How I Make Time for My Own Projects
Finding time between work and family for things that matter to me.
Someone recently posed the following question on Twitter:
People with young families:
What’s your key to focusing on side projects when working at home?
I’m fine on work but after work, it’s family time in one way or another, so how do you balance?
Getting up early is an integral part of my day, but most of that deep focus time is spent on work that I’m being paid to do — not my own personal projects.
And the person who posed this question is absolutely right: kids are somewhat all-encompassing. They constantly demand attention, no matter what the age. Sure, my older kids are more self-sufficient than the 4-year-old but finding chunks of uninterrupted time to focus on myself is something that I have to be intentional about.
Almost by accident, we started some habits when my oldest son was very little: fiercely guarding naptime and bedtime.
To this day, all of the kids are “tucked in” by 7:00 p.m. The older kids retreat to their rooms to do their own thing, and the 4-year-old actually goes to sleep. Sometimes the older kids have homework, but they’ll work on their Chromebooks on their own. We have parental controls on the Chromebooks and their…
