Do you ever feel like your day job is holding you back?
I sometimes get very excited about a feature or product or something I'm working on for my side projects, but only if I didn't have to go to work. I sometimes can barely focus on things I have to do at work and find it difficult to get started on work stuff.
Do you also get these "oh shoot I've got to go to work now, can't work on this amazing idea until [tomorrow,evening,next week]!" moments? How do you cope?
Edit: I wanted to add that I actually like what I'm doing at my day job (it's actually a PhD). I'm learning a lot and doing cool stuff but I sometimes just get really excited about other things. So the title of the post might be wrong, the 'day job' isn't holding me back, it's just postponing me working on my side projects sometimes - but it sometimes feels like: oh if that wasn't there I could just ship this side project so much sooner.
This can be a dangerous question for some people to answer. Lots of organizations monitor what their employees say on social networks. What you say about the organization that you work for can negatively impact your relationship with your employer even if there is nothing linking your online alias to your employer.
That said, yes, anything that consumes the majority of your time and does not help you achieve your primary objective is holding you back. However; there are ways to overcome these hold-backs.
I also have a wife and children who are my motivation, but they also require time. This is how I achieve balance. Over the years I have discovered that I can maintain good productivity at 5 hours of sleep per night. Each morning I wake up at 3 am. I set my alarm as quiet as possible so that it does not wake up anyone else in the family. Beside my bed I keep a coffee cup, thermos of hot coffee that I made the night before, and a bed desk with my laptop on it. When I wake up I don't even need to leave the bed, I just reach over, grab my bed desk /w laptop and a cup of coffee. Then I am off to the races. I work until 6am-ish and quietly slip out of the house and head to my day job.
When I am working my day job my brain is focused only on assigned tasks. I am awake, alert and not distracted by my side project, or family matters. When I arrive back home 8 to 10 hours later I am focused on family time. I visit with my wife, work on projects with the kids, attend to things around the house that need attending. Compartmentalizing my life in this way has been the key to success. In the past, I have made plenty of mistakes. I discovered this balance through trail, error, and plenty of time spent in retrospective.
I am in bed by no later than 8:30. That gives me some margin of error to fall asleep and deal with disturbances and still get my mandatory 5 hours of sleep. Often I get a bit more. This schedule gives me 3 hours of focused work on my project 7 days per week. So that is 21 hours per week. The best part is, when I wake up early in the morning my brain is waking up. I am not getting more timed, I am becoming more awake with each passing moment. I really find this helps with productivity. I used to be a night owl like most until I realized that this was a better strategy.
Cheers!
Regarding the "dangerous" part of replying to this question - I believe what you are saying is true, but I wonder - are you familiar with services that help companies follow their employees comments/notes on social media and sites like these?
I mean I would guess it's pretty hard to do so. Following them on twitter/facebook/github is one thing, but following every forum on the internet (like this one) which is related to side projects or hobbies that can potentially turn into income is quite challenging... ?
I am unfamiliar with the software companies are using to track employees on the internet. I know from experience that some companies have employees who's job is to keep track of all of the rest of the companies employees' behavior on the internet. At the very least they will be using:
Lots of social media support RSS feeds, including most blogs and Facebook. i.e. to subscribe to a Facebook feed https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10190529/facebook-pages-posts-feed/20824692
It is probably not practical to track every alias and every service an employee uses on the internet because not everything out there supports conveniences such as RSS. There may be a Indie Hacker opportunity here to help companies better track employees / Indie Hackers, but please don't do this. It would be counter productive to the community.
There is no way I can get by 5 hour of sleep. I need that 8 hours minimum.
I often get more than 5 hours of sleep. Usually over 6 hours. This strategy is successful as long as you can maintain a consistent schedule that allows you to complete tasks at a predictable rate during the course of a week. That way, you can plan your sprints and calculate your velocity. This is really important to do as it will motivate you to be able to estimate when you will achieve your milestones and ultimately be ready for launch.
If you need a minimum of 5 hours then you could wake up at 5 am assuming that you were physically asleep by 9pm. How much time you will then have to work on your project will depend on how much time you need to get ready for your day job in the morning and what time you have to start work at.
Perhaps if you asked your employer nicely they would agree to let you start work an hour or two later. You can also reduce the amount of time needed to get ready for work in the morning by having lunch made, clothes ironed and laid out, and taking a shower the night before.
It is true that this strategy will not work for everyone. In fact, not everyone is in a good position to have a side project. I count myself lucky that I was able to figure out a strategy that works well for me.
I can't stress enough how potentially dangerous questions like this are for folks whose employers or co-workers are actively monitoring their online activities. I advise anyone to think twice before opening to questions like this since the stability of your main income could be compromised. Remember that your day job brings the food to your family's table until your awesome business idea takes off and makes you filthy rich.
I don't know if they have a way to track me in personal smartphone but I don't use my work computer for anything social or personal aside from educational literature or documentation. For example I read a lot of web pgramming related material even though I do mainly SAP related work.
I agree. Always consider whether or not you would be comfortable sending your employer a link to your post before you post it.
Good point - this is a dangerous question in terms of the relationship with employers. I didn't realise when I asked the question. I didn't mean to give it a negative tone towards full-time jobs. They are often the place where people get their ideas for side projects, give a stable source of income, and very often help you grow professionally by learning things and getting better at your craft. This is certainly the case for me - my PhD helps me grow professionally.
It's great that you found a balance that works for you and gives you a little bit of time every day to work on your side projects without compromising your day job or family time.
I like the idea of working in the morning before everyone wakes up. I might give this a try next week. I think I'll be able to squeeze in 1-1.5 hours and still get my 7hr sleep.
Thanks for your reply!
If you give this strategy a try then please post back and let us know how it worked out for you. One challenge is to wake up and work without disturbing your partner, if you have one. In my case, to avoid waking her up I set my alarm as quite as I can without loosing its effectiveness. Thankfully, I am a super light sleeper. This method is not perfect though. I am going to order a wearable vibrating alarm and see if that solves the problem all together.
Good luck in your experiment.
It will. It did for me, problem is that weareable gives me a heart attack every morning lol
LOL - Yes, I can see being woken up by a vibrating alarm to be rather startling for some people at first.
More important than knowing if he wakes his partner would be to know if you he doesn't get cardiovascular problems or mental burnout by depriving his brain of hours of sleep.
It is true that many studies show that prolonged sleep deprivation can lead to cardio vascular disease and even permanent brain damage.
It is important to experiment a bit to determine how much sleep your body needs. Don't just judge sleep deprivation by how tired you feel. One way I monitor how sleep deprived I am is by paying attention to how well I perform physical activities that require hand eye coordination. For me, my hand eye coordination degrades before I start to feel overtired. That means that I get noticeably worse at playing office games such as Foosball. I even notice that I make many more typing mistakes when overtired.
You will need to experiment to figure out a good rule to monitor yourself with.
Also, if you ever do get a really bad nights sleep, then reset your alarm and sleep in so that you get your required amount of sleep. Or, sleep in the following night if you were not able to get your required amount of sleep the previous night.
Sometimes adjustments are needed, but the more consistent you can keep your schedule the better your body will adapt to the routine and the more you will achieve on your project overtime.
Thanks! I have a fitbit with silent alarms so that should do it, I hope. I'll post back in a week or so to report on how it went.
Hi there, just wanted to post this small update to let you know I haven't quit on the idea and haven't forgotten to write back. It's been some time.
Unfortunately I've had plenty of work and personal stuff going on and getting stacked up, preventing me from having any daily routine at all, so didn't quite give waking up early to work on a side project a proper chance. I still have hope to try this in the near future.
I hope the next post will say things like "it works great", "super productive", "shipped", or "first customer". :)
For me, I think it helps that my day job is not very technical at all. I love my day job, but I depend on my side projects to express my technical, creative side.
If I worked full time as a software developer, I think it would be much harder to get excited about both a day job and side project using the same skills.
For me, it's all about challenging myself and building something new. Lucky for me I see vastly different challenges in my day job and my side projects. That's what keeps me going.
I work as a software engineer full time and my side project is an app. I had the problem of doing the same thing at work and at home as my brain got tired. I solved it by using different OS and stack for my side project. At work, I'm Windows / .NET, TypeScript, microservices, ...; at home, I'm fully macOS, Objective-C and C.
Once the project gets off the ground, it's not that bad as you get to solve the related business issues, which is more interesting.
I think it's an "eternal struggle". I read management and psychology books when I was primarily a developer and thought how awesome would it be if had a chance to try all the stuff I read in real life. But reading and planning is not the same as executing, and now I can't wait to find time to squeeze in some development between all the other stuff I have to do. My opinion is that in the end, everything comes down to grit and having the willpower to stay focused.
For real, getting motivated to even go near a computer, much less write more software is really hard to do after a long day spent coding. I’m considering shifting my work schedule earlier in the day (my employer is awesome and really flexible with scheduling) so I have time for a workout early in the evening before I try to work on side projects. I feel like taking a break for some physical activity is the only way to moonlight and stay sane 😄
I’ve also made it a point to use technology other than what I work with all the time in order to provide at least some sort of mental context switch. It’s so important!
For me, I think it's fantastic having a FT job, especially where I work as my commute is short and there are a lot of very smart, very experienced people I can bounce ideas off.
Another benefit I see is that it forces me to prioritise my time and be properly lean with my ideas. In the past I've let excitement run away with itself and the feature list of my products grow and grow and inevitably they don't get launched. Given that I only have about 10-15 hours a week on the side (comfortably, that is), I'm incredibly lean and minimal with ideas and prototypes. It helps me focus my time. When I was unemployed and had all the time in the world, it was way harder to be that focused and consequently my productivity to hour ratio was way worse.
As with everything, its a balance to be found. No full time job should completely exhaust you, and I find the mental context switching is beneficial overall for my personal projects as well as my professional ones.
I think those with a day job (that they plan to keep) need to think carefully about the side business they plan to start.
I have a full time job and have a side business selling a software product to childcare centres. These centres operate the general 9-5 schedule and so when they want to schedule a phone call, I'll be at work. I have to sneak away from my desk, find a quiet space and make the call. I have local customers as well that want in person visits as well. I have to take personal days or vacation time just to meet with them. It'll definitely make me think twice about another side business that is B2B.
In order to not feeling hold back by {work,wife,kids,whatever}, I try using every small moments available to work on my side project. I also make crystal clear with family that some time are scheduled for my side project.
When I don't and procrastinate, I tell myself "You lazy boy, that's not the life holding you back, it's yourself". It's helping me not feeling hold back by others (especially family).
I've been in this situation a lot of times over the years and it's a very tricky thing. I've always felt it's a bit unfair to my employer that basically m not focused on the work I'm being paid to do but I'm daydreaming about something else usually.
I was very lucky for the last 2 months or so to get into this weird startup incubator that pays you to work on what ever you want and now that we have a viable idea and traction, nothing compares to the feeling of being able to devote completely to your project.
I know it might not fit the indie hackers way, but man, everything changes once you're full time into something and everything happens so much faster. Even if it falls there's no way I can go back to a regular job now.
what's the name of the incubator?
joinef.com
Yes. I've built two businesses in the past while holding down a FT job and it can definitely be tiring. For my current project (PullReminders.com) I decided to do consulting work instead of having a FT job. I find that consulting allows you to control your time and energy better.
Interesting. How are you deciding when to do consulting and when to work on your side project?
Are you consulting for a while (like 3-6 months) and then working on PullReminders.com for a few months or mixing them up?
I did some freelance/contracting work but I felt like I had even less time for side projects. I think I worked on the wrong kinds of projects though (startups, demanding lots of things done quickly, and with delayed payments; or small projects on upwork).
I generally prefer slow and steady vs on and off. It allows me to stay in a consistent rhythm vs having to make drastic changes. Finding the right types of projects and clients is absolutely key.
That said, I am considering only consulting for a few more months and then taking the rest of the year off to focus on my own projects full-time. We'll see what happens :)
I read through all the comments and I really love everyone's perspective on this question. But what if your day job is really holding you back? Like being in a place where they stick with old ways of doing things, old mentalities and don't encourage modern practices and growth, what should one do in this situation knowing fully well that the FT job pays the bills and keeps me going in the meantime?
I know exactly how you feel. I felt this way when I was at my 9-5.
However, I wish I had taken a different approach to my day job and used it as a time of preparation. Instead of looking at is a "thing I have to do" I wish I had viewed it as a resource: an angel investment, a stream of income, runway to test/try things out, a source of knowledge that I can transfer to my projects, etc.,
I wish I had built a better bridge into entrepreneurship because quitting your job and jumping off the cliff sucks.
Yes, I certainly have such feeling too. Especially if I were to code many working hours and when I go back home, I feel jaded to start coding.
I find out something that works well for me. Since I am working as a Tech lead full time, I have to toggle myself between "Planning" mode and "Coding" mode.
I find that on the day that I do a lot of "Planning" at work, at night when I am home I am usually still productive on coding and able to enjoy working on that amazing idea.
When I am in "Coding" mode at work, I tend to do "Planning" work at home. Things like the kind architecture to build my idea on, research on possible free API to use and also find out if anyone might possibly like the idea and try to speak to them.
This kind of toggling help me to stay productive on both side. Thou I would still agree that if you work wholeheartedly on one side it will surely drive more productivity.
Yes. And I think about the people who are fortunate enough to start businesses without having to worry about paying their bills. Unfortunately, for most of us, this is the hand we are dealt. It's harder for us to build a startup, but not impossible.
My side project was going pretty well, and it seemed that whenever I put the effort in, my monthly revenue would increase significantly. I told myself I could easily get another dev job and I had enough saving to carry me for at least 4 months. So I quit my job.
It's been quite the experience. I implemented the features I wanted, redesigned the app, started seizing the day. However, growth isn't what it used to be and I don't have enough to keep going, and I want to work on something new.
I'll be going back to full time very soon, but I'm happy I gave it a shot.
What would happen if you would have been able to manage when you get excited?
I feel the pain, while working my day job I dream about my side project all too much.
I found for the first three years I could code 3 hours a night and be relatively satisfied with that. Then I started to feel like you feel now after working in a new project and some other stuff happening. In the end I decided to try a year of it full time and see what happens. I've learned a lot in the month since I quit. Biggest thing being probably that I shouldn't have, but to learn that I had to quit so I consider it the right move in aggregate. It's exactly like having kids really. There are great moments that warm your heart and the rest of the time you are stressed they'll get hurt by accidentally running into traffic, so you feel on edge. Very different than just hacking away in your spare time.
You feel that you “shouldn’t have” quit your job? I don’t agree or disagree; it just isn’t clear.
If so, would you mind to tell why? You seem to say that it was a short term wrong decision but a long term right decision.
Yeah, so I "shouldn't have" because I'm currently building a product with someone (basically like a yoast clone but for non-wordpress) and we just built it figuring there's probably some market for it (sounds dumb I know) but after going to MicroConf and learning all about customer discovery, voice of customer etc and reading The Mom Test, LeanB2B etc I really realised I did the process the exact wrong way. However, if I never quit my job I wouldn't have gone to MicroConf and learned those things because I would have spent all my spare energy just building like I did for the previous 3.5 years. Going all-in has allowed me to focus a lot of attention on exploring the entrepreneurial skillset required to actually make it work. However it means I'm starting out the journey kind of on the back foot. I don't regret it and I have a hedging strategy that I'm pretty happy with, so i'm good it just felt like a big smack in the face being woken up like that! Haha.
Does that make sense?
Yes, I see. It’s a learning experience: quitting your job to do what you are doing. I did it for 1 year and it’s one of my serious options right now to do again for another 6 - 12 months. You’ll find it an intense and valuable learning experience (especially the first time) compared to keeping your job. You may never look at a steady job quite the same.