<story><title>How to balance full-time work with creative projects</title><url>https://thecreativeindependent.com/guides/how-to-balance-full-time-work-with-creative-projects/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bloomca</author><text>My experience is that if you can afford it, allow yourself 2–3 months sabbatical, and after some time (for me it is about 2 weeks), you&amp;#x27;ll start to produce creative projects.&lt;p&gt;I personally write down all ideas and when I have time to implement them, choose what looks the most interesting (and feasible).&lt;p&gt;With this strategy, in the last couple months, I was able to implement:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;2018.bloomca.me&amp;#x2F;en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;2018.bloomca.me&amp;#x2F;en&lt;/a&gt; – just a website showing how bloated web is&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;real-local-food.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;real-local-food.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; – project about local food&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;nameless-hamlet-12227.herokuapp.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;nameless-hamlet-12227.herokuapp.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; – check your allergies application, built for a hackathon.&lt;p&gt;Now, you can notice they are not perfect, and by no means are finished, but before I was not able to produce that much.&lt;p&gt;edit: formatting</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>RickS</author><text>Yes! The most important bit of this comment IMO is the &amp;quot;about two weeks&amp;quot; part. There&amp;#x27;s a trough of uselessness in vacations – 14-21 days is the minimum in my experience.&lt;p&gt;In week 1, I&amp;#x27;m annoyed by my vacation. I don&amp;#x27;t care about sitting on a beach, I&amp;#x27;m bored, I want to get back to solving problems.&lt;p&gt;In week two, I&amp;#x27;m aghast at the mundane routines I&amp;#x27;ve fallen into, bullshit hangouts, errands, and reddit.&lt;p&gt;Something weird happens in week 3 where all the books you read, all the ideas you have, start to take on this new lightness and optimism and interestingness. Hang out in that vacation mode for as long as you can afford to.&lt;p&gt;I wish I had more insight into that last state, but it&amp;#x27;s a very rare day that I take more than a month off work.&lt;p&gt;For me at least, vacations under 3 weeks are somewhat useless from a &amp;quot;recover your health&amp;quot; standpoint, and I&amp;#x27;m much better off spreading a week or two of vacation around in a way that makes many 3 day weeks, giving room to run errands and make non-work life more relaxed across the board, rather than oscillating between tire fires and mandatory relaxation.</text></comment>
<story><title>How to balance full-time work with creative projects</title><url>https://thecreativeindependent.com/guides/how-to-balance-full-time-work-with-creative-projects/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>bloomca</author><text>My experience is that if you can afford it, allow yourself 2–3 months sabbatical, and after some time (for me it is about 2 weeks), you&amp;#x27;ll start to produce creative projects.&lt;p&gt;I personally write down all ideas and when I have time to implement them, choose what looks the most interesting (and feasible).&lt;p&gt;With this strategy, in the last couple months, I was able to implement:&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;2018.bloomca.me&amp;#x2F;en&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;2018.bloomca.me&amp;#x2F;en&lt;/a&gt; – just a website showing how bloated web is&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;real-local-food.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;real-local-food.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; – project about local food&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;nameless-hamlet-12227.herokuapp.com&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;nameless-hamlet-12227.herokuapp.com&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt; – check your allergies application, built for a hackathon.&lt;p&gt;Now, you can notice they are not perfect, and by no means are finished, but before I was not able to produce that much.&lt;p&gt;edit: formatting</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>ryanmarsh</author><text>This cannot be overstated. I&amp;#x27;ve been working on a professional thesis of sorts, a capstone if you will, for YEARS.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m on a sabbatical now and in the past month I feel like I&amp;#x27;ve gotten more done on the capstone than in the past 3 years.&lt;p&gt;In September I was so burned out that when my client abruptly ended our contract (meh, it happens) I didn&amp;#x27;t look for a new one. I&amp;#x27;ve been coasting on my cash cushion for two months now. It was a little scary at first but in my downtime I sold a bunch of short-term high paying gigs that begin in the new year.&lt;p&gt;I&amp;#x27;m SO. GLAD. I. DID. THIS.&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s my 20&amp;#x2F;20 hindsight. Fuck working in your spare time and getting little to nothing done on your side projects and taking time away from your family and your health. Figure out how to make as much money as possible and spend as little as possible so that you can take a few months off at some point. Maybe you can game your employers leave policy, maybe do some contracting on the side, maybe don&amp;#x27;t buy that new car or house and instead put that money into a sabbatical fund.  I don&amp;#x27;t know what will work for you. We all have very different lives and options.&lt;p&gt;I wish I could have back most of that &amp;quot;spare time&amp;quot; I wasted getting little to nothing done.&lt;p&gt;Also, read Deep Work by Cal Newport. If I can&amp;#x27;t change your mind on how to approach this, maybe he will. Maybe you&amp;#x27;ll understand why you&amp;#x27;re not getting anywhere with your side thing and realize it&amp;#x27;s not you, it&amp;#x27;s your situation. Once you understand that, you can know what to do to rectify the situation. Seriously, this has been a game changer for me.&lt;p&gt;Oh, and don&amp;#x27;t be surprised if for the first month of your sabbatical you get absolutely nothing done. That&amp;#x27;s because you&amp;#x27;re burned out and you didn&amp;#x27;t take care of yourself for all those years. That&amp;#x27;s the price you&amp;#x27;re going to have to pay before you can sprint again. Knowledge workers are like athletes. Rest and recovery is as important as exercise.</text></comment>