Side Business: 5 Clever Tricks For Finding Time For Your Side Hustle

In my last article about side hustles, I explained 3 Urgent Reasons Why You Start A Side Business When You Still Have A Full-Time Job. Let’s assume that you’ve decided to start a side hustle after reading that post. The biggest hurdle that could stop you from starting any side business is the unavailability of time. So, in this week’s article, you will learn 5 clever tricks that will help you find the time to start and grow your side business or side hustle even when you have a full-time job.

1. Track The Time You Spend On Other Activities When Not At Work

When we say we don’t have time because of work, it ‘s usually not only the work that takes most of the time. Other activities that consume our time include getting ready for work, commuting to and from work, unwinding after work before bedtime.

Here are questions you may need to write down and provide an honest answer to them. 

2. Cut Back on Time Wasting Activities

Get rid of any activity that does not add value to you. One of my former time wasters was watching television until I starved my desire to watch television to death. Instead of watching TV, you can fill in that time with more productive activity.

We all have different schedules. You know how much time you spend between the time you wake up and the time you leave for work. You could spare a few minutes in the morning to work on your business idea before leaving for your day job. You could use 1 or 2 hours in the evening before going to bed.
Here are two methods that work for me;
1. Waking up 1 hour before the time I get my kids ready for school to work on my projects. I accomplish a lot on my writing or videos or some consulting work within that time before waking anyone else up in the morning. You may not be a morning person. Evenings might work for you. Identify the best time that works for you.

2. At work, my lunch period is meant to be for one hour. I noticed that I usually finished having lunch in just 30 minutes then spent the rest chatting with my co-workers. Sometimes on interesting topics, other times in subjects I cared nothing about until the 1 hour was over. So, I decided to only chat with my colleagues for only two days a week during lunch while I use the remaining 30 minutes to work on my personal projects on other work days during the lunch hour. You see! I cut out unnecessary chatting while gaining 1.5 hours I can put into my own work.
Note: I go to work with my personal laptop so I don’t do any personal activity on my work computer.

3. Use The Time Blocking Method

Time block means focusing on finishing the activities on your schedule one at a time. Not the usual do the big ones first rather face one activity and get it out of the way within an allotted time no matter how big or small. To do this effectively, you should know your typical daily, weekly and monthly activities. Plan ahead and fit them into your calendar. 
I explained how the calendar or time blocking works in this article; New Year Resolutions Are Obsolete. Do This Instead.
You may also like to know why highly productive people use “time blocking“.

4. Use Apps or Software To Reduce The Time You Spend On Social Media

Stop throwing your time away in the trash bin of social media addiction. Don’t get me wrong. Social media is very important if you are going to be doing any business online. However, it can also be a rabbit hole where you get sucked up for hours in a day without you knowing it. If you want to start and grow your business, social media should be for communicating and sharing valuable information with your clients and customers. You may have to cut out the time spent on mindless social media and internet surfing without a purpose. Putting my phone on flight mode when I have important work to do is a time saver.

Time Blocking Apps

This app, ActionDash which tracks the time spent on all activities on your phone is a good one to start with. It will show you how much time you spend on mindless social media surfing which could be channelled into working on your side hustle. For example, ActionDash reveals that I touched my phone for a total of 39 hours and 7 mins in 1 week. This is crazy. Though some of that time was still spent towards useful communication.

Use this Chrome extension, StayFocusd to block other websites that distract you have finally decided to work on your project.

Use this app, Pomodoro.cc to keep track of the time spent on doing actual work. It reminds you to take a break for 5 or 10 minutes after 25 minutes of work. Cool, right? You can log in with your Twitter or GitHub account.

Zapier has more time blocking apps explained in their blog.

5. Learn To Say No

Saying no is an act many of us are still struggling with. Do you really have to accept every request that comes your way? Say no when you can’t handle it. It’s called self-love. Learn to use the two-letter word, “No”. When you invest all your time working on other people’s business or because you can’t say no, nobody is going to work on your own dreams. It is okay to be selfish sometimes. I don’t mean you should leave your day job rather other activities that may not worth your time.

Choose the activities you engage in, don’t let others choose for you. Decline the next irrelevant meeting. Once you become conscious of how you spend your time, you will find the time to work on your side hustle even when you have a full-time job.

Do you have other tricks you use to create time for your side hustle or side projects without getting swamped? Tell us in the comment section below. Let the conversation continue.