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[Jeff Skyrunner]

I think the main things have been said.

I work 40/60 hours per week as project manager in the internal IT of a pharmaceutical distributor (that is, we buy drugs from big companies and sell to the single pharmacies... so, no games!).
My luck is I have a very long lunch break (2 hours) and I can go home for lunch, since I live very near my office; I usually spent 1 of these 2 hours for my game programming plus I've scheduled one evening at week for game programming, but most of the times I miss that evening.
When I have a little spare time during work, I pseudo-code what I have left to do in my game or organize the remaining work to be done.

The main idea is: prioritize your life, knowing you have to pay your bills, spend time with your family, be phisically and mentally healthy... game dev comes next, if it's not your main earning activity.

[jgrams]

Seems like Alevice is the outlier here.  14 hours makes my head spin just thinking about it.

It can focus the mind wonderfully though. I had that kind of schedule for a while when we got started with the farm. When you know you only have maybe 10 hours a week that aren't needed for working, eating, or sleeping, it makes you really think about how you're spending your spare time, and you learn just how much you can get done if you're not wasting time on trivial stuff.

[Mark_Tempe]

* stop watching TV (I haven't watched TV since about 1989)

You are my hero man!

Anyway, there is a little program called Freedom to separate yourself from internet, I found it helpful.

Website:
http://macfreedom.com/

[Ky.]

* stop watching TV (I haven't watched TV since about 1989)

You are my hero man!

Anyway, there is a little program called Freedom to separate yourself from internet, I found it helpful.

Website:
http://macfreedom.com/

Or, y'know.. just "Turn off WiFi" or unplug the ethernet cord..

Why pay $10 for something that just cuts off your internet?

Or can you whitelist websites? Like, cut off your internet, except for this documentation site and stackoverflow?

[Impmaster]

Swim Practice 4AM-6AM
Classes 7AM-2PM
Swim Practice 2PM-6PM
Program til I pass out

I don't really see why it's so hard for some people. Then again, I don't have to worry about finances or anyone besides me.

You don't need time for homework or relaxation or anything?

[Ky.]

Then again, I don't have to worry about finances or anyone besides me.

I think that pretty much answers the question. Live at home, no rent, no significant other, no kids. I remember when I did that, I could do my projects practically without care.

Soon one will learn how to cope when life hits. Unless your the kid of rich ass parents, you never have to do anything you don't want to

[KellyRay]

My day job prevents me from accelerating some of my personal game projects. But I'm fine with that. I'm not really in a hurry. The trade off of having stable employment that pays for my mortgage is well worth it.

I'm in the same boat and couldn't agree more. I am in no real rush to finish my project. And as soon as I brought the scope of the game and the expectations of success to a manageable level, all that stress for finishing it went away.

[DevWithoutACrew]

For the past 5 years i worked on the service industry, i live in Greece, i don't know if you are up to date with how bad are things now in my country but they are pretty bad  . I used to work for 12-14 hours a day and watch my paycheck go so far down the line it made me loose sleep. My only way out was game developing, i spent all my day-offs and all the sleepless nights with almost obsessive levels of determinations to learn how to code/animate and model.

In the end it come around to this, either i'm going to be poor and tired, or just poor 
so i quit my job and focus all my attention on game developing, now instead of 12-14 hours, i spent almost 10 to something i love and like and my abilities have gone through the roof.
To further cement my point i'm just gonna refer you to two videos.
You can really see the difference two months make if you focus all that time in your game.
This one is my first


And this one i put out yesterday



I don't want you to feel i'm just spamming with my work but i'm a strong believer of "A picture worth a thousand words". Quitting you day job might not be for everyone and maybe seem crazy to most, but i'm just gonna mention it wasn't that easy and for me, being at 26 and deciding to make a career out of nothing is right up suicidal 
With kidding aside thou, motivation and determination goes a long way in the end and somehow the universe has a way of noticing sacrifices  well at least most success stories start with them 

[Liza]

It varies; I don't have a rigid schedule for doing hobby development outside of work, I just get it in whenever I can. It is purely a hobby, so I haven't really needed to try to force myself to do it with a schedule - it kind of just happens. Plus, because my work hours can vary a crazy amount depending on what stage of development we're in it would be kind of impossible to try and plan a proper schedule for hobby stuff at all.

[Jungletoe]

You don't need time for homework or relaxation or anything?

Nope. It's all taken care of during my brief study hall times. I never relax... and it's a problem. I haven't watched TV in months, I haven't played a video game (besides purely for the purpose of analyzing it) in years, and I don't hang out with friends much at all (maybe once a week at most).

It's actually begun to hit me quite hard. Got diagnosed with nearly every type of anxiety disorder possible and chronic depression. When your life is a shithole you tend to constantly look towards improving it through progress. That's the way I see it, anyway.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i don't work a day job (i do do some freelance stuff from home though) but here's some advice that hasn't been mentioned yet

- if you are tired from stress, try to improve your health; eat right and exercise. for a lot of people, what they call 'stress' is actually caused by 'eating junk food and not exercising' rather than by what they think is causing it

- take breaks frequently, but not long breaks; breaks should never be more than about 20 min, otherwise it's not 'taking a break' and becomes 'avoiding working'

- use the pomodoro technique (google it if you don't know what it is)

- be realistic about expectations. if you are working a full time job and also making a game, there will be days where you won't be able to work on it, and it will take many times longer to make than if you were working on it full time. and that's okay

[lucidz]

So I figure i'd chime in here.

Someone nailed it on the first page when they said "If you love it, you'll make time".  I'd add, "Everything else is just an excuse."

I am a married, full time senior software engineer at an ad agency who does freelance on the side and have negative free time.  Someone also said "exercise, etc" and I think its key.  I do heavy weight training 4 days a week, which essentially forces me to get good rest at least 4 days a week (can't do deadlift day on 5 hours of sleep)  The other 3 are free game.

I dont have any time to play games, I don't watch any tv (no cable in fact) and don't even sit in front of the TV unless its with my wife.  Between my full time job, my secondary income, and my wife, I've given up absolutely every other form of personal gratification except working on my game.

Its just what you have to do

[tieTYT]

What I do is I break down a feature into a tiny 15-60 minute pieces and work on at least one a day.  Do this every single day and over time you'll have something to show for it. 

As an example, the current feature I'm working on is to make it so killing a bad guy makes loot explode out of him.  I've already got loot dropping.  Here are the mini-tasks I'll work on:

1. Make it so loot can't be picked up if a movementDuration is > 0.  Loot always starts with a movementDuration > 0
2. movementDuration should be reduced every update()
3. Loot currently has a start position.  Add an end position.  Have the loot move from start to end with the time allocated (movementDuration)
4. Make sure that loot can't pass through walls
5. Find easing function library and add it to my code base.
6. Add an explosion trajectory by shifting the Y coordinate by an easing function (never done this before, I think this is how it will work.  If not, rename this task to "research how to give the loot an explosion trajectory"
7. Add a shadow underneath the exploding loot.

This may take me 7-8 days.  I'm fine with that.

[TheChaoticGood]

2 things
Sleep and Exercise!

This sounds simple or even dumb but honestly when you don't rest or exercise you don't handle stress very well. Also you the quality of the work you do will be lower than if you skip sleep and exercise over time. You might not notice it the first day or the second, but as the months go by you will slow down and become sluggish.

[Tuba]

Oh, this a problem I've had for a long time... don't know how to balance my day job with my personal projects, already got fired from 2 jobs because I couldn't focus on them. Right now I'm on a programming job that I don't like and thinking about quitting so I can work on my own things but you know, I have to eat and pay bills and all that.

There's some pretty good advice in this thread.

[triceratopnotch]

My work day lasts from about 9-6. I rarely wake up earlier than 8:30 and I never make it to bed before 1 or 2am. I smoke and kill a lot of time in front of the television, but I usually get at least a few minutes of work done each day.

[Alevice]

Seems like Alevice is the outlier here.  14 hours makes my head spin just thinking about it.

It can focus the mind wonderfully though. I had that kind of schedule for a while when we got started with the farm. When you know you only have maybe 10 hours a week that aren't needed for working, eating, or sleeping, it makes you really think about how you're spending your spare time, and you learn just how much you can get done if you're not wasting time on trivial stuff.

Someone nailed it on the first page when they said "If you love it, you'll make time".  I'd add, "Everything else is just an excuse."

I am a married, full time senior software engineer at an ad agency who does freelance on the side and have negative free time.  Someone also said "exercise, etc" and I think its key.  I do heavy weight training 4 days a week, which essentially forces me to get good rest at least 4 days a week (can't do deadlift day on 5 hours of sleep)  The other 3 are free game.

I dont have any time to play games, I don't watch any tv (no cable in fact) and don't even sit in front of the TV unless its with my wife.  Between my full time job, my secondary income, and my wife, I've given up absolutely every other form of personal gratification except working on my game.

Its just what you have to do

Glad to see I am not that crazy.

[tieTYT]

Someone nailed it on the first page when they said "If you love it, you'll make time".  I'd add, "Everything else is just an excuse."

There are parts of my game I hate.  Working on the scroll bars was way worse than my day job or even going to the dentist.  But, I still worked on it because I needed to.  It wasn't out of love, it was out of habit.  I think it's more important to get into the habit of working on your game than to spend enormous amounts of hours on it.  If I work 8 hours at my job and then 8 hours on my game, I'd just burn out faster.

[thefoolishbrave]

I work at an overnight dog boarding place, my shifts are late, 10-6:30am, but if I get in there and bust ass, I get to work on my games on the clock, so a two for one essentially, I can even trick myself into pretending I'm getting paid to create (which isn't exactly untrue).

If Game Dev is what you love, it isn't really the stress of that that should bug you and in fact, hacking away at the Game Dev should be a motivator, as a way to bolster your portfolio and the catalyst that's going to get you doing something way cooler.

[Jeff Skyrunner]

What I do is I break down a feature into a tiny 15-60 minute pieces and work on at least one a day.  Do this every single day and over time you'll have something to show for it. 

That's the best thing to do, also in "daily" programming jobs; it's what I'm trying to convince "my" programmers to do...