Working full time and having a side hustle as well can be a great way to earn some extra money and be your own boss. But it can also put a strain on your available time and be hard to face after a long day at your 9 to 5 job.
Whether you’re doing something you love or earning extra income, if you want to do justice to both jobs and avoid burning out, you’re going to need some serious time management. So this article provides some useful tips on the best skills to cultivate to stay focused and productive.
Skills you’ll need
First and foremost, you’ll need to learn the skills associated with your chosen second job, which could be anything from an e-commerce business to a second career in freelance writing or web design.
You’ll also need to develop a range of more general skills that will allow you to successfully juggle both jobs. These skills might include;
Energy managing
Try and match your side hustle tasks to the times when you typically have the most energy in the day (i.e. before you go to work if you are a morning person or after you get home if you are an evening person). Also, if your 9 to 5 job is particularly demanding, try scheduling side hustle tasks requiring more creative energy for the weekend and just doing routine manual tasks during the week.
Time tracking
Track your time across the day on a spreadsheet to try and identify periods where time is being wasted and could be better utilised working on your side hustle (not during 9 to 5 work hours of course). These could include commute time to and from work if you use public transport or that unproductive two hours you spend after dinner watching TV.
Growth managing
You should be trying to find time to grow, but it’s going to be difficult to grow your business, as opposed to just running it. If you can’t afford to devote that much of your time, at least try to spend half an hour a day growing your side hustle in some way (for example developing a new offer or making a new contact).
Task planning
In order to get things accomplished, it’s important to write a list of the tasks that need completing on your side hustle for the week. You also need to allocate realistic time frames to each task, so that you don’t fall behind and can get everything done on time.
Stress busting
It’s very important to schedule realistic breaks into your side hustle activities, so that you still have some quality down time away from both jobs. This will ensure you don’t suffer from work overload or burnout from trying to do too much over too short a timeframe.
Hindsighting
Make sure you continue to regularly look back each week on how successful you’ve been in utilizing your time and which techniques have proven most successful in achieving your goals. After all, hindsight is only a wonderful thing if you learn and improve from it.
Routining
To make sure your productivity levels stay at their peak, introduce some key systems and work routines into your day that you adhere to religiously, no matter what. And the last routine for the day should always be to review what needs to be done on your side hustle tomorrow.
Automating
Try to automate or delegate the simple, repetitive and time-consuming tasks associated with your side hustle (automated email replies for example). Having an app or a friend or family member take care of these tasks for you will free you up to focus on the more creative aspects of your business.
Self-motivating
Unlike your 9 to 5 job, there is no one looking over your shoulder telling you what to do with your side hustle. That means the motivation has to come solely from you, so make sure you are doing something you enjoy that motivates you to devote every possible minute to ensuring its success.
A side hustle is a great way to pursue a business venture that interests you, to be in control and be your own boss and to invest as much time as you want into making it work. But because you’re adding this extra work to your full-time job plus any other domestic responsibilities you may have, you really need to manage your time and priorities well.
So before you start a side hustle, make sure;
- It’s something you’re passionate about
- It won’t negatively affect your work or family life and
- It will ultimately achieve your desired goal.
If it ticks all those boxes, then you’re already halfway there, because the rest is really just organization, self-discipline and plain common sense.