Comments (3)
I’m not sure I balance these things in a conventional sense and the relative proportion I spend on all these things has varied a good deal over the years.
Way back in 2002 when I started open source I was working a year in industry and hating it, so I spent all my free time on open source (Filelight) while doing a 9-5. Towards the end of that year I was getting up early, doing open source, going to work late, coming home for lunch, taking a two hour lunch for open source, leaving early, doing open source until I was tired then going to bed.
I could only do that because I was 20. And because it was a barely paid year in industry, and my boss didn't care and it was Britain (USA would never let you do this).
I had a girlfriend at the time, but both of us were pretty boring people so she would just let me work when she came to see me, and when I went to see her I missed code.
After that I had one year left an university and I basically didn't go to class, I didn't socialize and I worked on open source (amaroK)
I almost failed my degree so I went home and lived with my parents. I worked 20 hours a day on open source, never saw my parents, slept when they were awake mostly. Ate alone. But provided I didn't think about the fact my life was up in the air I was happy.
The next fews years I got into the industry, first with Last.fm, and I loved working there so I stopped doing open source. I also socialized almost every day I after work.
Then I quit and created Homebrew. I spent 6 months constantly on it, no socializing.
But I ran out of money so joined TweetDeck. This was the most balanced I'd been so far, I socialized a lot, and worked 9-5 and did a lot of open source. I burned out. Fortunately other people stepped up to help with brew. I talk about this in my brew create
video.
So balance was hard.
In the years since I have really alternated. Right now I am full-time on open source, trying to fund it with donations. But it isn't yet enough so I am also looking for small contracts that can pay enough that I can continue to build my patronage.
My Current Day
- Wake up 9
- Drink coffee, have a miso soup
- Work until noon or so, I have a large document of things to work on, and generally pick whatever takes my fancy. Morning work is most productive, so I'm careful about my choice.
- Leave the hours for 30-60 minutes, take a book, fiction preferably. I read at Forsyth Park here in Savannah †
- Return and work until 3:30
- Work out for 20-30 minutes
- Work until 5 (this work will be more minor tasks)
- Cook dinner
- Spend a few hours with wife
- Work if I still have energy
- Bed, read if not quite ready to sleep, ignore phone
How am I to get the paid work in effectively? I'm not sure yet. I've historically struggled to multitask and really I think it's pretty difficult for programmers. I’ll update when I have data.
from ama.
Thanks a lot Max for your answer and insights! It's great to see how things changed and evolved along the journey. It helps put our own struggles and/or successes in perspective.
The brew create video
is amazing, I live in Paris and I'm sad I missed it. You'll come back ;)
from ama.
You'll come back ;)
Would love to! Had a great time. I love Paris.
from ama.
Related Issues (20)
- What makes you happy? HOT 3
- Are you secretly working for Apple Inc? HOT 1
- Do you have an opinion on how to use promises on Android? HOT 4
- Your preference on open source licenses HOT 1
- What do you think about Google interview Today HOT 2
- Vim or Emacs? HOT 2
- How do you overcome "writer's block" - when one thing you want to make doesn't work, and it takes a while? HOT 1
- How to become an open source developer HOT 2
- What makes Workbench better than Mackup? HOT 1
- Technical skill to create / get involved in open source projects? HOT 2
- How did you come up with the name "mxcl"? HOT 1
- How will PromiseKit play along with Apple's new framework Combine? HOT 7
- Why did you leave Apple? HOT 1
- Right now at this point what's the most curious & important(to you) area that you want to learn/improve. Would it be algorithms? HOT 1
- What was it like working at Last.FM? HOT 1
- What is your advice for engineers coming from the enterprise to the open source market? HOT 1
- Any thoughts on the speed of homebrew
- New Website HOT 1
- Do you ever get so absorbed in coding that you neglect "life" stuff? HOT 3
- Zsh/Bash HOT 1
Recommend Projects
-
React
A declarative, efficient, and flexible JavaScript library for building user interfaces.
-
Vue.js
🖖 Vue.js is a progressive, incrementally-adoptable JavaScript framework for building UI on the web.
-
Typescript
TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript that compiles to clean JavaScript output.
-
TensorFlow
An Open Source Machine Learning Framework for Everyone
-
Django
The Web framework for perfectionists with deadlines.
-
Laravel
A PHP framework for web artisans
-
D3
Bring data to life with SVG, Canvas and HTML. 📊📈🎉
-
Recommend Topics
-
javascript
JavaScript (JS) is a lightweight interpreted programming language with first-class functions.
-
web
Some thing interesting about web. New door for the world.
-
server
A server is a program made to process requests and deliver data to clients.
-
Machine learning
Machine learning is a way of modeling and interpreting data that allows a piece of software to respond intelligently.
-
Visualization
Some thing interesting about visualization, use data art
-
Game
Some thing interesting about game, make everyone happy.
Recommend Org
-
Facebook
We are working to build community through open source technology. NB: members must have two-factor auth.
-
Microsoft
Open source projects and samples from Microsoft.
-
Google
Google ❤️ Open Source for everyone.
-
Alibaba
Alibaba Open Source for everyone
-
D3
Data-Driven Documents codes.
-
Tencent
China tencent open source team.
from ama.