Believe it or not, your side hustle really can help you be better at your day job. It took me a while to figure that out...but here we are. 11 ways that your side hustle can complement your day job. This is something I've been having a lot of fun learning and playing with as I navigate working a full-time job with running actually two side hustles: my coaching business/podcast with the non-profit swim team I run with my hubby
The “11 Ways” can be found in this workbook/ebook and it includes, everything from building new skill sets, to personal development, to expanding your attention to self-care. This workbook here is going to help you explore, reflect and enlighten your approach to your day job and your side hustle.
Here we go.
The first thing I want you to think about is routines. What can you do in the morning before you go to the day job that can either help you work on your side hustle or prepare for your day? And then, how can you take care of that stuff at lunch? What about the end of the day? There are endless possibilities for managing your time when you rock out some great routines.
The second activity here is meant to focus a little bit more on achieving clarity and possibly becoming a master of your skill sets. When I think of all the new things I’ve learned from my day job and my side hustle and how they work together, I get beyond excited. As a podcaster,
I learned how to use zoom long before the pandemic hit. When the campus where I work was starting to talk about remote learning, I was already an expert. I was able to come in and teach my staff how to use it. We were ahead of the game before the faculty were!
Secondly, because my day job at the college is in a non-profit organization, I was able to use all of that knowledge and all of that information to help my husband and I start the swim team. So those were both instances where something that I learned at one gig really paid off for the other.
And what I realized throughout reflecting on this is there are skills and talents I have that mean different things to me, both at my campus day job and at home. So here's an example about social media. When I'm running my business with the swim team, plus my podcast, I feel like a social media novice. I'm constantly taking courses. I participate in masterminds. I get ahold of all the information that I can so that I can learn more and put my businesses out there. And that learning for my side hustle is really paying off in my day job now. For the communications work that I have to do for the college nonprofit I'm learning stuff outside that I might not have had access to working at the college. And now I’m seen as an expert. How cool is that?
Another area where the side hustle can complement the day job is examples of self-awareness and personal development. As an educator, I have access to conferences, virtual summits, and online learning that quite often overlap with the side gig. And that’s starting to flip for me as well. . There's a great story in the workbook about a podcast conference that I participated in, where I was able to convince my boss to reimburse me the cost. The things I learned there actually did help me in my day job!
If this is your first time checking out some of my stuff, you may not be aware of the “Elevate Your 8” philosophy. The philosophy here is that everything related to productivity and time management can break down into three groups of eight hours. So it's all prioritization and mathematics. If you honor your work-life balance and you're working only eight hours a day, if you honor your health and wellness and you're sleeping for eight hours every night, then mad prioritization can help you get the rest of the stuff done. And when you are able to do that, you have got it down. If you can hone in on those things, you’ll find time you never realized you had. And that’s time that can be well spent on work, play, chores, shopping, sex...you know, whatever.
This guide is a real game changer, although I really hate the word game changer. And you guys, if this seems a little bit weird in the beginning to think about how these two things play off each other, that is totally okay.
It took me a while, almost two years to get comfortable and confident with this kind of playing off of each other to where I felt good actuall talking about it. It’s quite something to work on creating time for your side hustle and being fully invested in your day job, whether you're on campus or working somewhere else.
It's all about thinking outside the box and being creative. Go pick up that workbook, “11 Ways Your Side Hustle Can Complement Your Day Job,” and let’s see how you decide to use it.