Howefitz Blog

Have Your Hobby and Family, Too!

Published by justin on February 17th, 2009 in blogging, Hobbies, lifestyle design, Living.

If you follow me on twitter or Facebook, you’ve heard me hint at starting a webcomic. Between that, my blog here, and my day job, that squeezes a lot of time from the family. Sitting at the computer is a fairly lonely hobby.

So I’ve made moves to balance this new found lust for a digital life with my real one.

First and foremost, I wake up early. I’m not saying this is for everybody, but it works for me. (Kind of ironic, really. I used to be a ‘nightowl’, and now I do my best work in the early morning!) In my blog entry, ‘Balancing Life, Family, and Technology: How Some Authors Do It‘, Dayton Ward addressed how much sleep he got by saying:

“I sleep more than you might think, but less than I’d like, or which some folks might consider healthy. Between the dayjob, family, and writing, I average between 4-5 hours of sleep a night during the week. On weekends, I sometimes am able to squeeze in another hour or, on very rare occasions, sneak in a nap. It all depends on the schedules my wife and I are keeping on a given weekend.”

I’m not saying I sacrifice sleep because Dayton does, but I had begun that habit before our email interview, and this just sort of reinfoced the notion that I was probably OK with the five hours I generally get. (Without the aid of energy drinks, mind you!) I tend to blog/plot my webcomic during these early hours when the rest of the family is asleep and it’s quiet and I can think.

The second thing I’ve done is tried to make my hobby my family’s hobby! (But not in a bossy way! ;P ) Turns out Calli enjoys my drawings, so when I’m working on the webcomic, here’s my method:

I do the pencil and ink BY HAND (Calm down, tech nerds, it’ll be alright…), scan it in to my computer, and color it there. (Nerds release the intake of air in an uneasy sigh of relief.) During this process, I also print out a copy of the inks and let Calli color on it while I work on my own coloring. I have to admit, I cheat once in a while and look over her shoulder for ideas…

The point of all this is that a lot of people drive themselves crazy looking for the ever-elusive ‘me’ time. Take a breath and realize what you have right in front of you. Take advantage of those things, and you’re life will feel much fuller.