Finding Time to Side Hustle

Side hustling is a wonderful, wonderful thing, especially if you have some serious financial goals. A side hustle can completely change your life, if taken advantage of. When I first started teaching, I was so overwhelmed with my career that I never thought I’d be able to side hustle on top of my teaching. After a lot of effort and creative thinking, I have found time to side hustle enough that I live on that money and use my salary from teaching to pay off my debt. I never would have thought that I would be able to do this, so I put together my tips to find time to side hustle.

Choosing a Side Hustle

This is probably the most important step when finding time to side hustle. You need to find a side hustle that at least brings you some joy. If you’re somebody that doesn’t think they have any time to side hustle, you’re not going to want to find time for something you hate. Make your life a little easier and pick something you see yourself enjoying. Also, this makes it a lot easier to work your side hustle when you’re tired or stressed from your main job.

Find Your Free Time

You might look at your schedule originally and think there is absolutely no time for you to possibly make extra money. But, you do. Think of all the time you spend binging Netflix, I know cutting down on this a week freed up countless hours for me each week. Be realistic with yourself in the beginning. Look at your schedule and see when you are willing to sacrifice your time. Are you only willing to work during the week? Can you work before you begin your day at your day job? Can you only work evenings? In the beginning, I strictly worked Monday-Thursday and I only took on 1 family to tutor for. Then, I added some after school tutoring at school. I didn’t want to overwhelm myself at first and become too stressed for my teaching. See what you can realistically do and don’t put too much pressure on yourself to work a ton of hours in the beginning.

Schedule Your Side Hustle

Once you have found your free time, schedule your side hustle time and stick to it. Depending on your side hustle, this time might be scheduled for you. For example, I babysit and tutor for my side hustles, so these are decided between the parents and myself, my employer, or my school. Now that I have figured out what I can handle, I have a lot of different means of bringing in extra money. It is incredibly important to have a schedule and stick with it. If you are doing a side hustle that doesn’t have a schedule, it is even more important to have a schedule. For example, I recently started focusing more on my blog. This requires me to schedule time each week to work on it, or I simply won’t do it. It’s amazing how much more time you have when you actually schedule it out.

To Do List

This might sound silly to some people, but there is something truly amazing about to do lists. If you’re someone that uses to do lists, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. I make a to do list every Sunday for the things I want to get done that day. Sundays are my prep day for the week and my day to get ahead of things. When I don’t use a list, my day completely escapes me and nothing gets done other then a lot of binge watching New Girl or Friends. Once I have a list that I tell myself I have to finish that day, I am so much more organized and focused in my day. I do the same thing on Monday mornings when I get to work, but I create one for the week. A list creates more time because we are more efficient in our tasks that we need to complete, which then opens up more time for side hustles.

Adjust and Add More Side Hustles

As I got more comfortable with my career and my side hustles I started adding more to my week. Now I’ve created a great, busy schedule that works really well for me and allows me to bring in enough money in side hustles that I can live off it and then some. This didn’t happen right away and it’s important to not overwork yourself, that just leads to more problems. You need to figure out what it realistic for you and add more side hustle as you see fit. For me, I found that I can go to work earlier in the morning so that I can do more side hustles in the afternoon. Get creative about your schedule and see where you can make changes to make your time work for you.

It requires some creativity and definitely some sacrifices, but finding time to side hustle is totally realistic, if it’s something you want to do. For me, I am motivated by how much more I can pay down my debt with my side hustle income. This makes it so much easier for me to say, “Yes!” whenever I am texted or emailed to babysit or tutor. Also, I know I won’t be working these crazy hours forever, and that definitely makes it easier too. How do you find time to side hustle?