When I'm at work, can't wait to go home and work on my personal projects.
When I'm home I cook, I eat then I'm too tired to do anything except watching Netflix on the couch.
Then I go to bed frustrated for not having actually done anything I really like.
Am I the only one?
Is there any escape from this?

This is also me everyday

You are not alone, same as me. Plus, i have a wife that doesn't understand the meaning of side project and she asks tons of questions while trying do something at home. After 10 minutes, i always close my notebook and watch tv with her. Actually i have enough time but wife.

I certainly hope so.
I also have a little side project that I want to do but every time I try to start it I get demotivated because I know there's no way I'll get more than 3 or 4 hours that week to work on it.
And then I check on reddit and see all these people posting about their cool projects and wonder how can they do it...

Ur routine ctrl+a ctrl+c ctrl+v = my routine

This is also me, except that I drink beer instead of eating food.

This is my life but add wife and kids...

Only thing I find that helps is to have clear objectives of what I want to do and by when I want them done.

What I do is to actually allot time at dawn to code before going to work. I stick to that routine until it was a habit. If I feel tired, I just try to remind myself why im doing it.

Thank you guys, good to hear I'm not the only one.
I didn't mention that my wife is actually the one persuading me to go couch-mode, but I don't blame her. Without her, I would easily waste my evening reading the usual Facebook shit.
Or reading about amazing projects people have done in their spare time, burying myself deeper into "what's wrong in my life"!!

I've ran into this too but with wife and kids, which they do come first in my life. I just make it a point to take my lunch and work on my own stuff. I have also talked to my wife about it and she agreed that if I needed a couple hours to myself to work on stuff that she would give it to me and not take it as a slight. So far it works as long as I don't do it all the time.

@SnafuAI they use cocaine

You rack disaprin!

If it's a priority to you, you will make time for it 😉

@dtlyst I know that feel✋

...and that is why you do your personal projects at work. Nobody can tell them apart anyway 😇

This is true on a spiritual level

This happens with me too.. I try to keep myself motivated and try to finish something in the weekdays although I end up spending a large chunk of my weekend Gaming.. I also take casual leaves occasionally just before weekends so that I can accomplish something in these short leaves.. Also, I am not married..

@redundandundant I feel you bro, at the end of the day we write code because it's fun. That's what really got us into programming, not to be the next big thing, but simply because we experience the joy of discovering things, making something, etc. Think of the fun not the output then sooner or later you'll be producing outputs as a sideffect.

I used to be like this. It was even harder with a wife and kid to find time. But then I found a job where I get to work on things I love to work on. Part of it was an attitude change on my part, but the other was the work environment. Working for a company (and a manager) that love open source, turns out a lot of the things I want to work on are what the company wants to work on, too.

So now that I love my job, I have to work extra hard to pretend I had a hard time at work so my wife lets me relax even more :) (jk, I do all of the dishes and cleaning. Laundry most of the time). I don't know, I guess I'm saying that next time you look for a job, try to find a company that does something that you believe in. Don't move for the sudden pay increase, do it because you believe in the company. If you don't believe in what the company does, then you'll rarely find lasting happiness there.