Question for the ones with families and full-time day jobs.

HOW DO YOU DO IT?

I work full time as a programmer and have a small family of wife, son, and dog. Yet I'm having a serious issue with making time to actually work on my projects. Any tips from full-timer fathers/mothers out there that have actually released something?

 

We have that same problem. While I am at home, I homeschool two teens plus work on the game. My husband has a demanding day job and a long commute. He did release a few small games on Torque a few years ago with another developer but nothing recently. Although, to be fair, we have only been working seriously on this project for a year or so. Prior to that, we tried, but too many distractions in real life.

I believe it can be done! If not, I wouldn't even try. You just have to keep working and realize you can't compare yourself to people who work full-time on their game. While it might take a one man team working full time a year or two to finish a game, it will probably take us twice as long. But the trick is seeing progress. Set some realistic short term and long term goals for yourself and don't freak out if you don't always meet them. Try your best. Reward yourself when you actually meet the goal.

As for tips, in our case, we got the kids involved. One is a college student studying programming so we have him doing odd jobs for us. The other two are artists, so they are learning digital art and 3d modeling. They don't get much done, but at least they will have some skills for college. Some of their friends have joined in and done a little work for us here and there. One of them has decided to study digital art in college. That was a little side bonus for me...a feel good moment.

We do try to balance life and still do things together outside of making the game, which can be difficult at times when all I want to do is finish some project. Quite honestly, it has been a very good experience for us. It is rare that you can connect with your kids on something and we seem to be having fun in the process.

 

It's fantastic that your kids are all involved in a way, mine is a 1 year old so you can imagine the different demands involved there

I just recently build a mobile game which I intend to release but it still needs more polishing, the gameplay is done but I still have to improve other smaller areas like the look, menu options, saving data, etc. I do have a friend that I work with every now and then but he has his own business and it's hard setting time to work together with him. Other than that my wife is definitely supportive but not when father/husband responsibilities are not being attended to, which is completely understandable.

In a nutshell, here's my average week day:

- Wake up at 6:30-7:00 AM to get ready for work.
- Off to work from 8:00 AM to 5:30-6:30 PM.
- Back home at 7:00 PM. Have dinner then spend time with my son until he sleeps @ 9:00 PM.
- Spend some time with my wife until 10:30-11:00 PM.
- If I have enough energy left I'll have a Unity jam from 11:00 PM to 2:00-3:00 AM. If not then I sleep.
- Next day repeat.

On weekends I have no time at all since I spend more time with my family and we do our week chores (Laundry, cleaning, shopping, etc). Mind you I am a hardcore gamer yet I have not played any games since my son was born. I understand that I cannot pull marathons anymore more but I hope it get's easier somehow to make time for myself

 

I have 2 teenage daughters, 13&15. My schedule isn't as crazy as yours Laabu19. I can get 1-3 hours in between 9&12 at night, and @ weekends I can usually find 5 or 6 hours.

I find that developing games is an escape from all the stresses in my life. It is what I do instead of watching television.

I had hoped to complete my current game in 3 months. It has now been 12 months. You have to accept that your delivery schedule needs to be flexible and just keep chipping away at it.

I consider myself a hobbyist, if I make some money, that will be fantastic. The key for me is not to make it a job, it is a fun relaxing time.

 

Completely agree there, I do it because I'm passionate about it and not really expecting to make any money. But I do hope that I can make a career out of it someday, it would be amazing if going to work means working on a game

I'm also like you, don't watch TV at all. If I'm watching anything it's because my wife wants to watch a movie with me.

 

This is pretty much my exact schedule as well, also have a 1.5 year old. It's tough...

 

Yeah, it is tough with little ones.

I worked as a writer on an very large indie team for years, mostly when my kids were little. Fortunately, my job was flexible so that worked out well. I eventually became the lead writer but had a fantastic team of writers. A large team really makes a huge difference. But even then, the little ones had to come first! So I can completely relate.

I don't know how you guys do it with tiny ones and with a wife to keep happy. Fortunately, my husband is happy coding away! Our working together on the game is quality time for us. lol Even when we have date night we talk about the game. Sad, huh? Back when I was writing, he was not involved in games at all and sometimes I felt I neglected him. It is very tough to juggle any job with a family and even more difficult when you are juggling two jobs.

Just remember, before you know it those little ones will be teenagers and then you will have more time. Zaddo's schedule is more like my husband's, 3 or so hours in the evening and weekends. So spend time with the kids now...they will be too busy for you in the future.

 

Teila, that is very good advice. The time you have with your children is so very precious, you don't want to sacrifice quality time with them.

 

My schedule is pretty similar to @Laabu19 except I can get a few more hours of sleep because I ride the train to work and work on my game on the train (1 hour each way). It's so hard, but eventually I'll release something...probably...

The trick for me has been to have a laptop so I can sit on the couch and work while my wife winds down watching TV, or on the weekends when the kids want me to watch them play video games (not to mention working on the train).

 

It's a good thing I'm 16 years old, lol. Don't have to worry about family and kids for another decade.

 

I won't have to worry about them in another decade (if I can get them out of the house)

 

Which is, of course, horrible parenting.

 

tell your wife you have this project and ask her to take care of the family about 4-5 months so you can have time to do it (promise that you'll buy her stuffs when you get the profits)

 

I work a full-time job and spend 2.5 hours each day commuting to said job.
I wake up at 5:00AM, get to work by 7, get home by 5, and I'm so exhausted from waking up that early, that I have no energy left for programming.
The best part? I'm 22 and my day already looks like that. I graduated from college 4 months ago and my entire life disappeared already.
The remainder of my day either goes to me staring at Unity while falling asleep in my chair, or spending time with my girlfriend. Either way, not much is getting done and it's a very big concern to me.

 

This won't fly very well with her, she knows what Unity is and sees me working on it lol.

All I can say is take advantage of it now, it does not get any easier going forward. I'm 10 years your senior and it has gotten tougher as time went on. Either way I would never trade what I have now, a beautiful family that I love, that's what matters in the end of the day (For me at least).

 

It does get easier though. The kids get older, more independent and you will have more options in your job as you gain more experience. My first job after graduate school came with an hour or longer commute on a train into downtown Chicago. I spent 12 hours working or commuting and had little energy for anything else. Later, we moved to a different area, short commutes and more time to enjoy life.

 

Well that's the plan. Once I get a bit older, I'll be able to get married, no more commuting to the girlfriend's house, work somewhere close to where we live, and hopefully find some more time.

 

Have you involved your wife? I have 2 kids (one of whom is a Make-A-Wish child), 2 dogs, and a marriage of 23 years, plus a full-time job. Still, it was my wife that encouraged me to start my side company. Within 6 months I had already realized that the HUGE time commitment was only going to work if she was involved. That's when the real work began. And it wasn't all roses and sunshine.

We put lots of personal stories in our apps/games, which means many hours in my closet, finding my muse, before sharing the work with my wife. Since the goal is to make an excellent product, she would proceed to rip my work apart - or so it seemed to me. At my day job, I'm used to having my work criticized, and even so, hearing that from her was ... almost too much. Bringing me to the brink of killing Gigi for good on three occasions and one time, jeopardizing our marriage. Until, we eventually discovered an improv technique called, 'Yes And'.

Within 24 hours of learning Yes And, we put it to use on our products. It changed everything and vastly improved our work and our relationship. We've learned to harness each other's strengths, which made our last project, Tap Happy, a blast. For 13 weeks, I invested every single spare minute. I ate, slept, and dreamt Tap Happy, and still maintained my full-time job, and parented, and maintained my marriage. I squeezed in the occasional movie night, or long walks, or taking my son to a show. And then I'd get back to work.

What makes that possible for me is: 1) Gigi is 80% me, 20% my wife, 2) We tackle small projects (8-14 weeks), and 3) take long breaks between projects (1-4 months). That, combined with how much time my wife and I spend together during the project, makes it possible to do intense bursts with zero free time, followed by long periods of normalcy. In 3 years, I have released 7 products. However, I know now, that if they had taken 12 months each ... I'd have released 0. Which is not a typo, I do mean ZERO.

Gigi

(PS - Stories like this one are what makes our products like Great Marriage, The Compliment Habit, and Tap Happy with Gigi unique. Succeed or fail, our products can never be cloned - until they clone humans.)

 

It is hard when they are young. I was working and doing game dev when our daughter was born. It really did not last more than a year or so after that, even with an 'easy' college teaching schedule which allowed for both family and 'codie' time, at least if you were willing to burn the midnight oil. When the bottom dropped out around 2000 (web games) it made it a much easier choice to just set that aside game dev and focus on family. My wife and I had been discussing it for a while, and that was pretty much the nail in the coffin. So, I guess we did not make it work in the long run.

However what did help was...
1) No TV, you would be amazed at how much time this frees up.
2) Getting used to 6 hours sleep average. Of course, it was actually less for a good piece of that as our bundle of joy was a bit cranky when it came to sleeping through the night
3) Having support of of family on a regular basis. We paid my mom 'instead' of her working part time to baby sit two days a week. This worked well until the revenue stream started really drying up.

Funny thing is now that our daughter is older she has started picking up interest in IT beyond just being a techie or gamer. Taught her some web but that was really only a few month fad for her. Recently she started looking at making games,instead of just playing them, which lead us to Unity. We shall see how it goes.

 

I sleep 5-6 hours a night, and use the time after my wife goes to bed to dev.

 

I have a full time job and 2 kids and a wife. Luckily I work from home so the hours I might spend commuting to and from work, I spend on game development instead. I've released one game so far and am working on a second.

 

That's a fantastic write-up @Gigiwoo, kudos for getting it done and hope for the best. My wife is definitely supportive but she's also too busy to get involved. Mind you developing games is not something she's into and that's ok, I'm not going to force her to like something she's not into.

That's pretty much it for me now, if I do any kind of work it's usually after 10:30-11:00 PM and I end up getting about 5 hours sleep a night, though on some nights if my development is going well I just get carried away and end up getting 3 hours sleep.

 

Same, or if it's not going well, fall asleep at the keyboard after an hour or two of trying to code lol

 

Sleep early three of seven days and you can probably get away with three to five hours of sleep on the other four days.

 

It's quite a task to do, I myself have had to put everything to a halt due to starting college again. At the same time I have a family to take care of and also work full-time. However, eventhough I'm not working on my project, I am still lurking around these forums and learning a thing or two when ever I can. Just realized my idea has already been developed and I am coming up with another game idea. It's more vicious than the previous project, and I think it'll take me a while to accomplish since for 1) I'm new to game development and 2) the reasons mentioned above.

 

Time management You take the time you got, prioritize and use it wisely. You can't change the fact that you got things that require your time unless you remove it... The truth is, there isn't a good answer and I could hold a 2h+
presentation about this topic with ease. This is how I did things in the past though:

I was commuting with train in the past. It was a long ride and a perfect chance to get some programming done, I first carried a laptop with me but it got easier with tablets I also sacrificed some of my lunch time, we had this little park outside the office that was really nice to. Catch some sun, eat, write code and a bonus that I could still reach the company Wifi from my favorite spot Nights, weekends and vacations are also great chances for you to catch up on tasks.

The only important thing that I can warn about is; do not neglect on food, exercise and sleep. These three are essential for a healthy life. Learn the limits of your body and never brake 'em or you will have to pay a heavy price later in life. I've seen so many seniors run into the wall... the more stress you got, the more rest you need. In the worst case, make a habit of taking a vacation once in a while, go away and don't your work, computer or projects with you. Don't even think on them, just have fun and relax with the people that are important to you. It will also increase your productivity when you get back home and should be seen as an investment in the project

 

I've really enjoyed reading this thread. I think the advice is great, so I have very little to add. I'm in the same boat. My kids are all getting older so it's easier now. Many have mentioned involving the family. I think that is huge. It way not alway be the most reductive way to get things done, but the dividends are priceless.

I also have a long train commute. I'm actually posting from the train now, I try to make use of this time for research and getting answers to problems I want to address later in the day so that when I do sit down this evening I don't spend that time working through issues and solidifying ideas, but implementing them.

Anyway, great thread.

 

Hey, don't give up college or time with the wee ones for game developing. I am glad I didn't have the distraction of games and developing when I was young or I would have missed out on so many experiences! I look at my programmer son now who spends far too much time on the computer making or playing games and so little time out making friends, going out, getting involved in the community, and it makes me sad. Someday, he will have a wife and kids and will be trying to find time do do everything. So my sage old lady advice, if you are young, take time to enjoy being young. There is plenty of time later to do all those other things. Doesn't mean you shouldn't make games, but don't make it your life. Same with playing games...don't get sucked into gaming so much that you miss out.

Trust me..the day will come when no matter how many times you played with your kid, you will yearn for the day when you held your little son on your lap and you dressed your daughter in ribbons and lace, which she now rejects for black.

I had a dad who spent hours in his basement workshop messing with computers, back when computers didn't have monitors. They had teletypes and little cards and all games were in text. We barely saw him. Only as an adult do I get to enjoy my dad and now he lives many miles away. I love him but what I wouldn't give to have memories of playing with my dad.

 

One of the things I've found is that people fill up all their time and then think that stuff is necessary. For example, and ex-girlfriend of mine went to the grocery store every single day. She was convinced this was an important thing for her. On the other hand, I would go every other *month*. Sure, it meant fresh vegetables and meat only a couple days every month, and frozen for the rest, but I saved *hours* every week. Probably 20-30 hours over the course of that 2 months, compared to her. She used to wonder why I had so much free time.

That's just the biggest example I have, but there are other ways to consolidate your necessary chores and make them take less time, leaving you more time to work on your projects instead.

Another big one is TV time. I watch a lot of shows I know I could give up. Sometimes I even watch them out of apathy. But I never watch them live because then I can't skip the commercials. Instead, it's better to DVR them, or better yet, get them from Amazon. Getting back 15 minutes of each hour of TV watched is huge. Unless you are *really* into a TV show, it's better to just skip it, though.

 

Oh, don't give up those fresh veggies for a little time! Once a week at the grocery store is enough. But in about 20 years, you will regret living a life of meat and starch (or frozen veggies with little to no nutrients). Remember, you want to be around to retire and make games full time. Telling men under 40 they should eat right is a waste of time, I know, but I have to try.

 

Telling men over 40 is a waste of time too

 

I just realized I did my math wrong. It isn't 20-30 hours per 2 months, it's 20-30 hours per month! She went every day, and it takes like 45-60 minutes to do the shopping. (Driving, finding things, deciding, lines, more driving, unloading, putting away...)

I know people who would sell their kidneys for 10 extra hours per week for the rest of their lives.

Now, granted, most people weren't quite as crazy as her about grocery shopping. And once a week shopping trips about right. (And don't worry, my wife has been working on getting me to eat more veggies.)

My point was that people do things to fill their time that are actually quite wasteful, and those things can be optimized.

 

I've given up on trying to do anything after work on weekdays. I'm just too exhausted to do the kind of work I want to get done.

So instead I do ultra early. I wake up around 5 most mornings, work in a virtual office and don't have to be on post until 9am, so if I manage my time well, that's at least 3 hours (accounting for shower and coffee) of undisturbed, pure dev time.

With that schedule I've made more progress in the last 3 months than I made in the prior 9. It won't work for everyone, and I thought I'd hate the early mornings, but it's working for me. Might be worth a go.

 

I completely agree! When I first started I didn't eat, or sleep much, or socialize (almost losing friends) what so ever. My health deteriorated, and I lost a few pounds/kilograms I never got back, and I was skinny for my height to begin with.

If you can, squeeze in around half an hour or hour of workout + shower every day (one or two break days per week). I'm 23 and just recently started working out, and it helps a lot. Sure I'm more tired because I'm not used to it yet, but damn do I feel good and more productive after a workout, and we all know how feeling good helps in everything.

 

I don't have a kid but I do have a wife and a puppy as well as a full time job. During the work week I usually only try to get significant development in when my wife has plans out of the house and I'll be home alone. I mostly get stuff done during the weekends though. The toughest thing is resisting the urge to spend my "relaxation time" playing video games or watching t.v.

Choosing to do smaller projects is also helpful. I don't think I'm going to make Diablo 4 working alone 10 hours a week lol.

 

While I do work on smaller projects (My current mobile app is a very basic idea). That's Diablo 4 comment is actually a long term dream that I have thought of for a long time LOL.

 

First, let me just say I feel ya Laabu19. I'm in a similar boat with three kids (a 3 y/o son and twin 1 y/o daughters) and a more than full time job 50+ hrs/wk). I have a few suggestions, take from them what you will:

1. Everything GiGi said. Seriously, all of it. I don't think I've ever agreed with anyone on any forum about anything as I do in this case.

2. Schedule development time: Make a time commitment, even if it is a relatively small one to give yourself solid blocks of time to work on your project. Look at it this way, if you had a second, part time job, you would just be there when you had to be there right? It would by definition take some time away from other things, but you would just make it happen. Give your project the same precedence. Commit to a three or four hour block once or twice a week. Put it on your calendar, make sure your wife knows about it and understands why. Then stick to it. Let nothing interrupt you during that time.

3. Be accountable to someone. This could be your wife (a way of applying one of GiGi's suggestions) or someone else. Schedule a 30 minute meeting with that person once a week to go over what you accomplished in the past week, what you're working on now, and any troubles you may be having. It's great if this person has some technical skills and can offer suggestions, but really not required. The more important thing is you are reporting to someone, and won't want to go to them and say "I didn't do anything this week."

4. Think small. Said before I realize, but keep projects to a small and manageable scale. If this is an 8 hour a week venture for you, consider publishing a simple puzzle game as your first game just to get the feel of going through a project from start to finish. If you divide up all the labor it will take to create diablo 4 by 8 hours a week, it would be done sometime after the sun explodes.

5. Plan and track your progress. When you start your project, use proper planing techniques. At bare minimum create a list of all tasks involved and give your best estimate as to how many hours each task will take. When a task is done, make a note of how many hours it actually took so you can use the information to make better predictions next time around. This will help you in so many ways. If you're so inclined, I don't think going so far as to do a full gantt chart and critical path analysis is too much assuming you have the project management skills to do so.

6. Take long breaks between projects to recharge. Again, said before, but don't burn out on something you love.

Cheers!

 

Everything you said was brilliant, particularly the bolded part above . My wife will get a kick out of that.

Gigi

 

I just work on this stuff when I can. The boys are into games at least as much as I am (and working out). My girl is a game player (I had that criteria this time around) so in the evenings when she is playing DC Universe Online I get a couple hours or so to work on my projects. Of course, there are always other things to do. Mow lawn, tinker around house and so forth. Play some games. But I make a list at the beginning of each week identifying what I want to accomplish this week. Just a list of small objectives pulled from the grand list of the full project scope. It keeps me making progress every week and that is all that matters to me as far as this stuff is concerned.

 

@blurededge - Point #3 is actually working out really well for me since I started my Sunday livestreams. My Twitch (and YouTube) viewers keep me socially accountable for working on what I'm working on. My plan is, when I end my next project, simply say, "It's done, I might stream some post-deploy tweaks if they warrant it, but I'm going to take a break for a few months. I'll do some other streams every now and again, until I seize upon my next project."

 

Excellent idea. Every since reading Blurededge's post, I have been trying to think of how to keep our team accountable. We are all moving along, but some more than others. I never thought to do a live stream but that might be an excellent idea. My blog is fun, but only I really care about it so if I miss a week or two, I only feel a slight twinge of guilt, not enough for me to work harder.

Still a bit early for livestreaming for us but I think I will find a way to incorporate that into our future. Thanks.

 

Laabu - your day is pretty familiar . I've managed by staying up late and such in the past, but a couple important thoughts from someone who might be in the same boat but a few years ahead (my kids are 11 and 9 now).

1. You listed time allocated to children and wife which to me says a lot about your commitment and priorities. Based on that alone, i'm confident you'll fit things in and get some games done in time without becoming a poster child for "Cat in the Cradle".

2. As your kids get older, there's a certain point where they do their own things or participate in what you do - i'm starting my 9 yr old in on some programming with Unity and we game together a fair bit, my daughter (11) is more into watching shows with mom or drawing. Anyhow, point being that you will start to get time back all too soon.

3. Keep code simple and black boxed. Make sure when you take a break you're able to pick up and move on, if something is "a mess" then fix and compartmentalize it so that your building your own little libraries/asset packages which helps contain complexity better (good as a general rule but in this case essential with limited time).

4. Just look for quick wins to keep momentum going - last night I just swapped out my use of TextMesh for a 3d text mesh tool to add some effects and visual appeal. Very simple, but I don't have that "i'm not moving forward" guilt the next day because at least some progress was made ... baby steps!

I'm thinking a few of us "working father indies" should band together for a project or two - it'd be nice to work with folks that have the same constraints and realistic outlook on time commitment, anyone up for that ping me sometime - almost done my current project, working on a GDD for my next "big" project - so it'd be a perfect time to coordinate a small game project with some folks.

 

You know? Some of my ideas are simply crap. I learned that by taking 'quick wins' to the extreme - with 'quick projects' that take 2-14 weeks. When I get the itch, I set a deadline, limit scope, and work crazy hours to knock out tasks. Until it's finally ready to submit, and then, I have to come back down to earth. It can take weeks before I am calm enough to simply watch a show, without feeling guilty. That's why I take long breaks between them.

The idea of being saddled with a single multi-year effort ... *SHIVER*. Life is too short for that emotional burden!

PS - @Lypheus - As fun as it would be to work together, my experiences have taught me that my life is already full. Good luck .

Gigi

 

That's an idea of yours that I'm trying to build on in my works.

My current little side project, Sara the Shieldmage, I'm just building a mechanical prototype of right now. My plan is, since I started it about two weeks ago, that by the conclusion of my dev livestream on Sunday, that this mechanical prototype will be done-done, and that I can put it in front of people and ask, am I onto something with the mechanics? Should I take this idea any further, or just do something else?

If the answer is, 'yes, this has potential, build it into something more,' my next step is an 'in-the-rough' version of the game that will take another 10 weeks to get built. I won't care how it looks, merely that there is an experience that is as good as possible, subject to iterative testing and development. From there, I plan to spend about two months doing nothing but polish - adding special effects, cleaning up textures, fixing bugs, filling plot holes, redesigning parts that I screwed up (like I'm doing with The Hero's Journey on some of my dev livestreams)

The only problem I have with the 12-week assertion, is that I know I don't have the expertise to make a full, well-done game in 12 weeks. In the triangle of 'Good/Fast/Cheap, Pick Two', I'm opting for 'Better and Cheaper; it won't be Fast'.

I feel this is actually OK; 10 months for a game like The Hero's Journey won't work. Despite being my 'Best Game I've Ever Written To Date', it still wasn't a good game at all for various reasons.

However, if I take that same 10 months to write something good - or, better still, if I get there in 6-8 instead - chances are good it will not just be the new 'Best Game I've Ever Written To Date', but something that - a first for me, not counting my Dos Equis man meme* - is actually a good game. As a consequence of The Hero's Journey, it will be far easier to focus on quality, since I'm not doing nearly as much exploratory coding this time 'round, and I already know how to solve most of the problems I stumbled on in that game.

Two weeks is all the time the guy who wrote E.T. for the Atari had, though he also didn't have any additional resources. He was saddled with 'Cheap' and 'Fast', which never leads to anything 'Good.'

TL;DR - I feel time limits are well and good, but too little time can be just as damaging as lots of time wasted. I should know, I've found out the hard way on both counts.

*: It's not the llama thing this time. It's safe for you to look at, even if you have epilepsy.

 

I hear you Gigi - just wrapping up my first game here and it's surprising how much time/effort goes into even the simplest of projects . Ah well, I'm glad software development/architecture is my career - sure makes it easy to spin up a new project when your using the same skills @ work as well as @ play. It's really tough finding folks with similar mindsets, makes me wonder what the success rate of collaborative efforts is given family, work and other commitments between each member?

 

It's very low . I have single friends that tell me, 'Yeah, I want to build a game too, I just don't have the time.' ... .... ROFLCOPTERS!

Gigi

 

No kidding - friend of mine fits that bill perfectly now that I think about it. Well, time to get back to game dev and "beat the odds!".

 

The thing that has started killing me is the context switching, starting to wonder if I should just focus on one language at a time. Recently took a job and it mostly involves python and javascript both of which I was new at, so coming home and diving into c# or c++ it takes me a good amount of time to readjust after a day of node.js and vice versa.

 

I've been doing a lot of polyglot development for a while now, don't worry it'll be second nature soon. But going from Python -> C++ ... wow, that'd be one hell of a head snap lol.

 

I would stick with a language that you're most comfortable with. In the end of the day remember that the language is just a tool, it's what you do with the tool that counts.