[sabjut]

What I learned from other people who have success in their side projects is to choose a workplace that allows you to do a sub 40 hour work week. Of course you would have to live a tad more simply than your standard upper-middle class software guy.

[Auracle]

I specifically started doing photography so I could do game development in the off-season.

It turns out it’s hard to completely drop projects in the spring/summer and pick them up in the winter. I’d love to keep pecking at them over the photography season but I have a hell of a hard time getting anything done when I can only dedicate an hour or so an evening to it.

[corpdronejuly]

I feel like the value for you there is to incrementally add a little bit and keep your project fresh in your mind.

[penjelly]

this is what i believe. even 10 minutes daily for me can work wonders. it puts me in that headspace even if i don't get any hobby work done.

[watwut]

> Of course you would have to live a tad more simply than your standard upper-middle class software guy.

Actually, many software jobs are like that. All it requires is for you to not be ambitious to create. You can have very good salary in many companies while slacking a lot. Sometimes you might have to be in office for a lot of hours, meaning doing leisure, socialization and side project in the office.

[vikingerik]

It's worth mentioning the common advice here though: do not use company time or equipment to work on a side project, since that may give them a legal claim to ownership of the work if they ever find out.

The specifics will vary greatly depending on your employment agreements and legal jurisdiction, so make your own decisions regarding your own situation (doing it on company time might be the lesser risk compared to not doing it at all), but do be wary.

[learc83]

If you’re salaried, there’s no such thing as company time, so that’s not a meaningful distinction.

[mediaman]

If you are doing it in a company office, using company property, during hours the company expects you to be working, do not expect to use "well, I'm salaried, so it doesn't matter" as a legal defense and win.

[learc83]

Company property is a completely different issue. Whether you do it during business hours or not is irrelevant.

If you’re salaried, you’re always on company time, so whether the company owns it or not is up to the laws of the state and the agreements you signed when hired.

[abnercoimbre]

What if you did most of your project outside the company, but only very small parts of it on company property? Can they still claim complete ownership?

[ultrasounder]

I totally can attest to it. Work for a subpar legacy medical device company where my input is constantly less than 40 hrs a week thereby allowing me to learn skills like React and solidity to consider opportunities in web3 which wouldn’t be remotely possible with FAANGMULATAD