How do you find time?

tl; dr; set yourself up for success by redefining success. Tiny progress is still progress. Be nice to yourself.

I like to set myself up for success mentally by committing to making as little progress as possible that still counts as progress. If I’m on a roll I’ll blast past that and “overdo it”. But on other days I’ll just manage the bare minimum that still counts as progress.

A tiny step forward is still a step forward.

And try to be the person that doesn’t miss two days (or even more lax; two weeks) in a row.

Set your mental goals up for success. It’s like exercise. For me it’s easiest when I manage to mentally find a “win” as a part of my routine. What’s important is consistency, not performance. Sometimes I only commit to putting my running shoes on and stepping outside. I’m then free in my mind to turn around. Usually I’ll keep going. But sometimes I’ve given myself a break and realized that today was not an “over the top” day.

I have a fulltime office job and family, so time is definitely something that is hard to come by. The thing that has helped for me is to setup a trello or whatever and layout everything I want to do in very small tasks. If I just say work on such and such a page I'll never get it done, but if break that up into smaller tasks I get stuff done.
Still going to take awhile, but at least it gives me a realistic path to follow and a sense that I'm getting somewhere.

I don't think there is a magic answer for this. You have to find the time and ways to be more efficient. Over time you can get better at timeboxing your activities, there is no time to procrastinate when the child is going to awake in an hour! ;)

When I'm with the kids, for example, I will usually do jobs around the house so that I don't have to do them later when the kids are asleep.

I often listen to podcasts when driving kids around or at the park.

I make the evening strictly my time, most of the time. I get my older kids to help out, with housework and hanging out with their kids.

I do most of my watching of TV type shows on my phone whilst I'm waiting for the kids to nod off to sleep (I still stay with them in the room until they fall asleep).

We have a once a week cleaner too, which helps.

Every spare hour I look at decide how I can best use it, it's not always work, I've gotten much better at opting to do a workout/run.

Life is different with kids, I find I really have to push for my space/time, if I don't it just won't happen.

It might sound like a cliche, but having a kid is really amazing as you start to actually value one of the most important assets - your time. I just laugh to the younger myself, who was constantly short on time. It's not the time shortage problem, it's about not wasting it so much. Moreover, it forces you to do only the most important things for your side project.

I would encourage you to find 15min each day. If you really can't find it, just wake up earlier. Split your most important tasks into one bite chunks. Do this for a week, without a single day of exception. Then gradually raise it to 30-45min each day. After a month you'll be surprised by your accomplishments, just do not procrastinate during that time. One more important thing, even if you managed to spend a few hours on Saturday, it doesn't count for the next day. Keeping momentum is the key.

After finishing the project or important milestone take a rest, but keep in mind that you'll need to establish your momentum from start.

This helped for me, hopefully, will help you too. 15min a day of 100% focused and important work X 7 days is way better than 8 hours of random time spent on random things.

I don't have good advice specific for a new parent, there are other amazing folks here who are much more qualified on that front.

But every business I've built was on the side of something else (including my initial jump from full time to consulting, and usually on just a few hours a week to start. The key is finding ways to build leverage over bits of time that you could control, and instead of finding time...MAKING time.

A few things that might not be obvious, and having a child may or may not impact:

• track your time. all of it. even just for a couple of weeks. my bet is that you can find a chunk of time that you're not really using well, and you can redirect to other parts of your life that can generate more long term value.
• delegate things that can be done by others for nominal amounts of money. this obviously doesn't work for everyone or in every situation, but if there's something I spend time on that someone else could do for less than $50/hour that's usually going to be a good investment to buy back that time and invest it in your future.
• negotiate for some of your time at work. a LOT of our students and friends have successfully negotiated a 4 day work week with their employer as an alternative to a pay raise. You can build a substantial independent business with those extra 8+ hours a week (as long as you deploy them effectively, towards a business that earns money). Here's one story from one of our alums, and another alum helped so many others after doing it himself that he turned it into a guide.

Good luck. You can do this!

I have a full-time office job, two toddlers and just about manage a small amount of time each night for personal projects... sometimes it's 30 minutes, and can go up to 2-3 hours if I can stay focused late on an evening.

I don't really hide away when coding, I'll be sat with the missus and try to get some time in while she's watching TV after spending some time together... cutting out things like binge-watching Netflix helps a lot... I'm sometimes sad I can't join in office Game of Thrones chats at the office but ultimately I feel better making more use of that time.

I've also limited my social network use, stopped responding to every email and doing 'small 5-minute jobs' for clients and friends that come to me with their tech/dev issues.

Other times I'll wake up and go into the office early to squeeze in up to 30 minutes.

Set some time aside for your projects first thing in the morning. Wake up early (around 5) and do your stuff in that time.

I always tried to get something done after coming home from my full time job, but after that I just couldn't concentrate and not focused at all. Working in the morning is magical.

I work on my project a little bit everyday. Some days it's only 15 minutes, others it's 1 hour, mostly on the weekend days. I might miss a single day from time to time but it's okay, as long as I don't skip 2 days in a row I'm fine. This way it keeps me engaged on the project and I feel the urge to come back to it every day to make some amount of progress.

I have 4 kids myself, aged 8-7-3-2. I know what you're going through. Let yourself time and don't put too much pressure on your shoulders. Focus on your family first, then when downtime comes (it will, I promise), you'll be able to put more time into your project.

Remember that it's a marathon, not a sprint.

I see you're in QC like me. If you need to talk, just DM me on Twitter and I'll be happy to help.

Hey, I have almost the same situation. My 👶 is jus around 10 months already. It's a little bit better now than when he was 2 months old, but still it's very hard to have some free time.
One thing I had to do, which I don't recommend really is to get used to to not sleeping well for some time...
Also I started blogging last summer, but since my baby was born I had to stop so not really going anywhere with my ideas. Started lately a side coding project and had a few hours put in it, but I am again not sure if it will work out eventually.

I'm a bit late to the party, but maybe this will help you. I've written an article about my journey of developing side projects, what I've learned and how I came up with my perfect schedule.
https://www.domysee.com/blogposts/dream-journal-project

TLDR: I'm now working 2h each day before work and it's going great!

Congrats! I'm in the same boat with an 8 week old. Three weeks ago I launched a newsletter I've been talking about for the past year. I think the new extreme restriction on my time is actually helping me.

I just try to find 15 minutes a day. It often turns into more, but I just ask of myself for 15 minutes. That may be while mom is feeding, or maybe after they go to bed, or maybe before I take off for work.

I know that's not enough to get anything substantive off the ground, but I'm suddenly free to build up momentum with no pressure. Of course I can't work my ass off, I only have tiny little chunks of time available - but now I feel focused and energized to use them.

One other way the baby helps - we have an entirely new form of motivation!

You're in the midst of a hurricane right now with a 2-mo old baby and a full-time job.

Give yourself some time, leeway, and your mind a rest. If you're motivated enough, you'll get back to it in no time and make a mountain of progress. Having been in your shoes, this is easier said than done. But I do think you shouldn't have high expectations with an infant at home.

Tactically speaking, if you can, I'd suggest picking up some freelance work on the side instead of a project. If you can get enough of it over time, you will be able to go full-time on your own (if that's a goal) much quicker than the product path. Otherwise, just set aside a block of few hours on the weekend (say morning 8am - noon) where you disappear and crank out on your project and consider whatever you can get done during the week as icing on the cake.

Lastly, perhaps my most important advice on the project you work on -- work on something that can generate (even tiny) revenue early on. It'll provide the fuel necessary to keep going.

Good luck! And try to get as much sleep as you possibly can :)