You described my situation precisely. Weekends are long and chaotic when you have small children (and I've got three with the oldest being 5). Mondays are a return to normalcy - they go to day care and I go to work. And like you said, if work isn't satisfying, I have to find something new because work becomes my escape.

I find that getting up really early in the morning to work on the things I want to, then switching off from that to spend the morning with the kids works well. Being really consistent with it every day has led me to complete a few of the projects and learning tasks I've been working on.

At least then when I go to work I'm already satisfied.

For some people I imagine that night time would work best instead.

This. I do the same and this works best for me.

Can you specify what you mean by “early”? 5am? And when do you go to bed?

4:30am works best for me. I go to bed between 9 and 9:30pm almost every night. Occasionally it'll be later due to some event or catching up with people after which I'll still get up at 4:30am but it makes me significantly more tired. It's quick to fix though, I just go to bed even earlier the following night, around 8:15-8:30 does it best.

I know these times won't work for a lot of people but if you have young kids it's awesome. They're asleep anyway and working at night tends to ruin sleep for me so I just go to bed! Then the next morning I can work in peace without it disrupting my body so much.

Now that you have kids you need to make money in order to keep them fed, clothed, and (if you live in the USA) ensure they donpt go to a shithouse school.

Find meaningful work if you can get it. But prioritize money first. At least until the revolution comes and a living can be provided for all.

> At least until the revolution comes and a living can be provided for all.

Unless revolution comes and things go the other way.

>At least until the revolution comes and a living can be provided for all.

At least until revolution comes and you become a slave that must provide for all or else.

Or you get killed. Tech workers aren't exactly liked by the people calling for revolutions these days.

Or forget about money and move out of the US.

I have a bad news for you : we need money to live in other countries too.

I found that this starts to change as the kids get older. Mine are 8 and 11. They become a lot more independent and it frees up 15 minutes here and there.