At what age were your children that you were able to regain a lot of that personal time?
The only thing that's really helped (at least in the early stages) is sleeping in shifts + biphasic sleeping. That provides me with ample time to do my own projects, assuming that the baby hasn't regressed for that day and doesn't consume all that time (which if I'm being very fair, has been a bit of an angel.)
Wife and baby will always come first, projects after. And that is a good prioritisation.
But after the first 6 months or so there does gradually become those slots where you can pick up a project without neglecting the important people in your life.
And, if you’re lucky, one day your kids join in your projects and solder on next to you in companionable silence :)
As a counterpoint, with our two older kids (we have a baby too), I felt like my time was most drained during the 0-6 months stage. After that we got into good routines with them sleeping for 12 hours at night, and that brought back most of my most precious time.
My oldest is 5, and we're just now reaching the point where he's wanting to stay up later into our adult time, but in my experience there are a lot of comfortable years that were better than the immobile stage.
The only thing that's really helped (at least in the early stages) is sleeping in shifts + biphasic sleeping. That provides me with ample time to do my own projects, assuming that the baby hasn't regressed for that day and doesn't consume all that time (which if I'm being very fair, has been a bit of an angel.)