How do you guys balance dating and indie hacking?
Happy Valentine's Day! As a single guy in my 20s, it becomes very tempting to want to focus on working on projects and put off the dating until later. My reasoning behind this is having an SO is generally very time-consuming.
How do you guys balance the two?
There is no magic to this other than making time for it. You have to proactively set aside some time and actually do it.
As someone who has two young kids and a wonderful wife, I realised many years ago that having a successful social life is just as important to your health and life as have a successful indie hack. So I make sure that when it is time for social events, I make sure that I actually engage and attend the social event.
Just like you mention prioritizing your time into meaningful segments is very important.
As a married guy with a 2 year old boy and a full time job if I manage 2 hours of indie hacking a night that's a good day for me. Time is the asset. Flexibility is the asset.
By having a distinct schedule and setting expectations with your S.O. I have been married for a about 6 years and having a schedule or a set amount time for working on projects has really helped with this. The important thing here was communicating with my S.O. By letting my S.O. know that having this set aside time to work on projects has been very productive. It lets my S.O. know that indie hacking is important to me, therefore it is important to my S.O. that I get that time. If they care about you it shouldn't be a problem that you need some time to be creative, and exercise your skills.
Yes of course a relationship takes time, but you will only get out of your relationship what you put in to it. Just like setting a side a set amount of time that you are going to work on your projects a week. Likewise you have to have a set amount of time (minimum, imo) that you will invest into your relationship.
Yes it is quite a balancing act, but if you set goals for your self (e.g. when you spend time with your S.O., and the time time spent into your projects ) and met them. It can be very rewarding and you will see the results for yourself.
Best of luck, dating is a very interesting experience, however it can be very rewarding.
I agree with this. I just chatted with my S.O. at the ~1 year mark and said "Hey I'll be focused Sunday Night through Wednesday, but Thursday - Saturday is no work time and we'll hang out and do stuff". She goes and does Yoga, hangs with friends, or does her own work.
Working out well so far. She is additionally interested to some degree in work I do and is better at copy editing so occasionally working together becomes a joint effort.
That's awesome that you and your S.O. sometimes collab. :) It can help her get to know you a little better by doing something that you enjoy, and hopefully she enjoys a little too. That's awesome thank you for sharing.
She has her things, I have mine. When she goes out for dinner with friends, I build, or when she binges on her evening TV shows, I build.
Exactly!
You still need some downtime to recharge your batteries. When you're single, it's probably some kind of sport, riding a motorcycle, that sort of thing.
In a (good) relationship, the time you spend together counts as recharging, so you don't necessarily need to do those single-recharging-activities, or you can do them together.
So you can get energy and work on a relationship at the same time!