Itching to ditch that 9-5 soul-sucking day job? To get rid of that slave-driver boss that you have and save yourself from all that office politics and drama?
We all want that or at least thought about it at one point in our lives. Thinking that maybe it’s time to be our own boss, give those business ideas a chance and put it into action. Some actually did it. Marched into their boss’ office and said the words, “I quit”.
The first few weeks are exciting, still on the planning stage. But as months passed and savings are continuously depleting, financial stress is now haunting you. Because of it, you are now easily frustrated and demotivated when you don’t see any results, then after a few months, you are back to job hunting.
Why? Perhaps you haven’t thought it through or you just realized that while your business ideas are good, it will take time for it to fly. And you fully understand now that overnight success is a myth and SUSTAINED success definitely takes time.
Related post: Following your Passion? Think before you JUMP.
How can I know this, you may ask? Because I did it.
I quit my job and traveled halfway across the world. I didn’t have any safety net to be honest. I just thought to myself that I will just wing it and cross the bridge once I get to the point when shit happens. Yes, I can be courageous and stupid at the same time.
So I beg you, to be smarter than I am. To look after yourself and build a safety net.
If you have the time, start a side hustle or two while keeping your day job. These side hustles can be something that you really love doing — like arts and crafts, writing/blogging, or online selling. If you hate your job so much, try looking for another job but still start that side hustle.
Related post: Living from Paycheck to Paycheck? Here are 10 Ways to Earn Extra Income
Why can’t you just quit your job and focus on doing what you love? 3 Reasons:
- You need to have a stable monthly income to ease you of the financial stress and not neglect any financial obligations that you may have.
- If there’s no financial stress haunting you, you will enjoy doing your side hustle more as there won’t be any pressure on earning money from it instantly. You need to give it time to grow and flourish.
- Your day job won’t bother you as much anymore because you are now focused on making your side hustle a priority. You are inspired because you are creating and doing something you love. You know that your day job is just a means to an end. And you tell yourself when you have bad days at the office, “hang in there, this is just temporary.”
Your next concern could be — I don’t have time to do a side hustle.
Let me be frank and say that that is just you being LAZY. You haven’t even given it a chance and you now have an excuse why you think you can’t do it. If that is the problem, then you may stop reading. This post isn’t for you because I don’t have a cure for laziness. If you really want to do this, you will need to make certain sacrifices and be dedicated to it.
In my case, I sacrificed my sleeping hours and had to let go of my procrastinating nature. I love sleep, more than food actually, so when I started these 2 side hustles, minimizing my sleeping hours is the one thing that I had to do. Besides, I can’t really sleep when my mind won’t stop from reminding me of all the things that I need to do. And procrastinating is not really good so I was happy to let that go.
Before we dive into my work schedule, let me first give you a brief background of the work that I do:
- Social Media Account Manager – this is my day job. I work 9 hours a day, managing social media accounts of a startup company in the US. My boss is in the US and I work remotely. I don’t consider this as a side hustle because I have a stable income, I report for work everyday, and it’s not project based.
- Entrepreneur (Humanitee PH) – this is a custom shirt printing business I launched with Miquel. This is an eCommerce platform for artists to sell their own shirt designs with no financial investment on their part, just skills! Artists will only have to create and send to us the designs and we will handle the orders, printing and shipping. They instantly earn a profit for every shirt sold.
- Professional Blogger – writing is something I love doing and more so, if I get to inspire even one human being with my writing. Blogging is definitely a side hustle and it takes so much of my time.
Eventually, I hope to earn a more sustainable income from my side hustles and transition to becoming a full-time entrepreneur.
We all have an equal 24 hours in a day, so how do I manage having a day job while also doing 2 side hustles? Here’s how my daily schedule looks like:
7am – 9am: I try to get out of bed at 7am, do some walking and grab coffee on my way home. I take a shower before starting my day job. Luckily, I work remotely so I don’t have to spend time on commuting. My home is my office.
*If I don’t go out for a walk, because I can get lazy sometimes, I just check my analytics and turn on the news. I also read a few blogs and scan through Pinterest. I make a list of what I need to do for my work and my side hustles. Yes, I can be OC like that but it works for me and you should try it too. Trello is my secret weapon!
9am – 6pm: My day job begins. There are days when I have it easy and I can squeeze in some side hustle work. But on hectic days, I am focused on my day job and I feel very exhausted at the end of my shift.
6pm – 7:30pm: I cook dinner (or have food delivered) and allow myself to have some downtime in front of the TV.
7:30pm – 12am: Once, I finish dinner, I go back to my laptop. Check my personal/business emails, blog analytics and social media updates. I don’t spend time going through my personal social media accounts, I am actually disconnected in that aspect. Ironic, eh?
12am: I try to get some sleep (if my brain would allow me). When I go to bed, I leave my phone and iPad where my laptop is to give my brain time to recharge.
*I don’t write on a daily basis. And on those days when I don’t write, I create designs for Humanitee. I promote and connect with graphic artists and potential clients.
When it comes to blogging, I have a goal of writing 3 quality content every week. The amount of time spent on each post depends on the kind of post. For instance, How to Start a Blog worth Reading in 60 days post took me 9 hours to finish! While the post How to Beat Procrastination just took me 2 hours.
Managing my social media accounts is another story. To minimize my time spent on these, I make sure that I schedule all the necessary Facebook posts at the beginning of each month. And with Pinterest, I use Boardbooster to automate pinning.
But it doesn’t stop there because I need to get involved with blogging communities and there’s no shortcut when it comes to that. So I allot time reading other blogs, commenting and participating in Group discussions. Also, I need time for continuously learning — so I make it point to read about the latest trends on social media marketing, tips on how to improve my writing, etc. This, I do normally on weekends.
As for Humanitee, work load depends on the orders I get on a weekly basis. There was one week that I wasn’t able to do anything for this blog because all my time were spent handling Humanitee orders. I felt guilty about it but I didn’t have a choice.
On weekends, I allow myself to sleep more hours because I really need to recharge. And it’s also on weekends when I get to do a lot of writing. I spent a lot of hours in a local coffee shop, writing and planning for my next week’s goals.
Do I even have time to connect with friends and family or go on a vacation?
As you can see, it looks like I don’t have time to go out and spend time with friends or have a quick vacation but I do. I make sure that I do, otherwise, I will go crazy. I may be an introvert but I still need human interaction once in awhile. Besides, going on vacation and listening to other people’s stories give me inspiration for writing.
Doing side hustles while keeping your day job is a lot to handle but once you get the hang of it, it will be easier to manage. Just always keep in mind the reason why you wanted to do side hustles to begin with because that will be your motivation to keep going.
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You’re an inspiration. Keep doing what you love and kita kita tayo sa finals 🙂
Thank you, Ana! ??