I've been programming now for about three years. For the entirety of that time, I was also doing a PhD in music composition. That changed yesterday when I submitted it.1
I'm a fairly adept procrastinator, and can manage a tremendous amount of pseudo-productivity when there is other work I'm supposed to be doing (see the projects section of this blog for a fairly long list of evidence). But, what started out as an endless outlet for procrastination when I should have been doing PhD work has now become my actual job. In addition to my own personal projects, around six months ago I set up a company which has been pretty successful so far, and which I can now work on full-time.
Now, for the first time, I can sit down to do some programming work, and it's not some form of procrastination.
It's not technically finished yet, I'll still have an exam called the viva in a few months, but all the writing and day-to-day work is done. ↩︎