[cableshaft]

Don't usually have much extra time on the weekends. Weekends are for making up for a week of the house getting dirty, relatives and friends wanting to meet, extra long walks for the dogs that only got short walks during the week, errands that got put off, some catchup sleep, actually relaxing a bit since there wasn't much during the week, etc.

I might have 2-3 hours each day (of energy and motivation) to work on projects but not 8. Of course I never have 4 hours during the week either, I'm lucky to get 1 in usually.

[chii]

> relatives and friends wanting to meet

which is why some people who have the discipline and self-control to do a big personal project often have to neglect friends and family - it's a sacrifice.

[cableshaft]

Sure. I'm not saying I haven't made sacrifices for personal projects before, especially when I was younger, but I'm also not willing to become a total hermit and slave for these projects that are not really going anywhere.

Hell, I'm still waiting on my first board game signed by a publisher four years ago to be manufactured and released, and it sounds like it's still on the backburner at their company (they had a rough two years from the pandemic, I get it). And I've had another game be a finalist in two game design competitions since then and still not find a publisher willing to take a chance on it (several other finalists in the same competitions have). And I've pitched at least a dozen of my other designs to quite a few publishers as well.

Still churning and pitching but after seven years of trying and not getting anywhere, it's rough. I know if I went full time I'd have a lot more success (especially seeing how much success a friend of mine is having in only about 3 years of being full-time at it), but I'm not willing to start working for 30% of my current salary or possibly a lot less just to throw a few more board games into the field that's already supersaturated from the past decade of constant new and quality releases, especially when most publishers are facing an existential threat from the current shipping crisis.

I'm also working on a couple of smaller video games, but there are weeks where it just seems like I'm too busy or tired to spend time on it. And it's hard to go "yes, let's make the sacrifice of not seeing friends and ignoring my family" when I'm really not seeing how I'm going to break through the flood of video games out there either. I'm not an artist, I'm not going to make the next Stardew Valley or Undertale by myself. I'm making games with hexes and arrows in them :) Fun games, and one of them was even a popular free flash game back in the day and also won awards, but most people have probably moved on now and the new generation won't have any nostalgia for it.

Still feel like I need to make it anyway though.

[penjelly]

youre not alone. Unless i actively maintain my apartment itll deteriorate over the week (i even meal prep weekends to alleviate some) i do agree with others though. More time spent disengaging from the work your doing may actually net you a positive in the productivity dept