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Comment by Sosh101 | Hacker News Reader

Same. I've no idea how people with kids and others to keep happy are managing to squeeze in side projects.

I have a full time job that has moved to remote and my spouse is on Zoom calls most of the day for work. The only “side project” I have time for is managing my kids’ remote learning. They are 7 and 9 yrs old. There are so many links and logins and forms and downloads and uploads. I’ve learned. Lot about how Google Classrooms could be redesigned to improve independence of younger learners. Candidly, this is very difficult and my mental health is taking a serious hit.

I feel like I need a holiday, a few days off at least. Doesn't feel smart to ask for time off though and I don't really want to waste it either.

Well, I don't know the policy of your company, but at mine we've been encouraged to take some days if possible.

Not only for mental health, but also to avoid that everyone take time off at the same time. On another hand we have 30+ days per year, I guess it's a different story if you only have 20 days or less.

I can take time off and I did last week. However, I ended up just doing pretty much the same thing as when I was working, so it was a waste. What I really need is some time completely to myself, just sitting outside or something. It's my most precious resource right now and very hard to come by.

I don't think they are, in most cases. I worked from home in the before time, so in theory not much has changed. In practice I have three kids, and it's a struggle just to maintain my baseline productivity.

In a way this is a relief to hear. I keep reading up on the excess productivity of others, while I'm pulling my hair out trying to manage normal work and my kids when on paper nothing much has changed given that I was WFH before this. It sucks, but I'm glad I'm not alone.

One of the best things I heard from my company's CEO when they moved everyone over to WFH was 'your productivity is going to go down. It just is. It doesn't matter if you were fully WFH before, it's going to go down. And that's ok. And I've told your managers to expect it, and to not let you stress over it.'

Then leadership modified the metrics that bonuses are calculated on, so that the slowdown wouldn't affect our ability to get them.

Same here. I had to clear this situation up with my boss, my stress levels are going through the roof and I just can't get things done (and every time I get "in the zone", I hear a thud and my baby has hurt herself again).

Thankfully it turns out the bosses understand this situation and expect a massive productivity decline. I feel I've taken a load off my chest by bringing it up.

Still feeling stressed, and of course, my company may tank, making the whole issue moot. I'm not sure I'm up for interviewing with the current situation, either...

My last real side project halted when my second kid was born almost two years ago. I likely won’t have time or energy to do another one for another two years, regardless of quarantine status.

Young kids are an 80 hour per week job. The only way anyone has time for paying work normally is school, daycare/relatives, or one partner dedicated to child-raising. Even for the non-child-caring parent the kids fill in the remaining 30-40 hours after the "real" job and commute. I don't think most people have much left after being switched "on" 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, week after week.

How does anyone get stuff done beyond the requisite 40, with kids? Two proven strategies: 1) ignore the kids a lot, 2) hire help. That's what all those famous old guys who discovered all kinds of cool stuff or wrote amazing literature or philosophized or whatever, while also having kids, did. Probably there are super-humans out there who manage without doing those things, but I'm not convinced they're common enough to count on or to give much consideration. Nb some people will hire help but not really want to tell people they have—don't assume someone blogging about raising kids while doing 100 other things, or crushing it at work, hasn't hired help just because they don't mention it. Decent odds they have.

Agreed.

> 1) ignore the kids a lot

This is likely not the right answer. A lot of those "famous people" are horrible parents. Makes you wonder why they chose to have kids to begin with...

I mean...yes. That is pretty self evidently not the correct answer.

Of course. I was being polite because I'm sure someone, somewhere, will defend it as the strategy that "worked" for them.

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