How to Balance your career and your side hustle

A lot of people think, from the looks of my Instagram, that blogging is my full time job….

I’m here to tell you that it’s my side hustle..

I blog purely because I enjoy it. It makes me feel like I have a purpose and that I’m helping others in some sort of small way. Cheezy, I know!

I work full time at a podcast and radio advertising agency. I work Monday through Friday 8AM – 5PM. My commute is full of traffic. It takes me 30-35 minutes to get to work and an hour to get home.

I’m the first one to tell you that working full time and being consistent at your side hustle (or passion project) is HARD. Sometimes impossible.

I get home around 6PM and still need to workout, make dinner, hangout with the family, spend time with Trevor, and blog.

But here’s the thing, if your side hustle gives you so much joy, purpose and fuel, than you make the time for it. If your side hustle is more of an annoyance or a stress and you aren’t enjoying or learning anything from it, ditch it.

Find something else that brings you passion and love. It’s important that you DO find something, though.

Because stress and negative energy isn’t worth it.

So how do I make time for it all?

I take one week day off from working out (usually Tuesday or Wednesday) and I dedicate that day for writing a blog post.

I give myself a deadline. (Thursday is the absolute latest I will post a blog for the week).

Creating a deadline and prepping my schedule to make that deadline helps me keep accountable.

Weekends consist of creating content. Whether that’s a vlog, photoshoot, or creating recipes, I like to sacrifice one weekend out of every month for content, but sometimes it can be multiple.

I’m really lucky that Trevor LOVES photography so we really enjoy creating content together. We kill two birds with one stone 🙂 Spending time together + doing our side hustles together.

Trevor and I travel A LOT with friends. Traveling helps keep the photos fresh, so we love taking a bunch of photos while traveling. It also helps that our friends love to be in the photos. So again, we kill two birds with one stone. Creating content + spending quality time with friends.

To summarize, it takes a lot of hard work and sacrifice to make time for your passion, but it gets easier when you schedule it in, include your friends and family to be apart of it, and have a real love for it.

Helpful resources:

+ I’m obsessed with this planner. It helps me stay organized and it keeps me accountable.

+ Classpass has saved me so much. You can take a workout class literally anywhere. Instead of sitting an hour in traffic after work, I’ll take a workout class nearby. By the time I’m done with my workout, there is absolutely no traffic and I bought myself some time to blog.

+ Podcasts are a game changer. I stick one on while I’m driving, working or working out. They add so much value to my time and spark most of my ideas for my side hustle. I’ve learned a lot about balance from them. Read this blog posts for my favorite podcasts.

Let me know what resources help you stay balanced! I would love to include them in my routine 🙂

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  1. Sandi says:

    What planner? Maybe I missed it above somehow?

  2. Shylah says:

    Hi Sandi!

    Sorry I should have made it more clear! If you hover your mouse over “this planner” and then click it, it will send you over to this link: https://amzn.to/2xFpI4f

    Let me know if you have any questions!

    Thank you for reading!!