For the last two years, I have been trying, on and off, to develop a few ideas into maturity. You can call these my side projects. I started out, thinking that taking 5-6 hours out from my weekends and a couple of hours per weekday, would do the job.

My day job is quite demanding in terms of hours and energy that I put in.

After around one year of trying hard to perform well in my day job, keep on developing my side projects and have a decent social life, I gave up. It was not working out. Time and again, I found myself, totally tired mentally and physically.

I couldn't understand what was it that I was doing wrong. Then time and again, I would hear stories of people who were successfully juggling day-job, side-projects and family life. I just did not get it and still don't.

Is there some kind of strategy that you have to follow? Is my time-management not good enough? Is something missing in my attitude? Or is it just plain luck, that things work out sometimes and other times they don't.