Thinking about how you balance your side hustle and the rest of your life may seem overwhelming. After all, keeping a side gig going requires a lot of time, energy, and attention. Even with the best intentions and planning, it’s easy for these responsibilities to fall by the wayside. That’s why many side hustlers struggle to find time to work on their business without neglecting other important obligations like family and friends. If you have a side gig that you’re committed to growing into something more, perhaps even full-time. It helps to think about how you can streamline your efforts so that working on your business doesn’t take away from other important things in your life. Some side hustlers find that implementing certain hacks or processes makes all the difference. With these tips in mind, let’s dig into how you can increase your efficiency when working on your side hustle.
Set aside time for your side hustle every week.
We can’t stress this enough: if you want to build a successful side hustle and grow your business, you have to put in the time and energy. While it might seem cliche, time is truly the only resource you have that you can’t get more of. If you want to succeed at a side hustle, you must commit to allotting a certain amount of time each week to work on your business. Aim to block out at least one uninterrupted hour each day for your side hustle. If you work best at night, great — but try to adhere to a regular schedule so that you don’t let it put a strain on your other obligations and relationships. If you know that you need more time to complete your tasks, consider hiring a virtual assistant to help lighten your load.
As they always say, your full-time life is your 8 to 5 while your hustling life starts from 7 to 12 depending on how long you aim to dedicate it. Although you may not achieve much work out of 4hours of work a day, with consistent effort, you would be able to see results. Keep hustling!
Create a conducive work environment for you to work in
In most cases, your side hustle is probably at least somewhat tied to a place of business. This means that you may need to think about how to create an appropriate work environment for yourself when working from home or in an office. If you’re able, find a quiet space within the space where you can focus undisturbed on your business tasks. A proper work set-up or as they call it a “study room” is extremely important to get work done.
To create the best environment for you to work in, here’s what you should look into getting:
Cooling and Regulated Temperature to be Working In
Do consider getting yourself a ceiling fan or an air-conditioner. Ceiling fans are a great appliance to help cool the room temperature, making it more conducive to working in. You can get the best ceiling fans from SPIN, a company that specializes in ceiling fans.
Good quality noise-canceling headphones
When you study in a noisy environment, your brain is bombarded with external information, which can be distracting. Noise-canceling headphones allow you to filter out these distractions and focus more on the topic at hand, resulting in superior study results.
Comfortable Working Chair
If you will be working for long hours at a desk, you might want to consider getting yourself a comfortable work chair. An ergonomic chair should include lumbar adjustment (both height and depth) so that each user can acquire the right fit to support the lower back’s inward curve. Backrest. An ergonomic office chair’s backrest should be 12 to 19 inches wide.
Well-adjusted and user-friendly desktop setup
Chances are that you are required to work using your computer from time to time. Having a user-friendly desktop setup is extremely critical to make the best out of the user experience. You can do that by properly adjusting the angle and distance of the monitor to your eye level. Apart from that, adjusting your work posture in order to get the most comfortable work is extremely critical.
Dedicate specific days of the week to side-hustling activities.
Some side hustles are more time-sensitive than others. If you know that the production of your product takes weeks or months between the conception of the idea and its arrival at the customer’s door, you’ll want to think about how you can best set up your work schedule to accommodate that.
If you know that you need to work on your business for set hours every day, you may want to consider dedicating certain days of the week to working on your business. Setting yourself with a schedule to work, allows you to have more mental space to think about other important parts of your business such as setting time to do business marketing.
If you know that your business is less time-sensitive, you can mix up when you spend time on your business as you see fit. Regardless of your situation, it’s a good idea to try to schedule the time you spend on your side hustle in advance so that you can be sure not to overbook yourself. Creating a habit to follow is one of the great ways for you to stay consistent with your work. If you are having a tough time setting up a time to work on your side hustle, I would highly recommend you to read the book “Atomic Habits” which is a book that teaches people the power of building small habits from time to time.
Track your growth and productivity with tools like Toggl and Rescue Time.
You may want to track your progress and productivity over time to see if there are specific areas where you can improve or if there are specific times of the day when you’re more productive than others. If this sounds like something you’d like to do, there are a few productivity-tracking tools that can help you keep track of your time and progress. Rescue Time is an app that lets you track how you spend your time on both your computer and phone. You can set goals and milestones for how you want to spend your time, and Rescue Time will let you know if you’re meeting your goals and how you can improve. Google is another productivity-tracking app that you can use to analyze how you spend your time across different projects and clients.
Automate as many processes as you can without needing a developer.
Depending on the type of work you do as a side hustler, you may be able to automate certain processes without needing a developer to help you out. Most of our daily work can now be automated in order to increase efficiency thanks to AI(Artificial technology) advancement. If you’re in the business of writing content or creating videos, you can use tools like Grammarly or Hemingway to check your work for grammar and style errors before sending it off to clients. For scheduling of social media posts and information, you can download Tailwind to automate your post and even have others reshare or pin your post.
Take care of yourself so that you can sustain your hustle over time.
As with any other full-time job, it can be easy to burn out when you’re juggling a side hustle, a full-time job, and your personal life. Taking care of yourself and your mental, emotional, and physical health is essential to making sure that you don’t burn out and that your efforts don’t fall by the wayside. Schedule time to pursue hobbies and activities that feed your soul, even if they don’t seem related to your business. Make sure that you get enough sleep, eat well, and exercise regularly. Be mindful of how you’re spending your time, and don’t be afraid to say no to things that are taking up too much of it.
