10 Ways To Effectively Manage Your Side Hustle While Working Full Time
10 Ways To Effectively Manage Your Side Hustle While Working Full Time. Balancing a full-time job with a side hustle is doable. It just takes dedication, organization and respect for your employer and your own time. Below are effective ways of doing just that.
1. Make Sure Your Employer Allows It
The biggest hurdle to being self-employed while holding a full-time job is ensuring you’re actually allowed to do so. Check your employment contract and company handbook to see if your employer has policies against or guidelines for a second job. More progressive companies increasingly allow you to work a side gig, but they will still often protect themselves with non-disclosure agreements and non-compete clauses.
2. Be Wise When Choosing A Side Hustle
Having a side hustle that will take too much of your time is not ideal. Make sure that when you’re brainstorming of ideas for your side hustle you want to pursue, it won’t take your own time nor will not require you to be on that particular place. Instead, think of a side hustle that can be worked on your own time, like after work or on the weekends.
3. Sacrifice
Any side hustle you want to pursue needs your time and effort. Learning something every day is exciting, you just need to start something and sacrifice weekend party’s. It’s not always about the money to pursue a side hustle. What you can learn in your endeavour can be one of your best motivation and inspiration to do what you need to do.
4. Have Specific Hours For Your Side Hustle
Unless you are lucky enough to be a remote worker with flexible hours, you likely have a standard schedule for your full-time job. This might be the typical office hours or an evening shift at a restaurant. Regardless, your primary job gets the luxury of a schedule: time reserved solely for that purpose. Your secondary pursuit should get the same level of commitment.
5. Up Skill On Your Lunch Break
One balancing issue that crops up before a side hustle even begins is finding the time to learn the new skills you might need for a lucrative side gig. If you’re already working full-time, going back to school doesn’t sound like an appealing option. The good news is that some of the most high paying side hustles require skills that can be learned relatively quickly during your downtime. Think: on your lunch break, or any other pockets of idle time during the day.
6. Set Priorities
One of the greatest keys to success in any endeavor is learning to prioritize and maintain your limits. No one is at their best when stretched thinly across too many responsibilities. This risk becomes very real when balancing a side hustle and full-time job. Both at your job and with your side hustle, you need to learn to say no.
7. Look For Crossover Opportunities
Be on the lookout for serendipitous moments where the work you’re doing at your full-time job can also help with your side hustle. Maybe you are putting together a content marketing strategy for your website and your boss just happens to pitch the idea of attending a training session aimed at improving digital marketing skills. Voilá, the hours spent at that training will serve you well at your primary job while also potentially yielding a few new tricks for your side hustle.
8. Don’t Compromise Your Work
Having a side hustle can get you all excited. You might even start getting less productive in your current job. Compromising your quality of work and reputation in the office will prevent you from re-engaging and even potentially partnering with your old employers once you go full-time as a business owner yourself.
9. Don’t Forget the Taxes
Usually, your full-time employer handles much of the tax burden for you (administratively, that is; you still must fork over what’s owed to Uncle Sam out of your own wallet). However, when you are self-employed or a contractor, you have to manage taxes all on your own.
10. Avoid Getting Fired From Your Day Job
Obviously, you shouldn’t work on your side hustle during company time, nor should you use company resources to advance your own pursuits. Not only is it unethical, but it’s likely a violation of the employment agreements you signed when you began your job. Make it a point to honor every term in your contracts and to consistently deliver excellent performance at your day job even while having your side hustle picks up momentum.
