[kugelblitz]

Yes, it depends on the circumstances, of course. But I've seen myself make different (maybe perhaps smarter?) choices as well and so to have both a successful career and be with my family.

Yes, I could've taken a contract in a different city and earn a bit more. I used to take longer periods of time off to work on my own personal projects.

But nowadays, instead of working many late nights for 8 months, so I can take 4 months off to work on my personal projects, I usually work 10-11 months, but less hours per week. So I'm home earlier every day and I'm not exhausted every night.

I ask recruiters and colleagues 1-2 months before the end of the project (sometimes I take a few weeks off between projects) and plan for the next project early - so I have more choices and am less under pressure. And in the past years I've been able to work only in local projects that don't require travel outside my city.

Instead of learning niche-y tech because it looks cool on my resume (e.g. Svelte, Elixir / Phoenix or Clojure) I use my time to learn Python or React instead. Why? Because it increases my general market value as a freelancer better. My employed colleagues with no spouse and kids will use their free evenings to program in Golang to create a game that has not launched after a year. They're doing it just for fun. Me? Should I have a some spare time for side projects, I will try to learn something like Python with Flask or Django to create a side-project that will hopefully launch within a few weeks and perhaps I can even make some money off of it a few months down the road. "Worst case" I learnt Python and have a portfolio project to show off.