Early mornings, evenings & weekends are all you’ve got to make a difference. Use them wisely. Making time for your side projects will require sacrifices and proper planning.
My first pro tip in this new series of post is pretty straight forward but very often overlooked. Don’t wait for your work day to end to see if you have the time or the energy to work on your side projects. Apply the “Pay Yourself First” approach and plan what you will try to achieve for your own projects before dedicating any energy or brain cycles to your day job. If you don’t, you will likely end up seeing your precious free time filled up with other things or not feel motivated because you won’t know exactly what to work on and that’s how we waste potentially productive hours.
I remember getting a great advice at a meetup organized by Facebook London in 2015 where Alan Cannistraro @accannis was speaking and told me that to learn to program from scratch and not give up, I had to dedicate the majority of my free time for 3 to 6 months straight. Past that, things would become easier. Looking back 6 years later, I can say with confidence that this advice changed my life. Thanks Alan!
During my first 3.5 years of learning how to build apps, I was lucky to have a very understanding girlfriend during my early days chasing the indie dev dream and no other obligations than just putting the 8-9 hours at my day job, then unplugging my brain from any work concerns and heading back home to a small room in London where nothing else mattered than getting stuff done.
I was mostly a night owl during those days so I would plan my objectives for the day during my commute to work, and work late to make progress on my apps.
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