Ask HN: How do you find time to code/build your business in the evening?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1714899

by devmonk • 16 years ago

119 73 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

After the kids get to bed, I'm either burned out for the day or doing something else that must be done (laundry, etc.).

How do you make/find time to spend the time you want to in order to help with the family, run your part-time (or full-time) business into the evening (etc.), and still be able to have some downtime each day? How do you get focused?

iworkforthem2• 16 years ago

i suggest u code/build yr biz in the early morning instead, say around 4-5 am, wake up early, code like crazy for e 2-3 hrs. it's super productive when compared to late nites. also, since you have kids, you need to plan out their schedule properly, else they will need yr constant action. automate whenever possible, if u must outsource be sure to review n measure e roi.

jarin• 16 years ago

Translation: I suggest you code/build your business in the early morning instead. Say around 4-5 am: wake up early and code like crazy for 2-3 hours. It's super productive when compared to late nights. Also, since you have kids, you need to plan out their schedule properly or else they will need your constant attention. Automate whenever possible. If you must outsource, be sure to review and measure effective ROI.

iworkforthem2• 16 years ago

Cheers Jarin.

RDDavies• 16 years ago

I'd recommend studying English around 4-5AM rather than working on whatever the hell else you've got going on.

taa2• 16 years ago

I'm most productive 10pm to 1am. So many people suggest working early, but not everyone can be productive in the early morning. And when you have kids who wake up at 6 or 7am, doing it in the evening after they went to bed is about your only option.

wyclif• 16 years ago

Eliminate television and other forms of entertainment.

staunch• 16 years ago

Every single hour you're awake you have the mental and physical energy to watch a movie. That's not true of programming.

wlievens2• 16 years ago

True. I suggest: eliminate watching crap on TV and only watch that which is (to you) truly worth watching.

imp• 16 years ago

But there are other non-programming things to do like clean the house, buy groceries, pay bills, etc that need to be done that should be higher priority than watching a movie. Movies are for the weekends and for people who get a fat paycheck every two weeks and need to unwind after a long day at work.

fookyong5• 16 years ago

Don't build in the evening.

In the evening, wind down the day, have a beer and plan out how you're going to use two hours in the morning tomorrow most effectively. Set one clear goal. Then...

1) Go to sleep

2) Wake up early (I recommend 6am)

3) Do the work you thought up last night

I find myself remarkably productive in this cycle. If you've planned well, you'll whiz through the tasks. Focus on "doing one thing" each day and you'll be racing through iteration cycles. I find that I'm usually so productive like this that I can comfortably keep the weekend purely for recreation guilt-free, rather than continuing to iterate on my down time and burning out.

This is how I built http://goodgecko.com

It's taken about 3 months* of doing exactly the above, now has paying customers and is an extremely satisfying "side project"!

UPDATE:

*I should elaborate - 3 months since the very barebones MVP. The MVP took about 2 months and featured basic surveys and a one-page sales site. The current product features web, mobile, popup and kiosk surveys and has a fully-realized sales site. The sales site itself took about a month to make...

stevederico• 16 years ago

@Fookyong thanks for the plan. I have noticed, I am much more effective in the morning and this new plan will help me take advantage of exactly that. Much appreciated.

ojbyrne• 16 years ago

I do like, and have done, the idea. But don't you find yourself dragging in the mid-to-late afternoon at your daytime job?

fookyong5• 16 years ago

it's different for me since I am also a partner at my "dayjob", so my motivation is very high for both of these projects :)

that said, I think it's normal to feel a little drag now and again - whether it's on a side project or your day job. just take a break and come back to it after a few days.

prawn• 16 years ago

I imagine that happens with a lot of people already, whether or not they're sneaking in 1-2 hours as soon as they get up.

Dramatize2• 16 years ago

Yes, it's really hard. Lots of coffee helps.

aagha• 16 years ago

@fookyong Do you have kids?

fookyong5• 16 years ago

no.

also, my daily commute is only about 20 mins each way, so I guess I have some fortunate circumstances.

PhrosTT• 16 years ago

most certainly the "DO ONE THING" part. very small milestones. the constant progress motivates you.

do one thing. no more. no less. there should be quick 30 minute days where you don't get burned out. save the hard parts for sunday.

also that thing about 'don't pretend to work'... don't sit at your computer with the IDE open, but just dicking around on gmail or the web... either work or don't. don't fool yourself.

japherwocky• 16 years ago

I work on fun/speculative stuff in the mornings too!

It really helps motivate me to skip that extra hour of sleep when my eyes first crack open, if I've got something interesting to go work or play with. And slowly but surely, stuff actually gets done. :)

enoren• 16 years ago

This is exactly what I do. I used to try to do it all at night, but with a wife and 2 kids you are just too drained to think and you end up making really bad decisions. I also tend to be able to plan when I am tired so I think about what I am going to do in the morning before I go to bed so that the second I wake up I am up and running and chomping at the bit to get at it. I also find that this carries over to the weekend too in that I can get in a couple hours before the kids are awake and then still have the rest of the day to play with them.

Both myself and my other technical partner switched to mornings and would never go back, this after having been a night person for 15 years.

Not quite to the MVP phase yet though unfortunately...but getting there!

Another huge benefit that the morning has over working in the evening is that you can drink coffee to get you going...if you're into that sort of thing.

fookyong5• 16 years ago

Both myself and my other technical partner switched to mornings and would never go back, this after having been a night person for 15 years

I hear that.

I used to be a night person too, beavering away until the wee hours. Then I'd sleep until noon and feel awful the whole day. Never going back to that. I realised that the only reason I worked for such long hours is because I had no structure to my work.

Now, I get up early, get stuff done that I planned the night before, and by the time I've finished, most "normal" people are starting their day and I feel super awake. It's a great way to be.

The downside is that I can never stay up past midnight. I just zonk right out. Sucks if you're the type who likes to go partying, but thankfully that's not me :)

bdwalter• 16 years ago

I have been trying to move to this model for about a year now. When I can pull it off, this is the best thing in the world. Problems arise when your day job runs into the night, and you cannot get up early to do job #2.

fezzl• 16 years ago

I see that you're based in Singapore (which I suspected, seeing HPB as one of your paying customers). Where exactly are you based, are you a single founder?

fookyong5• 16 years ago

company is in Singapore, but I live in Tokyo :)

arikfr• 16 years ago

This is an awesome tip. The only problem I see with it is that if I'm busy with the side project during the morning, it's hard for me to concentrate on anything else during rest of the day.

But I should try doing this in a more structured way, as you suggest (planning first) -- maybe that will allow me accomplish more, removing the need to think about it during the day.

Thanks.

swombat• 16 years ago

Agreed. I did 9 months of waking up at 4am and working until 7am to build my first startup's product. Then I would nap for an hour, go to work for 9am, work until 6pm, have as much of an evening as I could salvage, and then go to bed around 10pm. It's very hard. I think it was worth it to escape from the corporate world.

leftnode• 16 years ago

Yes, this is what I do everyday, punctuated with time with my son and wife in the mornings. I try to spend most of the evening with them.

Dramatize2• 16 years ago

That's how I taught myself how to design for Magento and setup my first ecommerce store. Getting up at 3am, working to 7am, then heading into the city for my day job.

wmblaettler• 16 years ago

This is exactly what I do. I spend my evenings relaxing with my family, and get up early when the house is quiet and I am fresh from a night's rest.

clistctrl• 16 years ago

fookyong, you're a genius! My only question, how do you transition? I feel like I have a process before I can write a line of code. I tend to think of it as loading the program into my mental RAM. However "unloading" it, and "loading" my work project is really exhausting for me. Any Tips on forgetting it all when I leave to go to work?

funnycoder• 16 years ago

lol.. mate.. appreciate your hard work.. but i guess it doesnt take much time for anyone to guess that you have simply stolen basecamp's design?

ROFL..

get some originality dude... u "may" ve gotten an awesome product... but do try to stick to a bit of ethics and not copy other websites designs..

P.S.the pricing page is an exact copy of basecamp!

Jupe• 16 years ago

Ahh, stop reading Hacker News? <g>

binomial• 16 years ago

Unrelated, but: is <g> some sort of emoticon? Or what?

chad_oliver• 16 years ago

It's short for <grin>, i.e it's a humor marker.

atldev• 16 years ago

First: http://www.kalzumeus.com/2010/03/20/running-a-software-busin...

Then: 1) I never sacrifice dinner with my family and I try to "be home" from 5-9. Not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.

2) Always prioritize your most difficult work first. If you start with "check HackerNews", time will disappear. Finish a use case first then reward yourself. Pick a new feature to ship each night and the progress will fuel you.

3) I've never liked working super early in the morning, so I take quick power naps in the evening (30min to 1hr.) to refresh and work from 10-1. Solid, uninterrupted 3 hrs.

4) Passive work (like catching up on HN, other sites) can be done with MacBook in lap on the couch if you want to unwind with some Tivo.

5) Don't be afraid to invest appropriately. I'm actually taking vacation next week to complete my punch list: finish coding, meet with an advisor, attend a trade show and prepare product for beta.

happybuy• 16 years ago

Make sure you exercise and are healthy. I find once I've taken care of this, I am so much more likely to have focused, productive time on projects.

A good summary of other things that can be done to improve and simplify your life is at zenhabits: http://zenhabits.net/brief-guide/

JerryH3• 16 years ago

Body and mind, a good point to remember indeed.

barnaby• 16 years ago

"Consistency is the authors best friend"

That's something my Dad (a writer himself) told me when I wanted to write a book when I was young. And it's true for business as well! When I wrote just a little bit regularly (a page or two a day) I got a _lot_ done in a month, but then I started just writing in batches, marathon sessions here and there, and nothing really got done plus I lost wind pretty quickly.

Now I'm working a day job and writing code for another startup idea and regularity helps me, this time I plan to stick with the consistency, rather than degrade into spurts, so that I finish this (unlike the book).

p01nd3xt3r• 16 years ago

I wake up at 5 am every morning and code until 10 am on my startup then do work from 10 until 6. I also spend the last 2 hours before bed planning and doing any other startup task to make the 5 hours I spend in the morning working more productive.

psyklic• 16 years ago

Take a night course where lectures are mandatory. You'll realize you somehow make the time to attend class and do homework. Now just lead by example and keep making the time, but with your business instead.

rokhayakebe• 16 years ago

At the risk of repeating what fookyong said, have a very clear goal of what you want to do. Then start executing one or two or three items daily.

For me I just finished my mvp for http://democratic.ly in 3 weeks. I worked on it after 4pm on weekdays and during the weekend. If I was organized or had more programming skills it could have been much less time to MVP. But from the start I had a very clear goal.

jon914• 16 years ago

On the commute back home, I set the night's agenda by listing out the 3 things that I plan to accomplish. This way, I'm constantly moving forward each night and am not left wondering "what should I do now?" when I reach my desk.

My other tip is to listen to your body's signals. If you're sputtering out, grab a snack and walk around a bit. Speaking of which, it's about time for me to do that right now!

arethuza• 16 years ago

I try and stick to 3 hours 4 times a week (9-12) with three visits to the gym (two in the evening during the week and one on Saturday afternoon) with Saturday evening as "free" time. Usually manage a chunk of time during the day on Sunday as well. So probably 15 hours a week on average doing my own work.

I usually make sure I have what I want to do in the evening sketched out in a notebook at lunchtime - which is when I do research etc.

The thing that makes this possible is pretty much having a "regular" day job that is within walking distance of where I live - 20 minute walk away. With a commute I'd be too tired to do anything at night (I know, I have tried). I usually get home at 6pm - same time as my son gets home from school.

The other thing I have found is that staying up past midnight is a bad idea - I even have an alarm set on my watch to remind me to start shutting down at 23:50.

I tend to sleep most soundly when I've just fixed some horrible bug or implemented some sweet feature!

Note that includes plenty time with 11 year old son and my wife - who has a much more high-pressure job than I have (I do all of the cooking).

booster• 16 years ago

I think the short answer to your question is that it is difficult but it can be done.

The biggest problem I have is finding large enough blocks of time (> 30 mins) to concentrate on the task in hand. The only two blocks that I've managed to secure are early in the mornings before the kids get up and on my commute to work. I use the return journey of my commute to plan what I'm going to do the next day. Although this strategy only provides me with a few hours a day, I find that this is sufficient to give my project some sort of momentum.

I tend to avoid evening development as the quality of the work I produce isn't optimal and it would eat into the time that I want to spend with my very supportive wife and children.

hopeless• 16 years ago

Thanks for asking this. I've been struggling with exactly the same sort of problem.

For a while I was working late nights and making good progress but since having our 2nd kid it has been very difficult to get back into it. Being depressed over the day job and money definitely doesn't help.

It's interesting that so many people recommend the mornings. I can see the logic but from a practical point-of-view, I don't think it will work. My kids are v. good and sleep from ~7pm to 7am but they're awake earlier in the mornings and just happy to stay in bed. If I get up at 5 or 6am then I'm going risk waking not only my wife but also rousing the 2 children too. Maybe I'll give it a try next week but I'm sceptical.

One thing to bear in mind... when working in the evenings I've found progress is roughly: 1 week of evenings == 1 full-time day. Things take an extraordinarily long time to complete.

ganley• 16 years ago

This is about writing, but applies just as well here: http://whatever.scalzi.com/2010/09/16/writing-find-the-time-...

raffi• 16 years ago

I find I have limited bandwidth for coding. In my last job, this capacity was completely used. I put my energy and my ideas into my job and absolutely nothing was left for building on the side.

My current job is still technical, but I'm not working as a coder. As such, I have a lot of energy to put into a project. In fact, working on the project is one of the things I look forward to when I get home.

Something to keep in mind when looking at a job. How much of your personal capacity will be left when the day is over?

bmcgavin• 16 years ago

I work in a shared office building, and I take a laptop with a self-contained test environment into my day job. I then spend lunch working in a quiet room elsewhere in the building with no internet connection.

It works well for me because I'm awake and thinking about tech problems anyway thanks to the morning, and an hour with no distractions is enough to make small gains.

mdoyle2• 16 years ago

I've agreed with the good lady that I will work in the evenings between Monday and Thursday, which normally gives me three-four hours a night, after the kids have gone to bed. Friday, Saturday and Sunday are for the family with the odd exception, which has the added benefit of giving me some thinking time. I have 30 days holiday a year and use 10 of those days for working on my own stuff; effectively a working holiday but its very useful.

user24• 16 years ago

I really like this idea. Too often we hear about young, single founder with no commitments. Well yeah it's easy to hack away to 3 AM if you're living in your parents basement! I used to code all night long when I was still in school.

Now I'm 27 with a 9-5.30 job and a partner, friends, family. I like to go swimming, I like eating out and cooking meals in, all that gets in the way of marathon hacking sessions. Carving out dedicated time in the weekly time-budget is a good way to manage the balance.

mdoyle2• 16 years ago

Another thing is that I have a clear separation of work and home life. When I leave the office then I don't think about it until I arrive the next day and can generally wind down very quickly. I am probably fortunate that my work does not demand too much overtime.

swalberg• 16 years ago

I'm in the same situation as you. First off, my business is my hobby, so instead of watching TV or playing video games, I try to get something done on my application.

I choose small pieces of work to do that can fit in about an hour. My wife does writing/school in the evenings, so we often sit together and work. If I don't have the mental attention to write code, I work on other things.

Funny enough, I've been very productive while taking my oldest kid to karate. I've built a surprising amount of my application at the dojo :)

I start my day job early (at the office around 7) so that I can get back home and spend more time with the family until bedtime.

I've also learned to accept that my progress might be slow some weeks because I've made the decision to put my family first.

brudgers• 16 years ago

Late in the evening and early in the morning are great times to work.

But neither necessarily coincides with your peak creative period.

The muse comes on her schedule and sleep is just something in the way.

When she's absent, you're just tacking more time onto a long day.

abyssknight• 16 years ago

This will likely get lost in the ether, but I'm presuming you work a day job. I do the same, and now I'm going back to school to get a Masters degree. Funny thing about it, though, is that somehow my drive to learn and build has grown. I'm not saying I have more time, or that I don't feel burnt out. I just feel less burnt out about building applications. That said, my job has me on sort of an educational documentation rotation wherein I haven't had the chance to write code in awhile so that may also be why.

My point is, focus on everything else and somehow, the time will manifest itself. Whether it happens because you're avoiding something else, or just because you're not used to doing nothing (like I used to do, and still do, a lot) in your downtime. Just be sure you aren't avoiding the family. :)

AmberShah• 16 years ago

1) I can actually get a lot more done in a 1 hour lunch break at work than a 2 hour session at night. Other people prefer to work in the mornings before work or even work a full weekend day. There's no reason why it has to be in the evening.

2) I'm lucky enough to have a high paying job, enough so that I can afford to have house cleaners, and I also pay my brother to do our laundry every few weeks (this is a win-win, since he gets spending money). Sometimes I feel bad for not doing these things myself, BUT in reality it's working and that's what counts. To be honest, if I made less, I might consider going for funding instead of working, but since I make good money, I consider that to be my investment in my business. That being said, I still have household chores to do, but you just have to get realistic about how much you can really do, whether that means getting help, or just NOT doing chores (sad, but true)

3) Since I know have much more limited time than other people, I really really REALLY need to find ways to keep the product lean and focused. Everyone says they try to do this, but you know, necessity is the mother of invention.

4) Finally, sometimes I'll be in bed, it's midnight and I need to wake up early for work. I'll start thinking about the product and get so excited I have to get up and work on it for an hour or so. And of course, since I'm pumped, I'm much more productive. This is horrible for my sleep, but I think it's a fair trade for starting a startup, in addition to living a full life with family and work.

5) Assuming you have a supportive spouse, he can take the kids for an outing to the zoo, or whatever, on Saturday mornings and you can get a good 6 hours in. We find it to be a win-win, since they get to spend quality time then.

Travis• 16 years ago

I'm the programmer in my startup. I'm also the guy with the day job. We weren't making the necessary progress until we actually analyzed why I wasn't being as productive as we needed in the evening and weekend situations.

Turns out that I basically needed an assistant. Since I was building features for my cofounders, we decided that we should pair program (except they don't know how to program). So they act as the "feature manager" and come up to my apt for 2 hours a nights a week and we work together.

A few key points: the feature managers MUST have their thoughts detailed out. In order for me to crank out code, I need to know exactly what to do. I think there's a cognitive cost when you have to shift from implementation to design mode (and even testing mode). You'll be amazed how much it helps to push those responsibilities out of your brain (and yet still get fast feedback).

Doing this, we've gotten probably 4 months worth of work done in the last month, without me increasing hours. Seeing how efficiently I can implement features made my cofounders realize that it's worthwhile to pay me even 1/4 time, so that I can reduce hours elsewhere. Been a real game changer for our company.

taa2• 16 years ago

I'm in the same boat as you and totally agree with you that it is necessary to separate design from implementation and assign these tasks to different people in order to maintain or boost productivity. We've done the same in my startup and it's working great. Further, we feed off each other's progress and try to stay in sync, which keeps us motivating and grinding.

tsycho• 16 years ago

My day job starts pretty early in the morning (need to leave home by 7:30) so working on weekday mornings is pretty much impossible. I manage to get in a 2hr session after dinner on 3-4 weeknights, but doing so consistently requires a lot of discipline, giving up on TV etc., and an understanding wife/girlfriend.

I also try to tackle the larger/tougher parts of my side-projects on weekends instead. To make my weekends more productive, I try to finish the interruptive boring work such as laundry etc on a weeknight when I don't feel like coding. That way, I don't have to worry about it over the weekend.

Mz• 16 years ago

I've gotten a lot out of reading this discussion, but I will toss out the additional suggestion that some tasks you think are necessary may not be. A particular home and/or lifestyle may impose certain tasks and making other choices may reduce those tasks. One obvious example: A house with a large yard requires more maintenance outside than a house with a small yard. But there are lots of things most people take as a given which aren't. If you really just can't find the time, maybe you should track where your time is going and explore the possibility of making some lifestyle changes which might free some of that up. (As for the yard: I recall reading an anecdote once that some guy that had been a devoted gardener discovered golf and basically paved over his yard so he wouldn't have to fuss with it anymore. :-D)

bermonpainter• 16 years ago

Totally agree with @fookyong.

Don't build in the evening (unless you're single, then have at it). After a long day of work, working more is the last thing I want to do. The wife and kids need some attention.

Go to bed early (10pm-ish) with the fam then get up early. I get up at 5am every morning. Your mind is fresh and invigorated. I find in the early hours of the morning I'm very productive, I think clearer and my wife isn't bugging me to come to bed every 15 minutes.

This is how I handle freelance and personal projects on top of the full-time job. It gives me an extra 3 hours a day without wearing me out.

erken• 16 years ago

Like most people here, I have another activity that prevents me from working on my startup everyday. I try to divide the week like this : 4 days for my first activity (Mon-Thurs), 3 days for my startup(Fri-Sun). This enables me to work efficiently in both domains without thinking about the other one. Add in a lot of sport and some nights out to unwind.

MLConsulting• 16 years ago

This tip is awesome. I just got in to a 9 - 5 and have been trying to figure out how to fit in my projects(what I live for) and this makes it oh so clear. THANK YOU!

goodlab• 16 years ago

I completely agree with those who suggest the early morning cycle. Especially if you have a family. I wake up about 5/5:30 and a working in peace by 6 until 8. it gives me at least 2 hours of extremely productive time everyday.

This is how we built our current startup: votetocracy.com. When I try to work at night - I have a hundred things floating in my head that distract me.

Another tip that has worked for me: Multi-tasking is bogus.

I have actually tested this with my own work life. I spent a week multi-tasking. Where I decided on several multi-step projects that I wanted to complete over the week and went about them by pushing he first tasks forward one by one on each project on Monday. Then I kept pushing forward the next task on each project. At the end of the week I had several things up in the air. Mostly because I was waiting on others - or others were waiting on me because I was busy doing another task on an another project.

The second trail was with a one project a week approach. The result: It got done early. Those that I had to work on the project with didn't have to wait for me. I didn't have to wait for them.

THe one project approach isn't always possible due to client demands and such. But I do recommend picking at least one project among a few people and as much as possible - limit the noise of other small interruptions and stay focused.

capsule• 16 years ago

Too late, you can't get rid of the kids now :-)

JerryH3• 16 years ago

I do it when ever it feels right and I'm focused, when ever that might be. Some days that's 8 hours straight, other days I go sit on the beach and think.

Nothing happens at 6am for me, so saying "everyone should do X" is about as pointless as any other 1 rule for all or generalization.

JerryH3• 16 years ago

Oh and it's in a proper environment, i.e. not an office.

sievert• 16 years ago

I like the ideas of getting up early to do work, I might try that. I'm usually either really tired afterwork so just chill out then sleep, or I'm pumped up and work until the wee hours of the morning.

Also don't underestimate how much time you can scratch on the job. I carry a A4-size book around and jot down ideas, think through problems etc when we're waiting for other people to get to a meeting or some other hold up. It all adds up and saves being bored.

abukres• 16 years ago

I stopped watching TV. It's boring anyways. I work from about 10-12:30AM. Make sure you program only. Stay away from the web unless searching for help related to coding.

I can't do the early morning thing. I sleep till the last minute before getting ready for my day job.

(you have to love your day job to have energy for evening work)

Ask HN: How do you find time to code/build your business in the evening?

Related Stories