[ajhurliman]

In bursts!

I try to do something meaningful for my side project about once a week. If it's side-project night, I put my phone on airplane-mode and tell the lady-friend I'm booked up so I can concentrate for a solid ~5 hours without interruptions.

Obviously you can't do this super often while balancing the rest of life, but it's reasonable to get it in about once a week.

The tricky part is to let ideas for it simmer on the back-burner of your mind, but not to let the flame go out completely. It's nice to walk into your session with a full agenda and a general grasp of how you're going to implement it with caveats in mind, which you can fill in during the downtime of the week. However, it's also easy to completely forget about your project.

You can counter that part by getting friends involved!