I believe many of us don't have enough time for personal projects/startups because of the daytime jobs. Could we find us a job which would allow us to code during work hours? Some of the examples I was thinking of are a librarian, security guard or clerk at a shop that people rarely visit. Would you consider something like that yourself?
> Some of the examples I was thinking of are a librarian, security guard or clerk at a shop that people rarely visit.<p>If you're a halfway decent programmer, you can easily get consulting gigs that will earn you multiples of what you will ever make at these jobs per unit of time.<p>You could do something like consult for a week and take the next three weeks to work on your project, or you could consult for a month and take the next few months off to work on your project. Your financial situation will be similar or better when compared to the low-paid jobs.<p>The low-paid grinder jobs you mention are definitely not worth doing in terms of money or time.
My wife is a school librarian, and she has less free time than I do. If you're just a reference librarian, then possibly. But then you need to have your MLA in order to be called a librarian.
Sorry if I’m not quite answering the question. But you can also try consulting, continue what you’re doing now, and rebalance the three things that factor into this: time, income and expenses. So if you want to increase your discretionary time, you’ll need to charge clients more and/or reduce your expenses.<p>Unless you were seeking the novelty factor of trying out a new field, and assuming you’re a hacker, it seems you’d hit the ground running faster if you’d just switch how you earned your income or spend your money.
In my experience working for your average corporation or government entity involves normal (and often flexible) hours, and can be as demanding or undemanding as you like. Throw in benefits and it's not the worst way to go.<p>It does entail taxing the same muscles you'd like to use for your own projects, but at a multiple of what you'd expect to be paid in the other fields mentioned. (And as has been said before, you could always "pay yourself first" by doing your own work before clocking in.)
To echo lots of comments here: it comes down to your value per unit of time, which is largely dictated by a combination of your own talent or outside market forces/good fortune.<p>I'm very fortunate to have reached a productivity/income level requiring me to work only 4-6 hours/week. I enjoy working more, but also love the free time to pursue outside hobbies, business ideas, pro-bono, etc. Once you reach a point where you set the price/terms, the sky's the limit!
The higher status or more rich you are, the less utility your job must provide, these low societal utility vocations afford more time precisely due to this fact; this is why programming is a relatively low status field.<p>* also, the value generated by high status jobs only need to occur in short bursts, only the value-per-time-unit is much higher; the skill required here will also be much harder to acquire and scarcer to find... one needs time and experience to get to this level.
In college I worked as an overnight security guard. The only demand that job made was that I was in a certain building for 8 hours and stayed awake. Seriously, the turnover from guards fired for sleeping was a real issue, so just being awake was a big plus. Beyond that, I could read, study, whatever. Ideal for school. Coding during that time was possible, but you might not have internet access.
Looks like you want something for nothing. No job is going to <i>EVER</i> give enough free time for you to pursue your interests to the fullest. I'm afraid you'll have to go about this in another way: Live below your means and work towards financial independence. Only then can you really pick and choose what you want to work on.
I'd absolutely love to work for a software development agency that only expected 20-30 hours per week on average. It seems like there has to be jobs like that as an alternative to security guard, hotel auditor, or food service.