I have a pretty ambitious idea for my home network. As most computer geeks, I have a lot of hardware not being used. I have ideas on what to use the hardware for. The problem is, I don't have enough time to accomplish it. I work a full-time job and I have a wife and three kids. I don't get home until 7PM during the week which doesn't leave me a lot of time in the evenings to spend time with my family and do this project. The weekends are spent doing household projects or spending time with the family. I need more time in a day.

This project I want to do is pretty big. It would entail me completely redoing the network from the ground up if I want to do it right. This means internet access and my home phone will be down until it is completed. I will have to reconfigure hardware setups, reinstall operating systems, redo network settings and familiarize myself with new software. I also have to take into account Murphy and his damn law. It is inevitable I will screw something up along the way and possible restart the project.

With my current daily routine I would have to use the weekends. When I normally do stuff like this I usually wait till the kids are off to bed which is around 8PM. This will usually upset the wife because once I start I usually don't stop until I am physically exhausted which is around 3 or 4AM. Then I am cranky the next day due to lack of sleep. This of course makes the wife cranky and everyone has a bad day and she is less likely to let me do it again the following night.

I know I am not the only computer guy out there that has projects like this they want to do. So how do they get it done without upsetting the delicate balance that exists within family dynamics? I'm not sure. I would really like to do this project as it will not only help me develop skills I don't have but it will also allow me to have more control over the network itself. It will also allow me to utilize the hardware I have laying around. Of course I realized I need some new hardware to accommodate everything I want to do so I really can't do what I want without it.

So how do I squeeze more time out of the day? That is what I really want to do. I could do things in steps I suppose instead of trying to do everything in one session. If anyone has suggestions I am very open to hearing them.