Side hustling is a great way to earn extra money outside of your 9-5 job.
But one thing side hustlers often struggle with is balancing their time.
Working full-time and then coming home to side hustle requires you to utilize your time as efficiently as possible.
Fortunately, you can succeed at both your 9-5 job, side hustle, and all of your other obligations by implementing some productivity hacks. Here are 12 productivity hacks to help you side hustle better.
1) Delegate
Sometimes, you can’t do it all. As your side hustle grows, you may find you need to delegate certain tasks.
While delegating can cost money, it frees up your time so you can focus on the most vital parts of your business. Determine where your time is best spent and consider delegating the rest of the tasks.
2) Roll Up Your Emails
No matter how hard you try to protect your email address, it seems like you will always have a huge amount of junk email and promotional ads that bombard your email inbox. You can save yourself a ton of time by using an email service like Unroll.me, which is free to use.
With Unroll.me, you can create an account and see all of the email subscriptions you are receiving. You can unsubscribe right there in a matter of seconds. If there are emails you are still interested in receiving, but still want to declutter your inbox, you can “roll up” these subscriptions. Unroll.me will send you one email everyday with the details of all of the promotional emails.
Editor’s Note: DC here. I connect all my email accounts through Outlook. Once they are connected, you can choose the “from” field from a drop-down. If you aren’t at minimum using your Gmail in Google, I recommend you consider connecting it.
3) Condense to One Email Account
If you’re like me, you have multiple email accounts. This can be a lot to manage, plus it can be time consuming to jump from one inbox to the other. Save yourself the headache by creating one central email system.
You don’t have to delete any email addresses in order to do this. You can simply forward all of your emails to the same address.
Keep in mind, it’s always a good idea to keep your work email separate from your personal or side hustle emails. Your company can see your email activity on their servers, so keep it separate for your privacy.
4) Create Auto Responders
You can create email templates to respond to just about anyone. This can help you save time, as you don’t have to type a personalized message to everyone.
Not sure what templates to create? Start by creating a “nice to meet you” email template that you can send to a connection you just met. If clients regularly email you asking to work with you, you can create an email template to ask them a few basic questions. In a busy season? Create an email template to let people know that you will respond to them within 48 hours.
5) Organize Email Folders
A crowded inbox makes it hard to find anything. One easy way to tackle your ever-growing inbox is to create specific email folders for every situation. As a freelance writer, I have an email folder for each of my clients. I have a folder for potential clients, and another full of important contacts that have reached out. For personal emails, I keep one for online purchase receipts, one for bills, one for apartment notifications, etc.
By creating folders, I can easily look back on conversations and quickly find the exact email I was looking for.
6) Organize Emails as They Come
A cluttered inbox can take hours to sort through and clean out. It might not seem like a big deal, but having a full inbox can really limit your productivity. You might even miss an email and forget to respond to someone important.
Organize emails as they come in, or at least once a day. Delete it if it’s unimportant. File it if there are no action steps. Respond if it warrants a response and file once resolved.
7) Dedicate Time for Administrative Work
No matter what your side hustle is, you will have to make time for invoicing, responding to emails, paying bills, and other administrative tasks. These tasks can take up a lot of time if you don’t have a system in place.
The best way to ensure you meet all of your administrative objectives is to set aside time each week for admin work. It can be easy to get behind on these types of tasks. By scheduling administrative time, you can ensure your records are always up to date.
8) Use Project Management Software
Any side hustle requires you to keep track of numerous tasks. Take blogging for example. Bloggers need to keep track of their editorial calendar, post ideas and resources, affiliate and advertising links, long-term projects such as a site redesign, and time to market their content. There is a ton to keep track of. A project management system can help you streamline your projects, while ensuring that nothing gets forgotten or pushed aside.
There are plenty of free project management programs available online. Some of my favorites are Asana and Trello.
9) Purchase an All-In-One Planner
If you are someone who needs to write things down in order to remember them, then an all-in-one planner is a must. Find a planner that allows you to keep track of your goals, schedule, calendar, and tasks, all in one place.
10) Sign Up for Job Email Alerts
If your side hustle requires you to regularly be looking for clients, make it easy on yourself by signing up for job email alerts.
With job searching sites like Glassdoor, LinkedIn, and Indeed, you can sign up for the type of job alerts you are interested in. They will automatically send you an email when the type of job you specified opens up, allowing you to be one of the first ones to apply.
11) Set a Schedule
Balancing a side hustle, full-time job, and family and personal priorities can be exhausting. But you can tackle it all by setting and sticking to a schedule.
Decide what hours are dedicated to your side hustle. Break it down even further to figure out exactly what you need to accomplish each day of the week. As you approach your week, you will know you do have time to get it all done because you already have it scheduled.
12) Time How Long Tasks Take
Are you really being as productive as you think? One way to keep your productivity in check is to time how long it takes you to complete each task.
Timing yourself can be incredibly eye opening. You might find you are spending too much time on overhead tasks, when you could be using that time to earn more money. You might find that it’s valuable to outsource some of these lengthy tasks so you can focus on more pressing priorities. Or, you might even find that you are spending way too much time on one particular client and need to raise your rates.
Related:
- 15 Time Management Apps to Help Increase Your Productivity
- How to Start a Side Hustle, Even if You’re Busy
- 10 Books That Help You Increase Productivity
How do you keep yourself productive? What distractions inhibit productivity? How do you balance a side hustle with a full-time job?
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