How do you find the time?

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Uncle Shish

Uncle Shish

Pro Member
Joined
May 6, 2016
Messages
558
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1,873
Location
Muskegon, MI
Alright build-offers, how do you all find the time to go to work, eat dinner, clean up, work on your project, have some semblance of family time and still try and do the right thing and check in on everyone’s project?
Theres 62 builds in group 1 alone. If you spent just one minute per, that’s an hour out of your day. It makes me feel like I’m not being a good comrade to y’all and partially why I’m an every other year competitor.
 
I am not tide down. IE no wife or kids. work schedule sucks. but ya I squeeze in build time. days off and after 10:00 PM when I get home from work. 🤣 bad part last night relaced a wheel for a build. after work could not get wheel to true up. bleeped off I took it to a friend. that owns a bike shop. I was so tiered that night. I did not see the used rim I picked out my stash was bent LOL 🤣 that's why I could not true it up.
 
Definitely a challenge to balance everything. I did a bit of triage in my design in order to simplify certain processes, and to showcase certain highlights.
 
There's no way to keep up on all the builds everyday. Unless you spend an hour as you noted. But looking at others projects usually gets the gears turning for my own project and I'm done looking at posts after a few minutes, or forgot where I was. Or a nap is beckoning.
There's no responsibility to oversee all the builds that I know of. I usually see what posted latest and go there first.
 
Currently spending the majority of my time 1. In airports or planes 2. In a hotel room waiting for dispatch at the job 3. Riding around in an SUV still waiting on dispatch

I've got tons of free time to cruise the internet on my phone, keep up with builds, do site maintenance, etc. I am an admin for one other site and a mod for yet another (non bicycle related)

Just no time to build on my own since when I get home my focus is solely on family and keeping up with things there
 
Even with a low-paced desk job I cannot keep up with the builds. I have near zero time for computers at home.
 
Uncle Shish said:
Alright build-offers, how do you all find the time to go to work, eat dinner, clean up, work on your project, have some semblance of family time and still try and do the right thing and check in on everyone’s project?
Theres 62 builds in group 1 alone. If you spent just one minute per, that’s an hour out of your day. It makes me feel like I’m not being a good comrade to y’all and partially why I’m an every other year competitor.
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Good for you to join in with your situation. I would guess most participants are retired. Old guys that have time, work on bikes, go for coffee for an hour each morning and hang out at the hardware store.
 
I have discovered an old school hardware store (also an auto parts store, so win win) in my area that is conducsive to hang out at.
 
I'm not balancing anything whatsoever. I feel lucky if I get an hour of free time to work on the bike each week. I have kids, a wife, a lawn, a mother, a job... I thought I was going to bang this out in a couple of weeks, but I'm keeping my eye on the deadline. It might be an issue again
 
My job allows me to work from home now, thanks to COVID. I take a few breaks and look at the forum during the day and the time that used to be my afternoon commute now gives me more time to work on the bike and still be able to get some chores done.
 
Wildcat said:
There's no way to keep up on all the builds everyday. Unless you spend an hour as you noted. But looking at others projects usually gets the gears turning for my own project and I'm done looking at posts after a few minutes, or forgot where I was. Or a nap is beckoning.
There's no responsibility to oversee all the builds that I know of. I usually see what posted latest and go there first.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the words. I shall Rat-On with a little less guilt. 😁
 
Great topic, I like to read this stuff too!

With a 4 day job (monday to thursday) and me wife working on the friday, saturday and sometimes a few hours on sunday, (then I am together with the kids).
And two young kids, a household, family, a lawn, a vegetable garden and pets... :crazy2:

I work on the bicycle in the evening after eight or nine O clock. Not every evening allows it.
And with the same job flexibility as @handyandy1100 described, working a few days at home when my job schedule allows it, I can read and react the build schedules during the day.

And my employer allows me to use the lathe and milling machines for a short period of time. So I plan my technical machining jobs very carefully. The machine shop manager requires a meatball every few weeks as payment :21:

And as an engineer some heavier 3D cad models take 5 to 15 minutes to load..... that's my ratrodbikes time :rockout:
 
I first boasted that I wouldn’t have time, and thought that the shorter build schedule would bring less participation and more DNF’s. I stumbled upon a project and here I am. Luckily, I now work a weekend shift again, so I have time during the week to fiddle with the build, catch up on other builds, etc. Last years build off, I was working Monday thru Friday, and it was much more difficult to balance time for everything. I didn’t even have to paint the bike. My wife is encouraging at least, but bike building does take away from our time together. At least, the payoff is getting to go ride together on bikes that we enjoy.
 
I'm single, so whenever I'm not at work I can do whatever I want. Which usually means I slack off doing nothing until the 11th hour, then devote my entire existence to finishing whatever project's deadline is pending
 
LeMad Hatter said:
I'm single, so whenever I'm not at work I can do whatever I want. Which usually means I slack off doing nothing until the 11th hour, then devote my entire existence to finishing whatever project's deadline is pending
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You must be young. I used to do the same when I was young, 11th hour, work hard like a mad man just enough to get minimum done, get distracted, go do something else and repeat the next time I felt like it. Now I work slow but all day on a project. It’s amazing how much more I get done now with the slow but steady retired all day mode.
 
us56456712 said:
You must be young. I used to do the same when I was young, 11th hour, work hard like a mad man just enough to get minimum done, get distracted, go do something else and repeat the next time I felt like it. Now I work slow but all day on a project. It’s amazing how much more I get done now with the slow but steady retired all day mode.
Click to expand...
Young-ish. I'll be 36 soon. Gotta love having ADHD and trying to adult at the same time, lol
 
It is hard to find the time. I usually wind up working on bikes at night after the kids go to sleep. Too often I loose track of time and stay up way too late.

I actually want to find more to ride. I joined a challenge to walk 1000 miles in 2023. Walking around the house doesn’t count. Only brisk exercise walk. I try to go out for 4-5 miles a day which burns up a lot of free time.
 
I seem to read a lot, much more than I ever did, but I have always been a bit of a reader, which is probably why I am an editor these days, and then there is living in two places, travel, spending time with wifie, the cats, mowing or cutting wood (depending on the time of year), and then I get some time left over to work on my bikes, which is often more about reusing what I have got and have used already or using mostly the material I find lying around, rather than buying stuff - so if I make stuff from steel stock then that steel stock is more likely to be an old barn hinge or the strips of new stock I found lying on the fire-lighting twig store, or I use stuff that is being thrown out by my neighbours.

The work that I have done so far has also led me to restoring two bikes that I bought cheap back when they were always cheap, which hopefully I will sell for more than I have spent on all my bike-related things so far. I also have another frame that was built by a company that bought the design of a formerly big bicycle manufacturer, which without its graphics and a bit of a rebuild could be worth something in the cities, and my current build could also be worth something in the future, once I put it back together again..
 

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