The Swyx Mixtape

Listen to the Egghead Podcast: https://egghead.io/podcasts/alex-reardon-on-balancing-work-life-and-large-side-projects

Check out https://domevents.dev/ and Alex's course: https://egghead.io/courses/your-ultimate-guide-to-understanding-dom-events-6c0c0d23

Transcript

[00:00:00] You mentioned that you had learned a lot about Dom events while you're like on the clock working on the D and D project. So presumably you got to learn some of it on the clock, but then you also have to, since, you're not paid to create courses by your day job. Like, how did you draw the lines between work time learning and free time teaching, I guess was, is the way I'd phrase  

it. 

Yeah. I mean working in software engineering, I think we're always learning all the time, every day. I that's been my experience anyway and relearning. I feel like there's some things I learn. And then not that long later I have to re-look up again. There's just so much out there. Just always learning all the time and relearning. 

It's just too hard to hold. Hold it all in your head or. So in terms of creating this course I set up very clear boundaries around my work time, and making sure that I'm doing and focusing on my work during work time. And then I set aside designated times at home where I was working on side projects. 

So for me, that, what that looked like practically was one night a week. For me it was Wednesday night where I would work like on this. And that's not a large amount of time. But it was a balanced amount of time, cause I have a lot going on, full-time work at the time. I had two kids now, three kids, which is wild. 

I'm doing stuff with my church and I'm doing stuff with my family, doing stuff with friends, like it's just my last very full. And so one night, a week was something quite palatable. But it meant that creating this course took an extremely long time. It took about a year and a half to actually put this whole thing together. 

Doing that research. I was doing a lot of research, on that Wednesday night. And I created a visualized. Which took a long time cradle the scripts, recorder, all the lessons. Yeah. It took, it just takes a lot of hours. And so you only doing it one night a week. It, it takes a while now. 

Sometimes it would be maybe no nights a week back. There was a period of some periods of time where I was busy with other things on holidays. And sometimes it might've been a few nights a week because I was like really inspired and towards the end. Of the recordings or when I was actually doing the recordings, we actually had our third child Jew. 

And so that was a bit of an interesting time. And I was really keen. I'm like, I need to get this course done. Working on it for so long. And so I guess the month before. He was born I was in the room, in my office, most nights I recording those lessons to make sure that it was done before he came so that I could, when he did come, I could focus on him and the family exclusively and not have to try and be balancing the stuff. 

It's impressive that you were able to have that kind of discipline to Wednesday nights. I'm working on this and you have to know in your head that it's going to take a while when you're only, one night a week. But what I'm wondering about is having I don't have children, but I'm married. 

And I know that when my hobbies are also on the committee when it's like work on the computer, but then my fun times on the computer too, it doesn't always make for the best home situation not to project at all. But what I'm wondering is how did you come to having one night, a week dedicated when you already have the door shut nine to five every day and everyone's at home? 

Yeah. I'm really glad you raised this. Because I think this is the less glamorous side of side projects. I'm happy to talk about the benefits of doing side projects, but I'm glad we're going in this direction for now. So you need to understand what's important to you. What's important with your time. What is more important for you? 

Is it more important for you to be a rock star, a software engineer, or to meaningfully invest and engage with the people around you? I think the answer to that. Questions. I was really big questions will impact what you do with your time and how you spend your time. So we arrived in after negotiation, like my wife and I on that one night, a week thing because it balanced everything else that I wanted to do. 

I really want to make sure that I'm spending good quality time with my family, with my friends and with my wife. Ultimately those are the most important things, like rather than. Becoming, the next big thing in software, so to speak. So yeah, it was a kind of a process of negotiation to to arrive on that point. 

Yeah. Because yeah, it is hard to balance. It is tricky when you're in the office all the time to then say, Hey, I'm going to spend more time in the office. Yeah, it's a tricky one. And I guess I'll take this question even further and say that like my experience with doing this call. Wasn't exclusively positive by any means, I doing projects on the side has a cost in the same way that open source has a cost, right projects have a cost. 

And the, I guess the big cost is your time. And I think [00:05:00] in the situation of the course, there was a big cost and it was primarily born, not by myself, but by the people around. Especially towards the end as I was doing, I mentioned that concentrated math month of recording. I have mixed feelings about that. 

And to be honest, I feel quite guilty about that because my wife was eight months pregnant at the time. And that's probably when she needed me the most practically and. If I'm real, like I should've been there more practically emotionally in that time. I think we agreed that we both, we we both agreed on that course of action that we wanted to get the course done before, before our son was born. 

But honestly, I feel regret about that. I'm happy with the result. Like the course is great, really proud of that, but yeah, I just think in a scheme of things, did the world need another cool. Know. Yeah, it's great. Like, I don't want to tear it down by any means, but I mean, yeah. I, I think I would have, I think I would have felt it would've been better for me to be, have been a really good husband during that time for her. 

So, yeah. So  

when you say that you have regret, like one of the things that I like as I'm thinking about this now So like a lot of does the world need another course? That's an interesting way to put it. And I know that you're joking, not. I just realized that I was probably Dane. 

I was about to step into playing devil's advocate for the Dom, which is a very strange position to have gone into where the API doesn't change. Like the Dom API is not going to change, so that topic will still be there. So there wasn't like a pressing. Need for you to do this. But at the same time, you'd also  

I don't know where I'm at. 

I mean, as you said, you said the, like the dumb event topic is fairly in some ways timeless, who knows where we'll be in town 20 years, but I think we were both it just been this particular project had been kicking on for quite a while. We were both keen in a good way, see it come to an end in. 

Like to see it go out there. When you put a lot of investment and love into something, you want to see other people use it and engage with it and, get get value from it. And I knew that if I was like, once a newborn baby land is wild and it takes a long time. Once a new one comes. 

I, we found to be able to be in a good place to be able to do side projects again. So it was let's get this done, ideally before the baby comes so that, it's, it can actually get finished because if the baby comes, you're going to be adding on probably another six months to this thing. 

Yeah I use the word regret. Maybe that's. Too strong a word. But I just think that, yeah, like it's just the big point that whenever we're spending time on something that's not our paid employment outside of work, a hobby sport, whatever like that. If it's not necessarily in support of the people around you who need you like that, there's a cost there. 

Yeah. Thank you for, being like, so open and vulnerable about that. Like it's. Like you said, like I keep going back to there's these people who are just like, are constantly putting stuff out and then, we don't it's really easy. Like I think about it, like when somebody likes to scroll through Instagram and they're like, oh, their life looks so fantastic. 

So fantastic. And you don't ever see what's going on outside of what you can see. And so you being able to finish this, but then also have very real. Kind of implications for finishing it at home. I just, nobody ever shares that kind of thing. And so I appreciate you sharing that. And so the negotiation phase for, it sounds so bad to say it about a relationship when you say it that way, but what would you do differently if you could go back a year and a half to when you were just starting things out and when you were first talking about, one day a week, I'm going to do this knowing what you know now and feeling what you feel now, what would you perhaps suggest somebody do differently if they're going to follow your  

footsteps? 

Yeah, I think doing the one night a week actually worked out pretty well. I think personally I've grown a lot. Through side projects in my life, I have no doubt that I would not be where I am today in terms of my work career. If I had not done side projects, I think I've always just done side projects. 

I personally, I'm one of those people who just buying software naturally interesting. That's not everyone's experience, but I guess that's mine. So for me, it's hobby slash work is software engineering and I. So it's some people like going out and working with their hands and doing woodworking and it's a good creative release for them. 

And to me, I find personally, I get those same feelings, just doing software stuff. So I say, it's just I'm just doing a hobby. Why not? I think, that's, I think a pretty common experience for a lot of people. Mine just happens to be doing similar things to what I would be doing at work in the sense that they're both software engineering, but I guess the advantage of. 

On my own time. And my own thing is that I have complete control, complete agency on what it is that I'm doing, how I do it, what are the things I want to [00:10:00] spend my innovation tokens on? What are the things I want to learn? One of the things I want to move quickly through and. I'm doing site, like if you're working for a big kind of tech companies, I think in general, I think that from what I see, the natural trajectory of people is that you become more and more specialized in a particular field and side projects can be a great release on that, in that you, my experience is that when you're putting something together from scratch, I'm trying to put something out that you often are tackling problems that you're not tackling necessarily as potty a day. 

So you're seeing the full scope of problems and yeah, maybe you're saying, Hey, I'm going to cheat over here. I'm going to use some cloud service to do this thing. And that's fine. You gotta choose where you want to, you don't to have to build everything, but you get a sense of how everything hangs together and I get the impression that. 

And, and especially in bigger tech companies, when you're just working on a piece of the equation, you can lose perspective on how that piece fits into the larger scheme of things in delivering, a valuable service to people, a delightful experience. So when you're doing everything, you're being aware of how everything fits together and also makes you question, Hey, the piece that I'm really good at do you actually need this piece right now? 

Is there something else I could be doing to solve this part of the equation? So the one night, a week thing, I think that's just something that my wife and I landed on. That'll look different for different people, but I guess the good thing there is to be intentional, if, especially for those who I guess. 

In a committed relationships is I think we always want to be clear with people about this work home everywhere, like clarity is king. And so I think it's good just to say, Hey I'm keen to do this hobby or this thing, how's that going to fit into the rest of our life are getting shared buy in on that, because if you don't get shared by. 

Like it might be fine. It might cause resentment, you don't know it's as best I think to talk it through and it's okay to get it wrong as well. Like you guys might decide, Hey, like I'm going to do my woodworking side project three nights a week. Cause I love it. And then, they might turn around in a few months and say, Hey, this isn't working for me. 

And I think it's just, oh, it's a, it's an organic, flowing thing. It's not like a one-time decision and there might be periods of time. Where you're going full on because you're really interested or like you're trying to meet some artificial deadline that you've posted both on yourself and I think that's okay. 

You just, it's better. I think it's just being sensitive to our person's needs and making sure that, and again, it's coming back to what I was saying earlier. It's, what's the most important thing is this hobby or this thing you're doing on the side of the most important thing to you, or is it, this relationship that you're in the family that you're in, whatever situation you find yourself.