Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

By Evelyn James

If 2020 taught us anything, it is the importance of earning money on your own terms and in a way that can be done from your home. Creating a side hustle is the perfect way to do this! The idea of a side hustle is appealing to everyone who has ever dreamed of one day running their own business and calling the shots. However, the initial setup of running a side hustle along with working full time can be exhausting and often throws people off.

If you are worried about the impact that having a side hustle may have on your 9-5 this article will give you the five most important tips for managing your side hustle around your full-time job.

– Separate your workspace from your home

It is important to have space away from the stress of work in which you can completely relax and enjoy time with family, friends or even pets! When you have a side hustle, it is easy to turn your relaxing home into yet another stressful office. The solution to this problem is to create a designated office space in your home. If you have a larger home, you could consider changing a spare room into a home office.

If your house is smaller or you have a large family and do not have any room to spare, it may be tricky to find a good space that you can turn into an effective work area. If this is the case, you should consider investing in portable spaces, such as converted containers, that you could easily put in your garden to make a home office for yourself. According to S Jones, “Container offices can be fitted with electrical outlets, heating systems and air conditioning units to ensure that your employees can complete their work tasks comfortably and efficiently.”

Converted containers offer you the opportunity to have an entire space dedicated to your side hustle and, placing it outside will keep your home very separate from your working life.

– Make sure to plan!

Having a solid, well thought out plan is vital when you are juggling two jobs. Planning will help you to visualise all of the tasks that you need to complete and will make it easy to stay on top of all that needs to be done. The best way to plan is to create a document with each hour of the day for a week. Then, you should fill in the hours when you are at your 9-5, when you are commuting, cooking dinner/doing housework and any other daily tasks that take up time in your life. With the reminding spaces, you can then allocate times to specific tasks that will help your side hustle.

Following a plan will save you a lot of stress, especially after a long day at work! You can simply follow along with what you need to do with the knowledge that everything is leading you to where you want to be.

– Use your lunch break to your advantage

It has been proven that going into a 9-5 job setting, such as an office, automatically places us into a ‘work mode’ in which we are more productive and have sharper focus on the tasks that we are doing. This makes it the perfect place to work on your side hustle. It is clearly not a good idea to use your paid working hours to work on your side gig however, but no harm can be done by working on tasks during your lunch break. You could use this time for the tedious tasks you dread doing when you get home. Not only will this mean that you are in the correct headspace to work, using your lunch hour for your side hustle will give you back some precious relaxation time in the evening when you return home. You could even arrive to work an hour early to work on things.

– Be strict with yourself

Whilst it is completely okay to have a day off or two, you need to hold yourself accountable for the success of your side hustle and be honest with yourself about the amount of effort that you are putting in. You need to be strict with yourself and set expectations for the amount of effort that you want to put in. Success does not happen over night, it takes months (even years) of hard work that can only be achieved by those with high motivation and a strong work ethic.

A great way to keep yourself on track is to join a group of like-minded people and share your side hustle journey with them. This will encourage you to keep working hard so that you can share stories of success and inspire the others in your group. There are many small business or side hustle groups available to join on Facebook.

– Give yourself free time

The idea of being your own boss by running a successful side hustle is exciting and will require a huge amount of time. Whilst working on your passion is great, it is also very important that you do not forget about other parts of your life that are important for your wellbeing. You should make sure that you give yourself free time to see family and friends, to pamper yourself, to keep active or to do anything that makes you happy. Being successful is great but nothing can compete with living a life that you actually enjoy!

__________

Evelyn James is an emerging freelancer who’s passionate about entrepreneurship, copywriting, and the latest social media trends. When she isn’t writing, she can be found either scrolling through Pinterest or rereading Harry Potter for the hundredth time.