Work, family & building a business
Building a Business When You’re Already Tired
Wanting more time with my kids, working a full day, and trying to build Lunara in the hours around it.
I want more time with my kids. I’d love to be outside with them, growing things, cooking together, and enjoying the parts of learning that made me want to homeschool in the first place. I also work full time as a software engineer, and by the end of an eight-hour workday, I’m tired.
Lunara comes out of a lot of those same interests. I like making resources, following a question, and figuring out how to explain something so another person can use it. I’d love for the business to give me more choice about how I spend my time. For now, though, I’m building it in the hours around the job I already have.
That’s the part I’m finding a little tricky. The hours I could use to work on the business are also hours I’d like back for my family, for something fun, or for being horizontal for a while. I can be excited about a project and very ready for a nap at the same time.
I’ve been thinking about how much more I could share if I had the energy to do the things I miss: gardening, going to parks, hiking, cooking, working through a lesson together. Those are things I actually want to be doing. But if I turn every one of them into something I should make content about, I’m adding work to an afternoon I was hoping to enjoy with my kids.
There are also parts of Lunara I can get completely absorbed in, whether I’m finding a clearer explanation, getting an illustration to fit, or figuring out a small website feature. I enjoy those details, which makes it surprisingly easy to keep finding one more thing to improve. Enjoying the work doesn’t add hours to the day, unfortunately. I’ve checked.
I’m still figuring out how to make this manageable alongside everything else. I want to make things carefully enough that I’m comfortable putting my name on them, while leaving room for the people and experiences I’d love to have more time for. That’s something I’m still working out as I go.
For now, a small note like this gives me somewhere to share what I’m learning along the way. I’m enjoying the work of building Lunara, even while I’m tired from the workday, and I’m hoping it will eventually give me more afternoons when I have the energy to take my kids somewhere just because we want to go.
Related reading: Working from home and homeschooling.