Managing Day Jobs and Side Projects

I’ve been asked by a lot of colleagues and friends about how I’m able to maintain a full time job whilst completing multiple side projects. Truthfully, I’d not really thought deeply about it before, so when Hugo asked me most recently, I thought I’d sit down and try to distil it.

You’d think that time management was the key, and that I’d have some insane Calendar with really regimented time slots for getting stuff done using a Pomodoro timer, but no, I don’t. I have some routines in place, but I’m comfortable breaking them and truthfully, I just love doing what I do.

Trusting your gut

Despite having mega imposter syndrome in every role I’ve been in, I’ve been fortunate to work for many small startups where your gut is both the cheapest and most reliable measure of what to do next.

This doesn’t discount the need for research and diverging ideation, but it’s important to not waste your time in the exploration phase just to feel like you’re doing what you’re supposed to. I’ve talked about overthinking and wasting time in design before [1]. But I think we’ve globally lost the trust in our gut that we used to have.

Product Design as a discipline has mostly destroyed the gut check in favour of heavy research, rounds and rounds of testing, and entire teams dedicated to tweaking a single colour or label. The truth is, we can’t always quantitatively measure our way out of a lack of confidence in our ideas [2].

Trusting your gut is hard, and the perpetual imposter syndrome we creatives seem to have doesn’t help either, but how many times have you ignored your gut and gone through all the process only too see that exploration_v1 was right all along?

Think about the time save too. Trusting your gut takes a lot less time than going down every rabbit hole. If we look holistically at technology, most problems are problems solved. We have so many known patterns for most of our problems, that reaching for anything but those solutions is often a waste of time.

Moving quickly and avoiding the theatre

In a similar vein, design jobs are often surrounded by theatre. It’s so easy to get caught in it and spin the wheels performing for visibility instead of delivering actual value with your knowledge. Moving quickly and delivering focused snippets of work involves a state of focus and attention, without getting dragged into the chaos.

We get taught during courses, bootcamps and degrees that design is all about specific processes followed to the letter, such as the Double Diamond.

My personal favourite is my buddy Luke’s FAFO approach. In reality, that’s what we actually do, but we wrap it in theatre so we can write an elaborate case study when we leave a job or want to show some level of significance.

I take an approach of focusing on honesty. The tools UX Bootcamps give you are simply hammers for possible nails. If your project involves wood glue, then a hammer ain’t gonna be very useful. Same applies for when you’re making a bolognese, you wouldn’t go and grab the bicarb of soda would you? Some things are useful in certain situations and not in others. Knowing what to use, when, and how will save you hours.

Not every project requires everything. Be focused.

This couldn’t feel more relevant

Building focus around routine; but don’t routine everything

You don’t have to create a hard coded routine for everything. I don’t. The only thing I do without fail, is exercise at the same times each day. Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun at 10:30am.

Because my work is flexible with hours, I can make up the time around this. Not that anyone is clock watching. The focus is outcomes, not the time spent getting to the outcomes. So see points one and two, and use it to your advantage if you can.

My fitness routine (using Working Sets) is essential because this habit is one I need to maintain without fail. It also provides mental escape for me, ensuring that I’m not staring at a screen for too much of the day. That break also ensures that my brain has essential space to ideate and ruminate [3].

Now I could go overboard and timebox all my work, but I don’t. Instead, I focus on blocking my time based on what my brain is going to be excited about in that moment as long as I leave time for everything I have to get done.

I call this Satisfaction Blocking. I’m not blocking out time for certain things, I’m using things I seek satisfaction from and then creating the space for them.

“BuT yOu DiDn’T sPeNd ExAcTlY 8 HoUrS oN yOuR dAy JoB"

No, and that’s fine, because those hours I did spend on it were at 100% focus and I can almost guarantee I delivered the same amount of value as most people do in 8 hours.

Habits are inevitable if you care enough

People try to force focus or force habits, but if you care deeply enough about something you’re working on then the habit will be inevitable. We like to tell ourselves that things just don’t stick because we don’t have enough time or it’s too difficult, but in reality, it’s because we just don’t care enough. And that’s okay. You just need to accept it.

I didn’t care enough about my health, so I could never make fitness stick. I told myself I was trying hard enough and that I did want to be fit, but I didn’t. If I did, I’d have made it stick. The reality was that I had to get to the right head place to actually care, and I had to find an exercise type that suited me.

That then inspired me to build my own workout app because I hated all the ones I used. So then I got myself another side project to love because it’s deeply connected to something else I’ve started to care about, and these two things reinforce each other now.

Look for those things in your life, you’ll soon find the habits stick fast and hard.

Say no, as often as you can

We all say yes too often, so get better at saying no. Some work cultures are better than others when it comes to this, but most places will understand you saying no or skipping meetings to focus elsewhere.

The important thing is having a need to skip a meeting. At DuckDuckGo we have a policy that all meetings are opt-in and optional, even All Hands and project meetings. Because we track everything async in Asana, there’s no risk that you’ll miss anything by missing a meeting (or that anyone will miss you not attending).

Sometimes syncs are the best ways to meet, but that’s your call. If it’ll interrupt your flow and project delivery, you don’t need to be in it. Say no. I bet if you try it, you’ll find that people don’t question it like you’d expect.

But saying no also applies to interferences. Turn off your notifications, avoid the work chatter, and focus on what needs your attention. Keep that focus in the micro tasks and in smaller blocks of time. You’ll start to see value more quickly than you think.