This week, I talk about the importance of spending time working on your business, not just in it.

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Transcript and Links

Hello, and welcome to season two, episode four of the Grow Your Side Hustle Podcast, the podcast for entrepreneurs who want to grow a side hustle into a second stream of income, or their main gig. This is your host, Jennifer Roland Cadiente.

And today, we’re talking about those of you who don’t want to leave your day job.

We do talk a lot here about the ways you can get out of your day job, you can build your side hustle into your main business.

But I know that’s not the case for everyone, you may be doing something creative, that brings you joy outside of your main day job. But you don’t want to make it your main thing, because maybe you’re worried about losing the love for that thing. Or maybe you just don’t really feel like it’s something that you want to devote a full-time focus to, or maybe you just don’t think that it’s something that would ever be able to replace your full-time income. And all of those are valid reasons for wanting to do your side hustle.

As a long-term side hustler, you’re going to want to focus a lot more on how to make things work. How to manage your time how to manage your energy, energy, and how to make sure that you are following the policies of your human resources department at your day job. Now, I’m not ever going to tell people to violate policies that could make them lose their job. I know that if you are planning to leave your day job, you know, and maybe you have set yourself a really short deadline, like maybe three months, maybe you’re not as worried about whether you’re violating or skirting the edges of some of the policies in your employee handbook or in your employment contract.

But if you’re going to do this long term, you definitely want to make sure that you’re not doing anything that is a violation of the things that you’ve agreed to at work. So you know, make sure that you’re not using company resources for your side hustle, make sure that you’re not violating any moonlighting or side work policies that are in your handbook or your employment contract. I know that we don’t really all use the word moonlighting anymore, but that remains the word that I’ve seen used in employee handbooks to discuss whether people are allowed to have second jobs or start a business on the side. Make sure that what you’re doing in your side hustle is different enough from your day job, that there’s no way that you know, if you’re creating products or information products, that your employer could lay claim to ownership of those. And that’s another reason to make sure that you’re absolutely not using any company property to create those things. So make sure that you’re reading that handbook. It’s so easy to just, you know, skim it, maybe not even open it, just scroll down to the bottom where you have to say that you have to sign it, say that you are complying with the policies each year. But go ahead and give it a closer read, just to make sure that everything you’re doing is on the up and up and won’t cause you to lose your day job.

Time management is definitely something that you need to focus on. You need to make sure that you have the time to devote what you need to do your side hustle as well as your day job. If there are ways that you can shorten your workday or your workweek, to make it easier to do that, you know, you can explore that. I know some people have some flexibility in the hours that they need to be in the office. So if you could, you know maybe at work switch to four 10 hour days and then have a fifth day off that will give you an entire workday to devote to your side hustle. And that might be a little bit easier to manage than trying to do it all evenings or early mornings, depending on whether you’re a morning or a night person, and also on the weekends. So just look at different ways that you can structure your time.

I know that I’ve recommended the book 168 hours by Laura Vanderkam, previously, I’m going to recommend it again, if you’re not sure where you’re going to find the time, during those time logs that she recommends, are really, really helpful in seeing where you have spare hours, where you are, maybe spending your hours off work in ways that are less than helpful. Or, you know, ways that you could combine your side hustle with some of your other leisure activities. Like if, you know, say you’re doing cross stitch, or embroidery, or knitting or something like that, where you’re using your hands a lot, but you don’t maybe need to be completely focused. You could combine that with time that you’re catching up on your favorite shows. So that you don’t have to just like be doing absolutely nothing while you’re watching TV. And that way, you don’t have to completely cut out watching TV or other things that that bring you joy or listening to audiobooks. You know, if you if you prefer reading, to TV and movies. And look at how you can use your commute. If you are not actually driving yourself, if you carpool or you take public transportation, then, you know, maybe you could do some of your side hustle things on the train or in the backseat of the car that you’re riding in. So there are all sorts of ways to get really creative about your time to make sure that you’re still you know, having the time to wind down and relax and regain your energy. But still managing to do all of the things you want to do our with your work and your side hustle.

And the most important thing I think, is managing your energy. A lot of times, you know, after a day in the office and commuting back and forth, it’s really challenging to be able to focus on doing any other work. And so that might be a reason that, you know, maybe you want to reschedule your workweek so that you are working four days instead of five. So that you can have that day that you haven’t had to, you know, drive to work and work and then come home and deal with dinner and all that.

You also want to be making sure, again, that you’re taking that downtime, even if you work on weekends, on your side, hustle, maybe take one day completely off of everything. So that you’re not risking burning yourself out. Look at the things that bring you joy. I’ll again point you toward Becca Syme’s series on burnout on YouTube. And back to the episode where we talked about burnout with Becca. So that you can just be making sure that you’re not going to completely burn yourself out and then not be able to do either your day job or your side hustle. Because we don’t want that — we want you to be successful at everything that you want to do.

So if you’ve got any more questions about how to manage a long term side hustle, go ahead and put post them as a voice message or send me a DM on Instagram. I can address those in a future episode.

Would you like to be featured on the Grow Your Side Hustle Podcast? If so, leave me a voice message. You can either click the button for the message or you can use the link depending on what podcast player you’re using. So if you are just hoping to start a side hustle and you want some coaching, or you’re already growing your own side hustle, or you already grown it to be your full time business. I want to hear from you. So leave me a message and tell me about yourself in your business.

Thanks so much for joining us today. Don’t forget to subscribe so you won’t miss any of our future episodes with other side hustlers and some experts to help you deal with some of those small and large issues that come up when you’re running a side hustle. I’d also love it if you could share this episode with any of your friends that you think would be interested and leave a review and a rating in your podcast app. See you next week.