One of the biggest struggles I hear from people who want to build a business on the side but work full time is finding the TIME, and I struggled with this too.
I’m married, we don’t have kids, but I had a pretty demanding job with long hours before I built my side hustle up big enough to quit my day job.
There were many times in that first year that I just felt overwhelmed and stressed out.
It felt like I had so much work to do in my side hustle and I just didn’t know where I was going to fit it in.
And that’s kindof how I did things – I would just do whatever was top of mind when I had a moment of time. And I felt I was on a neverending treadmill, constantly running but getting nowhere.
It wasn’t until I was able to put a few habits in place around my time that I started to make some forward progress.
It took 3 years, but I was able to do this a few ways:
Getting up at 5AM and working for an hour or so before I had to get ready for work.
I know that with a kiddo that might be extra difficult, but there's no way I had enough energy at the end of a long day to be creative, etc. so doing it first thing was the only way it was getting done!
Then, I would block my lunch hour for working on my side hustle – I'd do all the admin stuff during that time, like answering emails, sending proposals, phone calls, stuff like that.
The weekends really were the big “work” days, so I'd get up early on Saturday and Sunday and work on my side hustle as long I could until whatever plans we had that day (which again, no kids so that's a little bit easier for me) – but I think the biggest thing I did that moved me forward was that I'd take a vacation or personal day at least once a month and spend one whole entire uninterrupted day working on just my stuff.
And there were days that I was able to shift my schedule, so I’d get ready and leave for work at my normal time, drop my puppy off at doggy day care – yes, you heard that right, we take our lab puppy to doggy day care a couple times a week to let her burn off all that puppy energy – well, she’s a year and a half now, but that last year at the day job she was a puppy puppy – and then I’d go to Starbucks down the street and work on my side hustle for a couple hours.
I’d get to the office around 10AM, and I'd stay at work til about 6:30, and then by the time I left, rush hour was over and I’d be home by 6:45 – only about 15 minutes later than normal.
On the flip side, I’d get to work by 8 or 8:30, and then stop working at 5PM, hang out in my office and work on side hustle stuff while waiting for rush hour to die down, and I'd only get home like 15 minutes later than normal.
Then, there’s something I like to call the Chipotle line strategy. So whenever I’m in line at Chipotle, or Starbucks, or the grocery store or the car wash, whatever, I’m answering emails and engaging with my audience on social media. I’ll even start a voice memo while I’m driving if I have an idea for a blog post or something that I want to remember to write later.
So there are lots of ways to make and find time for your side hustle, tomorrow I’m going to talk more about what I DO with that time.
Show Notes:
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