habit, I got so excited about my progress that I started finding time on other days too.

Same boat at you and a couple other commenters (two kids, full time job, side project, etc.). My vote would be to not build it. My experience on a half-dozen web apps is that the building is the easiest to get myself mentally up for. Once it's built, then I've gotta sell it, I've gotta support it, I've gotta fix it, all of which takes a bit more mental momentum than the building. And, if I'm honest, if I struggled to get the building done I really have to fight to keep it going after that.

So maybe read a couple more stories to the kiddos at bedtime, chat about the 7-day forecast instead of the 5- with the wife, read one those "adult" books that's longer than 12 pages, and give life more time to either create a more exciting idea or more opportunities to pursue it.

I would suggest trying to solve it with off the shelf type systems like Wordpress if you do not already code. There are several plugins that can be used to construct forms without any programming knowledge.

Finding the time with a family can be extremely challenging. If you get really good at managing your time, partitioning work into small chunks, and staying extremely focused, I would say you could do it.

If you go the route of getting up early to do work, plan out the night before exactly what you will do so you can hit the ground running in the morning.

Also find a method to keep track of exactly where you left off so you can minimize context switching between working on it and something else.

Check out something like Getting Things Done method for ideas on workflow. I am working through the 2001 version of the book now and it is giving me some great insights.

Your problem not unicue i have same.
There are several cause.
Before you like to code you need to spend thousand hours in work. Our brain not like to spent mach energy, studies need all resources.
But it's not main cause.
The main one it's that we all comes to digital pseudo-dibility, too mach content around us. We need time to think, but all time consume content. Does not matter what kind of content netflix, popular science, facebook or this site. Our brain transforms, for us each day more and more harder to think in deep, we like looks pretty pictures or movies without concentrating. Now very serious scientists discover this problem, i can't to give you link to english resources, i'm russian. (Андрей Курпатов - russian profesor may be he have english books). We have no tools to understand our stupids. It's really serious problem and it have only one solution to decide - turn off all gadgets for maximum time you can. Before sleep read paper books, not phone. Don't scroll facebook and other feeds. Remember that we have very small resource to thinking. Our brain thinking and structuring information without us, unconsciously, if we load to him garbage what we expect to receive? Modern world not motivate us to work, we have full freezer, warm bed. Not reason to be stronger, but if we not save self, nobody save us, we will have no future. Think about it. It's red pill.
The second we need it's another humans, our brain was created to solve problems with another humans. We need somebody who will not like our ideas, then we begin thinking. Nobody can be alone, but in modern world we all alone, facebook it's not real. We need find real peoples who believe in same future as we, it's very important.
Any motivation bullshit not working it's only brain fuck.
To change your brain product (your productivity, time management and other) you need to change your brain, give him another food and him will change self.
Andrey Kurpatov wrote about it's problem 3 books, i'm told you in one page. It's very, very simplistically.
And more one, to begin (only to begin! to concentrate resource) thinking about anything we need 23 minutes, that because work for 30 minutes bad idea.
We have time enough, we not have enough intellect to solve our problems because we all digital "junkie", and have no reasons to change it's. Not that reasons what we dream about, our dreams it's only enjoying self. We need real reasons which we can receive from another humans.

Hope we do it.

I'm almost in the exact same situation, except I'm a programmer looking to build a side project. Two kids, contract work for eight hours, then after the kids go to bed I have a really hard time starting any momentum. I'm guessing it's just about habit building.

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