Tips on how I juggle side projects, a full-time job and family life with two children.
Tags: productivity, saas, programming, webdev
Published: 2023-02-10 16:03:41

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Everyone says that to start your entrepreneurial journey it is easier to do it while having a full time job, the problem is that it is not that simple especially when you reconcile it with family life.
You don’t want to neglect your full-time job, but you want to make sure your side project doesn’t die on the vine.

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### Create strict time for your office hours and side project hours.

Decide when you work best, and without disregarding family life, there is an order of priority.

In my opinion, it is important to take a break for lunch, do something else, for example go to the gym, clear your head, go for a walk..., which suits me perfectly. Evenings for me as a father and husband are a very bad time, I prefer to spend time with my family, watching Netflix with my wife when the kids are asleep

My routine is to get up between 5 and 5:30am, do my meditation and work until 8am, which gives me about 2.5 hours of personal work each morning, then start my full time at 9:30am, I often work remotely which allows me to take my children to school and pick them up at 3pm. I like to work for an hour when the kids are having a nap on Sunday, that makes 12 to 14 hours a week, which is a good amount of time.

### Prioritise your tasks & Staying organized

Even with a solid programme, you will probably run out of time. It is important to do the tasks that have the most impact on your side project first.

Less important things will either be done as time sensitivity makes them more important, or they won't (in which case they probably weren't necessary in the first place).

Personally I have a Trello to manage my projects, every night I prioritise the tasks I'm going to work on, sometimes I get a UI bug, it's not very urgent it can wait, other times I notice for example a user's photo not showing up it's a priority.

Very important, you should never start a day without knowing what to work on, 2h-2h30 goes by quickly, this time must be beneficial

Know what you'll be working on, know the requirements and specs, and know what's up next. And bonus points if features are broken down into small tasks.

### Set small targets for every week

Sometimes it's a busy week, sometimes family responsibilities or sometimes you just don't feel like doing anything and that's okay! Take your time. The important thing is to make a consistent effort.

I am often too busy with my office work and feel tired because of sport or the children. On those days, I make sure I do something related to my side project that doesn't weigh me down too much. It could be planning the next tasks, writing the remaining features, creating a tweet to post later or anything else small and light. But I make sure I'm working on something relevant.

They always say that 1% progress is still progress. Follow this rule all the time. Even if it takes you 2 hours to do a simple footer, that's progress, that's an advance, organisation goes from there, break it down into mini-tasks and move on at your own pace

Taking into account whether you have a busy or a free week, you can make a task list or a small (achievable) goal for your side project. Pursuing this goal will be fun and you will end up with something every week.

### Don't expect perfection

This is for everyone who is working on anything! You will have enough time to improve it later than to make it perfect now! J

Let me explain! Let's say you are working on a simple web page, where you spent a week on just making a hero, super fun animated, responsive and very beautiful!
But after a week, you will most likely lose interest in finishing the rest of the web page.Whereas if you finish the average looking web page first and then work on improving it, you will still have something to show for it!

### Motivation

The biggest difficulty for most people will be motivation. There are many things that can motivate a person. Money is a big one, passion, learning, having fun...

Whatever it is that motivates you, keep it in mind. And remember why you started. Routine can keep you going when motivation fails you.

### Take care of yourself

Burn out is not fun, but it is real. And it's not good for your side project or your work. Even if you're pressed for time, prioritise good nutrition, hydration, exercise and sleep.

I work out a lot, every lunch break I do MMA, JJB or fitness, after work I like to go for a walk with my family, I always take the kids for a bike ride and most importantly I LISTEN TO MY BODY

Here are a few points that I hope will help you, take care of yourself and don't leave your family for coding nights alone in your corner.

LOVE 🫶

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You can share your comments here and I would love to know about your passion projects too! You can also connect with me on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/Mans_JS) or [Buy me a coffee](https://www.buymeacoffee.com/maans) if you like my articles.

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