I am just very curious to know how people balance their full time day jobs with game development in their spare times?
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All the coding in the weekend?
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How do you balance time with family?
Please come forward with real life stories. Thanks.
When I was full-time it was a case of working in the evenings from about 7 to midnight. But it was just a case of priortising this particular hobby over all others. TV, video games, poker etc went out of the window but I didn’t mind as not only was I enjoying myself, I was achieving something. I would still make sure to make time for my girlfriend and friends.
Now I’m part-time I work the odd evening and maybe a few hours at the weekend, but mainly keep them free for relaxing.
I still can’t allow myself to get back into gaming, games like Football Manager, Civilizations, OOTP Baseball, Prison Architect that I would love to be able to play, but are massive time-sinks and would start to eat into productivity.
After the kids go to bed and the wife is reading a book, I code. I don’t watch TV. And most of my time comes from not playing the MMOs that I use to love to play. As Nick said Games are a massive time sink. I use to have a guild run almost every night at 9:00pm that would last until midnight and the weekends were filled with Lineage 2, World of Warcraft, DnD Online & Final Fantasy XI.
The only sustainable way that you also get coding done without sacrificing other parts in your daily life is to plan for it.
I’ve worked as a freelance web, graphic and app developer while working on my own projects. In addition, I also have several hobbies and other creative projects, not to mention a social life. In a few weeks, I’m actually starting as a technical account manager in one company, so it is fair to say that I have a lot on my plate. The only real way to ensure that I get everything I want done is to plan for it. I make a mental list of everything that I want to do, what I need to do and how important they are to me. Then I simply make a rough schedule and try my best to work with it or adjust when needed.
You’d be surprised at how important or unimportant some of things that you are doing really are to you if you take a minute to think about them and everything else that you are doing.
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I used to spend a lot of hours in gaming daily, right after office we used to play COD with friends and colleagues. :unsure: :unsure:
It was fun times and also later on realized they are massive time sinks. Now I hardly have time for any gaming, but part of me wants to do it again.
Now gaming is pretty limited, maybe once a week during the weekend which is acceptable. Game development is also a very time consuming hobby, but there is some productivity and also fun at the end of the day.
Coding is my career so I spend near all of my time at it, and surprisingly that doesn’t make it any easier to find time for building the things I actually want to spend time on. When it becomes your career you have to prioritise client work - that’s what pays the bills - and you’ve either always got client work in your list, or you’re not running a successful business.
What I try really hard to do at the moment is work on client jobs through the week while I’m in the office, and my own projects over the weekend and on evenings. In reality though, my own projects are often more interesting so bleed into the week days - I’ll turn up to the office on Monday and think, oh I’ll just get this little thing finished and then jump on to paid work - and before you know it it’s lunch time. Equally I often get home on an evening and think the reverse - I’ll just finish this client job before I begin and before you know it the evening is over.
The only advice I have is to get a laptop. Being able to work while watching a family movie, or while in the passenger seat of a car, on a train, etc increases how much you can get done in a day by more than you’d think.
When I was full-time it was a case of working in the evenings from about 7 to midnight. But it was just a case of priortising this particular hobby over all others. TV, video games, poker etc went out of the window but I didn’t mind as not only was I enjoying myself, I was achieving something. I would still make sure to make time for my girlfriend and friends.
Now I’m part-time I work the odd evening and maybe a few hours at the weekend, but mainly keep them free for relaxing.
I still can’t allow myself to get back into gaming, games like Football Manager, Civilizations, OOTP Baseball, Prison Architect that I would love to be able to play, but are massive time-sinks and would start to eat into productivity.
After the kids go to bed and the wife is reading a book, I code. I don’t watch TV. And most of my time comes from not playing the MMOs that I use to love to play. As Nick said Games are a massive time sink. I use to have a guild run almost every night at 9:00pm that would last until midnight and the weekends were filled with Lineage 2, World of Warcraft, DnD Online & Final Fantasy XI.
The only sustainable way that you also get coding done without sacrificing other parts in your daily life is to plan for it.
I’ve worked as a freelance web, graphic and app developer while working on my own projects. In addition, I also have several hobbies and other creative projects, not to mention a social life. In a few weeks, I’m actually starting as a technical account manager in one company, so it is fair to say that I have a lot on my plate. The only real way to ensure that I get everything I want done is to plan for it. I make a mental list of everything that I want to do, what I need to do and how important they are to me. Then I simply make a rough schedule and try my best to work with it or adjust when needed.
You’d be surprised at how important or unimportant some of things that you are doing really are to you if you take a minute to think about them and everything else that you are doing.
I used to spend a lot of hours in gaming daily, right after office we used to play COD with friends and colleagues. :unsure: :unsure:
It was fun times and also later on realized they are massive time sinks. Now I hardly have time for any gaming, but part of me wants to do it again.
Now gaming is pretty limited, maybe once a week during the weekend which is acceptable. Game development is also a very time consuming hobby, but there is some productivity and also fun at the end of the day.
Coding is my career so I spend near all of my time at it, and surprisingly that doesn’t make it any easier to find time for building the things I actually want to spend time on. When it becomes your career you have to prioritise client work - that’s what pays the bills - and you’ve either always got client work in your list, or you’re not running a successful business.
What I try really hard to do at the moment is work on client jobs through the week while I’m in the office, and my own projects over the weekend and on evenings. In reality though, my own projects are often more interesting so bleed into the week days - I’ll turn up to the office on Monday and think, oh I’ll just get this little thing finished and then jump on to paid work - and before you know it it’s lunch time. Equally I often get home on an evening and think the reverse - I’ll just finish this client job before I begin and before you know it the evening is over.
The only advice I have is to get a laptop. Being able to work while watching a family movie, or while in the passenger seat of a car, on a train, etc increases how much you can get done in a day by more than you’d think.