The Lack Of Time...

[Quiest]

I`m so busy with work and life lately that I am not able to code a single line for my projects or start making graphics for my game Blockland...
I say to myself, I stay at home the weekend and take some off time coding, but then again, there is this thing called beer and these things called women, that keep me going out...
Not only that but work is killing my time, too... I'm away for work about 10 or 11 hours per day, and since I'm a coder and do nothing else each day, I'm so not in the mood to do anything in the evenings for my homebrew projects.

Anyone else experiencing this?
How do you other homebrew coders get around such problems?
I really wanna finish one or two games for the 2X in the near future, but I dont see any way to get it done.

 

[senquack]

I had a really hard time prorgamming in my off-hours when I worked full-time.

You don't have to work full-time if you find a way to reduce living expenses. That's the best option. More free time = more coding time and less lethargy. I am making a consious goal in life to work only 30 hrs a week and basically never go out. I am not kidding. Oh, the money I save. Oh, I also haven't drank anything in three years so there ya go. (And all my game playing is on GP2X, never buy new games) If you don't buy DVD's, CD's, learn to fix your car, live in a van/basement or hell with your parents, you can easily do it. PS don't tell anyone you actually do this they will think you're a loser. But we know that already, you like open source handhelds.

For the record, I am not single and actually do get outdoors for camping.

The second option is to never go out. This, also dovetails nicely with option one. You save a lot of time not socializing. It's a lifestyle.

The third option is to never create what you want to and live your beer-swilling, womanizing life away, knowing full well you've deprived me of Extender3D or whatever else is coming down the pipe. That'd kinda suck

 

[housemonkey]

Not exactly the same, but I know where you are coming from. I am a Chef and by the time I get home I'll be damned if I feel like cooking anything more ambitious than Ramen.

 

[X-Code]

Don't obsess yourself with time and deadlines, they are your worst enemy.

If you really want to finish a project you WILL find time to finish it, I know that, you know that, everyone knows that. How long it takes should not be a problem, if it were a problem I wouldn't continue coding Project T.I.M. for example.

I work, work more, look after my family, find time to do all my hardware projects, and find time to code... And I still manage to get my couple of beers down my throat nearly every evening

So, don't stress yourself, code when you're in the mood to code, you will find time.

 

[coldfish]

The 4 day week challenge.

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/fourdayweek

 

[PokeParadox]

Plan nights out, instead of expecting them every week. (Say every fortnight/month)
I'm not yet in the industry, and so I can't vouch for working full-time coding, but I have to code a lot for various university projects, some of which I don't really feel any interest in...
So I have felt the "I don't want to code now I'm home" feeling.
It's not really lack of time, it's just lack of motivation. I find that if I actually force myself to start coding something that I know I want to work on, then I actually end up getting carried away and make progress, and then I should be sleeping when I check the time.
The main problem here is convincing yourself to do it in the first place.

 

[Firefox]

With me it's not so much hours in the day as the number of hours per day that I can concentrate on a hard problem. When I've done a full day's work and possibly a couple of hours' driving as well it's hard to get any productive work done on one of my hobby projects in the evening, especially if my head's still full of the details of whatever I'm working on in my day job.

I find Sundays to be a good time to get on with my hobby projects. There's often not much happening anyway, and I'll have had Saturday off to recover some mental energy and enthusiasm.

 

[gp32rich]

You've also gotta be careful about burning out.

If you're coding all day, and all night too.
One day you may just wake up and say 'to hell with it all' and become admin instead.

Pace yourself!

 

[Alex.]

I'm really not sure whether Senor Quack was joking there or not, but living a miser's life isn't a way to live your life.

A .txt todo list makes everything easier to complete. Divide its contents into "chapters", each with its own set of items. Ticking off an item means getting closer to the finished product, and knowing that can give you enough satisfaction to tackle the next item, etc. By the end of each list chapter, your game will start to take shape more and more.

 

[Parkydr]

Not only that but work is killing my time, too... I'm away for work about 10 or 11 hours per day, and since I'm a coder and do nothing else each day, I'm so not in the mood to do anything in the evenings for my homebrew projects.

Do you really do nothing but coding the whole time?

In my job, things go in cycles. When I'm doing high level design or writing documents it doesn't really affect my projects - I still need my coding fix

When the project gets into heavy coding with deadlines, I can't be bothered with homebrew. I was in that state a few weeks ago but I've started a new project now and I'm back to my homebrew projects again.

My long-term plan is to get so much money from donations that I can give up work and do homebrew full-time

 

[kevcal]

I'm working on 3 projects at the moment - 2 in the coding phase and one in 'act on customer change request' mode.
I code at lunchtime for an hour or so on homebrew (my lunches seem to extend and extend; luckily few people understand what I do anyway ).
Trouble is I'm knackered by the evening but if you enjoy what you're doing, you can always find time I think..