Building Your Side Hustle Can Be Tough
Starting a work-at-home job can be a little overwhelming if you’re still working your full-time job. You might feel like there aren’t enough hours in the day.
As a former teacher who started her side hustle while still teaching, I can relate. Here are my top 4 tips to manage your time when you’re starting your work at home job (and still working a full time job!).
1. What matters most to you?
When you have a strong reason to doing something, you’ll be able to keep pushing through, even when you’re tired, bored, or frustrated.
So what matters most to you? Why is it important that you’re successful in your side hustle? When you plan out your time, consider what’s most important to you, not just today or tomorrow, but a year, three years, and five years from now.
Maybe you want to spend more time with your family but your day job just doesn’t allow for it. So you can a. Continue doing that job and not seeing your family. B. Try to find another job that’s not like that or c. work harder on your own thing now so that eventually you can choose your own hours, clients, etc.
One important point to remember here: when you’re working for someone else, your day is always at the mercy of their whims. When you’re working for yourself, you plan out your day and year. Working hard (and smart) now means you get to choose your day later.
There’s definitely some delayed gratification there, but it’s absolutely worth it.
2. What do you want your day to look like?
What does your day currently look like? Where can you tighten the ship to be more effective so you have more time to spend on what and with whom you love.
If you have to get to work early, can you get up an hour earlier to work on your own business? Can you take a shorter lunch break or work during your lunch break? Where can you save time so you can help your own business thrive more quickly?
That being said — if that’s not your goal, that’s okay. You don’t have to have that goal. But look at what’s most important to you– are you spending much of the day doing that? If not, why not? And what can you do to make that more of a priority?
3. Plan for interruptions and things to not go well (have a realistic time frame).
You’re going to make mistakes. There will be things that don’t work out. You’re going to get interrupted. It’s just part of life. Give yourself a break and keep going. When you get interrupted, find out the easiest way to ease back into it.
4. Remember it’s not forever.
This season of your life might be crazy. You might feel like you have a million things going on at all times. When it feels like it’s never going to stop, you might find yourself feeling overwhelmed and burnt out — especially if you’re still working full-time and starting your side hustle (that can turn into a full-time hustle ;P). One of the best tips I can give you for this season of life is to remember that it’s not going to last forever. Set a push date — maybe it’s a few weeks out, a few months, or even a few years. But give yourself a time frame for when you’ll take a break or when you plan to be where you want to be. Give yourself some wiggle room but keep that date in the back of your mind on days that are hard and remember… it won’t be like this forever.
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