Are any of you parents?

My kids are 3 and 1, and I swear I could have written your post, word for word (different product of course :).

With the caveat that I'm still not very good at managing these time constraints, one thing that I'm trying to do is carve out 1-1.5 hours after the kids go to bed. I use the pomodoro technique and try to get 2 x 25 minute intervals in. Breaking down your todo list into digestible chunks, like @90minutestartup said, is key so that you give yourself a chance to get at least a few tiny wins in each week.

Good luck, and please share anything you find that helps!

What I've found very usefull (I have 3 young kids as well) is to go to sleep at a good time 9:30-10pm and get up earliar than usual. I get up around 5am and do about 1.5 to 2 hours of work. Then I exercise. It forces me to devote my best hours to the most important thing in the day. It also allows me to spend time with the kids. I also basically cut down on other media consumption.

Hi there! Same here, father of 2 yr old twin boys and I don't feel I have time for anything anymore. Still on research phase of what to pursue next and I could definitely echo some of the ideas given here but would like to add one more: ever thought about sharing the work, either by finding a co-founder or getting some external dev help?

If you were to hire help, it'd definitely buy you some time and help accelerate the progress? But for that, you'd probably want a clear product roadmap and a well defined strategy and expectations.

If you were to find a co-founder you could leverage some of your talents to add value to the partnership, despite your time commitment being somewhat limited...

All of this being said, I'd probably go by some of these:

1. Reevaluate you project (but not too much) => make sure you're on the right path and adapt if not. If you haven't gotten traction yet, try to identify why and try finding a specific niche your product could be a good fit for.

2. Break your work in small chunks => as mentioned here, having goals that are too big makes it frustrating since progress doesn't seem tangible. Small tasks are much more rewarding and get the dopamine flowing.

3. Stay organized => use a PM tool (Asana, Trello, Basecamp etc) to make sure you have a list of priorities/effort and reassess when needed. Also good if you need to collaborate with others.

4. Cherish wins => don't forget to celebrate small or big goals, these will help you keeping excited about your project (and get some wife's on board).

5. Share the responsibilities => getting more people involved could help keeping the pace up and although this path might require some investments, it could accelerate things much more and make progress easier to achieve.

6. Cut excessive "free" time => try not getting addicted to tv shows, video games or social media - these are huuuge time dumps and can really get in the way of moving forward (this is a big problem to me)... You'll try to make excuses to yourself about needing free time to relax and get your mind off work, which you should definitely do - just don't overdo it.

That's my 2 cents. All of this is much easier said than done, but could help some dads here get their projects off the ground or moving forward faster!

Cheers to all of us! :P

I've found a way to rearrange my full time job schedule so as to maximize my income, and spend scheduled-structured time with each part of my family (wife, 2 kids).

Then I do massive HIIT workouts daily (3 sets of 30 seconds with Max Trainer) because I sleep about 2 hours less by doing so. I'm up 2 hours earlier than anyone, and spend the last 1.5 hours of the night alone studying and researching.

We also raised our kids (11 & 14 yrs old) without zero video games, and zero media. Instead, we talk, laugh, talk, laugh, play games, talk, laugh, read books, go to the park, coffee shop, etc. Have I mentioned we laugh a lot? When you're intimately close to your family, you inevitably laugh a lot! Video games-movies-TV-news are all just time sucks that we decided we would eliminate from our house back in 2001. Best thing we ever did!

Hope that helps... :)

3 kids under 5 years old here... 9pm -> 1am is your best friend

What's your day job? I had Mike Perham on the podcast recently, and he did something I'd never heard of anyone else doing: He created an open-source project on the side that could help with his day job, after which he could justify contributing to the project while at work. He eventually monetized it and the rest is history (>$1M ARR as a solo founder). Is something like this a possibility for you? Could Grooply (or something else) be sufficiently useful to people at your job that you could make the case for working on it at work? Priority #1 would be ensuring that the project wouldn't simply become your employer's property, however.

I also wonder if there's a certain class of startup ideas that lend themselves well to people who only have a small window of time to work each week. If so, it probably includes products that don't require a ton of code. Why? Because code-related activities are extremely time-consuming but aren't necessarily mission critical.

Time you spend on code, testing, sysadmin and devops, security, automated deploys, user management, data management, metrics, backups, monitoring, issue tracking, etc. is time you're not spending on more important tasks like sales, marketing, distribution, customer support, and the rest.

If you were to, say, create an online course, things might get easier. You'd still have to create a product, no doubt, but it'd be much easier to create, and easier to maintain and host as well. That would free you up to launch faster and make better use of your limited time.

I have an 11 month old and I too am struggling. I work full time, and trying to fit in enough time to work on my projects is difficult. I just try to work around family and work commitments. I can usually manage about an hour in the evening but I'd much prefer a solid block of time first thing in the morning.

What has helped is breaking the project down into as many small 15-20 minute tasks as possible, so when I get a small chunk of time, I can quickly tick one off.

Man I totally understand this, and had similar worries. I got so much good advice from another entrepreneur that I created a site to collect advice -> https://entrepreneurparents.org/

I just launched it, but already have some advice from some good people. Do you have any questions you want me to ask the visitors?

In the same boat (2 girls, 2 and 3 months). You have a lot of advice here so I won't pile on. However I just want to say your product is awesome. We use doodle polls a lot at work. I'm going to start using this when it comes up.

+1 to getting up early rather than working late.

Dayjob + kids = no emotional energy left at the end of the day - use that for wifey/relaxing time or thinking/planning time.

I get up at 5:45am and if I get 45-60 minutes in, I've had a good day. Haven't figured out how to work exercise into it currently.

You will be surprised by what consistent progress does for your motivation.

Also - always finish a session by writing a note as to what the next thing you have to do is and leave that open full screen; also helps if you can leave that environment running in sleep mode ready to pick up again. I have a special Mac I use for this purpose and I can open the lid and be working in < 1min.

Obviously after your children are asleep, you have a more open-ended amount of time to work with (e.g., until 3am if you can handle it) but you will be working tired and productivity can suffer. Try 5-7am instead. Work while you're fresh and relax when you're tired.

I try to use an app I worked on (Streaks, on iOS - https://streaksapp.com/) to knock off even an hour morning or night. Doesn't have to be an epic work session. Just a little bit of progress at worst. If I'm struggling with motivation, I have my partner work beside me (on her own stuff) so I'm not as likely to procrastinate.

I can identify with you losing time in the 7-9pm slot cooking for yourself and cleaning up. That was smashing us too. What we try to do now is have as much of that done during the bedtime routine. e.g., one of us washes dishes while the other tackles bathtime or reading. Clean up as you coach them through winding down for the night. Then it's 7:30 and you're free and most of the chores are done.

Hi. Father of a lovely 16-month toddler, trying to launch amsterprice.com . I use trello to state what I need to work on, prioritise and also feel good about what I have done. I drop my kid at the daycare and then work for some 45' while I have breakfast at a café. Then I do my normal life, have dinner with my family and put in some two-three hours after my kid goes to bed. Almost day, so I keep myself engaged. Works well for me.

I've been there! Hang in there, it's totally worth it, and as they get older, you'll have more time for your side project.

Five years ago, I was happily married. Four years ago, I got a divorce - nasty, nasty divorce. Three years ago it was finalized and I had 50/50 custody of my son, which gave me plenty of time to work on side projects (I built two consumer ones which were horribly conceived and launched to crickets - but I had fun). And two years ago I got sole custody of my son, and moved to rural Nebraska. Ha.

So, I'm still struggling with finding time, but mostly what I've found is that when I'm tired, I sleep. When I wake up at 2am, I work on my side project. When I get my son to bed at 9pm, I don't turn on the TV (I have one TV in the basement, no cable TV service, and only netflix and amazon prime), just put on some tunes, and code/market/write/etc. whatever is necessary to move my project along.

I find it goes in fits and starts - some weeks I put in three+ hours every evening. Others I'm lucky to do two hours in a week. But I'm happy with it, and don't beat myself up over being a good parent. :)

Good luck, and keep at it, it'll be fine!

-Ben

No good advice for, just wanted to say I’m in the same boat. First kid was born two months ago, and every day is a new adventure.

Good luck!

I became a father at the end of January. Launched Truple.io mid april. Here's the rough breakdown from start to launch, and how I manage it now.

In July 2016 I took a 3 month leave of absence from work, primarily so my wife and I could spend time in Germany with her family (she's German). During this time, I filled my time working on Truple.io. We still vacationed a good portion of the time, but I worked pretty diligently on it. At times I probably worked too much.

After the leave of absence I continued to slowly work on it on nights and weekends. Again, this wasn't easy either.

At the end of January I had my first child. I took 6 weeks off from work. The first 4 weeks I was 100% Dad. The last 2 weeks I worked 10-12 hour days.

At the beginning of April I quit my day job. At this point in time I was talking to a startup that said they wanted me once they had the funding (although they'd told me this since the previous November haha). At times I had freak out moments because I quit work and didn't have guaranteed work lined up... But I knew I had a backup plan in case things didn't work out, and we had ~3 months of savings saved up. Anyways, I took this time to work my tail off. I probably averaged 16 hour days. At nights I couldn't sleep. This was not a healthy experience. I wouldn't say I do or do not recommend it though. I've accepted that sacrifice will be involved in this, and my wife is right there with me. With that being said, there are still plenty of times that I work too much. I justify this with the hope that someday the company will run itself and I can have more time. I think that could happen, but doesn't always. I would like to work towards that direction.

About 1 week after quitting I got the job offer at the startup with a start date for mid april. I continued to overwork myself until I launched 4 days before starting my new employment.

Since then, I've released 1 big feature, and 1 small feature (in about 2 months time). Everything has slowed.

I still find it's a constant struggle to balance work w/ family, along with taking care of myself (exercise, sleep, etc.). I'm not really sure if I'll ever "balance" it perfectly. A former boss told me it's more of a "wobble" instead of "perfectly balanced" and that not only makes a lot of sense to me but has been my experience as well.

I have a 7-year old and a 14-month old. Once the first kid hit 5ish, it felt like my life had more wiggle room again (independent play and reading, kindergarten, consistent schedule, etc). But, since the new one came along, the free time has become non-existent, even negative (normal stuff gets put off until absolutely urgent).

My current juggling of work and family feels unsustainable, but I felt this way with the first kid too. I have no hacks; it's just a matter of plowing through, prioritizing and letting the other stuff go (at least for a while).

I have a daughter that is going to be 4. I let my side project BestFoodNearMe.com languish for way too long.

My best strategy was to plan ahead each small task so I can hit the ground running. Do this the night before at the latest. I only have 1 hour a day Monday through Friday to work on it, so this has been my best strategy.

Also optimize your build release procedure, automate it if possible. This allows you to make fixes quickly. If you can create a basic set of tests, this also helps you move fast.

I also document every process so if I have to do something again, I can do it quickly.

If your into journaling, I highly recommend the 5 minute journal. It helps me keep focus on the big picture.

My little boy is just 4 months old and I try to fit in 60 minutes per day for new side projects. My main frustration is that its not really predictable IF I can get the time at all to do something each day and If anything important gets done.

My goal is to test a few ideas during my parental leave. I thought I'd get done much more in the last few weeks ;-)

I'm in a nearly identical position (2 kids, 3 years/7 months). My only advice is to celebrate the small victories and don't expect too much. You aren't going to ship world-changing code every day, but given enough time + persistence you can still make something worthwhile.

If you don't mind me asking, what are your general costs per month? Are you running in the red right now? If so, do you think you'll be in the black soon?

I have two boys, a 4 year old and a 6 months old. I go to work at 6 in the morning so I can spend time with my boys in the afternoon.
IMHO, you've got your priorities straight and I'm sure your daughters appreciate it. Hang in there!

This comment was deleted 7 years ago

nope, I am 22 years old