Here goes my random question of the day

I enjoy programming. I really do. at least used to. but I just don't have time to do so.  I have a full time employee, freelance jobs, have two kids. at least 1 hour and half exercise everyday, 1 hour WoW (World of Warcraft ) time. So I ask all programmers with busy life (family members, golf, games, cars, whatever).

• When do you do your module developing? morning? evening? before/after/during work-time?
• How do you make excuse to your partner/kids to do the coding?
• What are the tips you have in your mind?
• Do you have secret methods that you can share with?
• What's your best efficient module developing environment ?( include tools, style, work-flow, even.. your favorite drink... anything helps the programming job).

Hi Tak,

Great question and one I'm struggling a bit with.  I havent played a game properly since I started coding so that's about 11 years now so I have 1 extra hour a day than you :)  I am currently writing Silverlight for Dummies which is taking up a lot fo my time.  Plus I have a 9 month old baby girl who I want to spend more time with so to get more time in my day i have started getting up really early to do my writing and coding for DNN. 

I suppose my only real secret is to stop watching free to air tele.  I watch TV shows downloaded so there are no breaks which cuts about 25% of the time off. 

To make sure I am productive I keep my hardware up to date.  I have a new Fujitsu Lifebook, 4 GB RAM, etc.  The one thing I will buy for it is a new SSD (Solid State Drive) soon which having watched a few friends/colleagues machines with an SSD is quite an amazing speed difference. 

You have to have at least 2 big screens.  I use Resharper with the Style Cop add in so my code is always standards compliant and a lot less key strokes. 

Lately I have turned away from standard ASP.Net and doing a lot of Silverlight with RIA Services programming.   Check out my latest blog post here.

It all comes down to not sitting on teh couch wishing you had more time, you do, you just need to use it.

Enjoy :)

>> Mitch
I'll explore the items you listed. thank you.

>>Philip
SSD would be nice. It's just too expensive for the size - at least a year ago.  I don't even have cable TV service, which is plus. I use Netflix streaming video so yes, there is no commercial :)   9 month girl? wait for another year or two...she is going to dominate you lol

>> Michael
4-5am??????  omg.  you are true programming athlete. actually, my brain works better in morning so it might be worth trying.

Thank you all!