Not discussed in the article: You have to have the support of the people in your life this will impact. For example, the 7-9am timeslot for working, as listed in the article, will impact my family, as that is when I'm getting the kids up and off to school. OK, so I could move it to 5am to 7am, but that would mean I'd need to go to bed earlier, which eliminates important evening time with my wife. Similarly, I could do it from 8pm to 10pm, but that also affects my relationship with my wife, and my social life in general.
This isn't to say that people with a family can't do these things, but that you need to acknowledge the impact it will have on other people, and plan with them to make it work. For example, I often make the time for my wife to work on her novels between 7pm and 9pm. I get the kids to bed and do some cleaning, while she writes, and we still get to connect before sleep.
Totally agree with this. I am woken by my kid at 6am, then it is 100% go-go-go with work or family until about 7pm when the kid goes to bed, then it is starting to cook and prepare dinner and do housework etc. There might be 2 hours or so between dinner and bed to spend time with my wife before we collapse into bed at 10pm or so - talk, watch a movie, play scrabble or whatever. I don't want to ignore her and just do my own thing - it is important to nurture these sort of relationships.
If I do get some spare time that is entirely mine, the absolute last thing I want to do is more work - one needs to relax! Go for a run, watch a movie, do some coding for fun, play a game, or just waste time on youtube or whatever - I don't want to be "hustling" a side project.
I could stay up later after the wife has gone to bed, but that is going to harm me long-term by trading sleep for side-projects that in reality are not going to change my life as much as long-term sleep deprivation is going to change my life. That said I do occasionally from time-to-time stay up late to have a beer and mess around on the computer - I think that is healthy in the long run :)
It took me some time to work out that with 2 kids now I just don't have the time for side projects anymore. It is impossible. My oldest is also a person that needs very little sleep. He stopped regular daily naps when he was about 6 months old. In the beginning of daycare (2 yo) he was the only kid in daycare that didn't sleep during the day. He also never goes to sleep before 9pm. In summer it often is 10pm or even later.
When he finally sleeps both my wife and me are just wasted. Not ever could I find energy or motivation to "work" after that.
However I still have hope for the future. When the kids grow older and do more for themselves there will be opportunities to write some fun code on the side :)
Our youngest was the same way! Things will get better! At least, in terms of sleep. She actually sleeps in now. Even better, on the weekends, when both kids wake up before us, they just play together for an hour, instead of waking us up. It was truly a strange feeling, when that started happening.
Most parents don't really understand what we are dealing with since their kids sleep much longer (2,3 hours more). This was even more extreme when he was little. When we told people that he wasn't sleeping at daytime they had this strange look as in "that is not possible".
However he learned walking and talking pretty early so he used his extra time it seems ;)
While it is a challenge I always remind myself how lucky I am to have two healthy kids. Sounds like a trope but it really is true.
> Most parents don't really understand what we are dealing with since their kids sleep much longer (2,3 hours more).
That is true. Our 2.5 y.o. had a period of a couple months in which she refused to sleep more than 8 hours a day. That took a huge toll on all of us. Even now, she sleeps less than she's "supposed to". And of course, when we tried to consult with other parents, nobody could offer any useful advice (and we even asked widely, i.e. in local Internet groups for parents), as apparently everyone's problem is worrying that their kids sleep too much.
Even after 'bedtime for the kids', it's still never ending. They need to get up for the bathroom, or for a drink of water, or want more stories, or want to turn on the light and play in the room... Neverending! My only alone time is when I !@#@#%! sleep.
The meta is that if you add something to your life, and you don't currently have a lot of time when you are just bored, something will have to suffer.
I was wondering why I was often stressed out even though my life was good and I mostly did the things I want to do. Years ago, I had 3 things in my life - work, rock climbing, and coding/reading/videogames ("geeking out"), and I was never stressed for time. Then I got married, so now spending time with my wife became another thing. For a few years, it just so happened by itself that I've been coding, reading or playing videogames very little - turns out I could only fit 3.2 things in my life, not 4, something had to give. That actually made me stressed out and I didn't understand why... When I did, becoming more organized and wasting less time upped it to maybe 3.5, so now I can read a book/code/geek out now and then. But, alas, not as much as I would want.
That's one of the main reasons I'll never have kids - there's just no way I can handle 5 things, and I don't think I'd want any of the remaining ones to suffer for the payoffs (well, maybe work, but not just yet). That is also why you cannot add game making to your life without sacrifice...
Health is also a factor. Health issues can take up 1 of those 'thing' slots, another thing to spend time researching and working around. I've seen it happen unexpectedly to a friend, and it was a normal part of my life for a long time. Health can also include preventative things like exercise and diet, which require mental effort (research, willpower).
I'm not going to tell you that you should have kids, but my experience is that I can still have time for "geeking out" if I do it with my kids. This is going to vary depending on their age, but currently they like to watch me play games, so I pick games based on what I think they will enjoy.
Similarly, it's fun to read a book around the same time as my wife, and then we can have a sort of "book club" discussion.
If I want to play something too scary for kids, I sacrifice sleep, so you win some you lose some lol.
Yeah, I forgot to mention that; sometimes that works, I do read with my wife, and we rock climb together a lot. However, sometimes you may have your own goals (climbing training like hangboarding is impossible to do together and not fun anyway), or things the other person doesn't do (like coding).
As far as kids go however, I feel like it's almost always a trap (it can sometimes happen with adults too, but with kids it's almost a given)... I know many people with hobbies from some tech stuff to extreme sports (like skiing), who "still play with Arduino" or "still ski" after having kids. Except before they used to do some hardcode backcountry stuff, and how with kids they go to a resort, fool around on an easy run, and then go have a beer while kids are taking a lesson. Technically, they are still skiing, but realistically they are not - they are just spending time with their kids. There are exceptions, but they are few and far between imho.
Not that there's anything wrong with that, but my point still stands - when you add something, you have to lose something; I feel like for kids, it's especially true.
When you start valuing new things, then you automatically stop having time to value the things you valued before. So you stop valuing them. Because your values changed.
So let your values change. You'll be the richer in the end.
But do you want your values to change? An extreme example is drugs, if you start taking certain drugs your values will get replaced with wanting more of the drug. You-then might endorse that, you-now emphatically won't (I hope). In the GP, the key point is that you would have to sacrifice something... it's not surprising, it should be expected. The question is what, and whether you would want to.
I totally agree with your perspective. It reminds of an essay pg wrote (http://www.paulgraham.com/kids.html) about having kids, and I think the principles are similar to yours. You can be successful and "do it all", but you might have to modify "all" _a bit_ and you have to be very disciplined and honest about your trade-offs.
Yeah, something has to give, I have the exact problem you have. Currently my weekday sleep suffers. There is no right way to do it, but you have to acknowledge the trade offs and make your decision knowing the impacts. So many people want to have their cake abs eat it, and usually get the worst outcome.
This isn't to say that people with a family can't do these things, but that you need to acknowledge the impact it will have on other people, and plan with them to make it work. For example, I often make the time for my wife to work on her novels between 7pm and 9pm. I get the kids to bed and do some cleaning, while she writes, and we still get to connect before sleep.