Have you ever wondered how they do it?
Building successful businesses on the side while juggling everything else.
Full-time jobs, families, household responsibilities.
People like Leo Babauta, who juggled a full-time job and six children and still managed to build one of the most successful single-authored blog on the internet.
Or people who juggle day jobs and children and the pressures of everyday life but still have the energy and time to build insanely successful courses or write eBooks in their spare time.
Yet you're exhausted by the end of your 9-5 work day (9-7 on some days).
You hardly have the energy to make dinner and avoid falling asleep on the couch while watching House of Cards, let alone start building a successful business in your time off.
I get it. Life can be exhausting and you feel as if those who do this have some sort of advantage. Expertise, experience, a lot of help. An extra hour or two each day that you don't have.
But they don't. They have the same 24 hours as you do, and like you, they had to start somewhere.
Luckily, there is a simple way to start building a side business, even if you have a day job.
I discovered this method when I started to build Unsettle in September, and it gave me the freedom to build and grow the community while still giving 100% to my day job and maintaining a social life, too.
I've described this process more in my weekly emails (click here to join my email list), but this simple system makes it easier to maintain the energy and time to do the work.
Try it out and see if it works for you.
1. Reframe Your Thinking
If only you didn't have that day job.
If only you could work fewer hours.
If only you knew how to let go and wind down from the day better. Then you could build a side business.
If you've ever thought any of these things, you're not alone. I know I've had thoughts like this as well. But instead of looking at your day job as a barrier, reframe your thinking.
Sometimes, it's difficult to see anything positive about working a day job and trying to build anything on the side. But there are plenty of positives if you flip the coin over.
For instance, your day job provides:
- Constraints: Sometimes the constraints provided by our jobs feel like a bad thing, but constraints are positive. They ignite creativity and don't allow for procrastination. Think back to school when you had to write a report in an hour. You probably did better on that report than you did on the ones you had weeks to write.
- Skills: Our day jobs give us an environment to learn new skills and sharpen our existing skills. We can then transfer them to our businesses.
- Funding: You have a day job, so you have an advantage: you haven't been laid off and forced into entrepreneurship unexpectedly. Our jobs provide us with the funding to get things up and running, or at least put food on the table while we build our businesses.
When you begin to reframe how you look at your job, you can start to use it as a tool rather than a barrier.
2. Determine Your Key Actions
No matter what business you are building, there are 1-2 key actions needed to build it.
- If you want to become a freelance writer you need to write and send pitches
- If you want to build a web design business you need to design websites and get your work in front of potential clients
- If you want to build a successful Etsy store (more on how to get started), you need to write great descriptions and take great photos
- If you want to become a professional blogger, you need to write and build your audience.
What are key business building actions you need to take? Note that I didn't ask for all actions you should do to build an empire.
If you want to become a professional blogger, there are dozens of things you could do to get ahead. Maintaining a presence on Facebook, hosting Webinars, hacking Pinterest, hosting giveaways, doing keyword research...the tasks are endless.
But underneath the "nice to dos", there are a few key actions that make your business idea.
Let's think of your business as a raspberry bush (because I love raspberries).
There's the root system, the branches, and the leaves. The fruit, the buds, and the little fuzzy thorns on the outside of the branches.
If you didn't the roots, your raspberry bush wouldn't exist. And only when the roots are strong can the raspberry bush bear fruit.
The leaves make the bush prettier and capture nutrients for the bush, and the little fuzzy thorns protect the bush. The buds and flowers before the fruit gain nutrition by attracting bees. But none of this would exist without the roots.
What are the roots of your business? All of the other stuff is great and will come after the roots are strong.
The roots are your key actions.
If you're creating a course on how to use a software program, your key actions are your course modules and probably building relationships with the users of that program.
If you are a cartoonist who wants to sell your art on Etsy, your key actions are drawing and photographing cartoons.
3. Spend One Hour
Now that you've identified the key actions unique to your business, you need to actually do them.
So schedule one hour of this work each day. Grab a free scheduling workbook that I created here to help you schedule. When you're creating the schedule, think of a contingency plan.
What if you oversleep, get caught in traffic, get behind on work or otherwise don't end up putting in your hour? What will you do? When will you put in your hour?
When you've finished scheduled, show up.
No matter what. Rain or shine.
If you are tight for time and have to wake up earlier, then do it.
If you have to sacrifice an hour of TV, then sacrifice it.
If you have to spend your lunch break building your business, that's your new power hour.
And tomorrow?
One hour.
Show up.
Do the work...
And repeat. No matter what.
How I Use This System in My Life
When I started Unsettle, I was working in my contract full-time.
Initially, I was using my evenings to maintain my businesses and spend time with my husband, so I scheduled in on hour of uninterrupted work each day first thing in the morning, for a few reasons:
First, I find myself the most focused first thing in the morning. Second, my husband is still asleep so the house is quiet and calm. Third, it feels good to get the work done before everything else. It's my priority, and when do you do high priority work? First thing, of course.
When I did an analysis on the key actions that I must do to be successful with Unsettle, it became obvious that writing would be the most important thing. The second most important thing I could do would be building relationships, both with my audience and my peers.
So every morning at 5:20 AM, I sit down and write.
Sometimes, the finished product is not publishable. But it doesn't matter. Every day, I write.
I try to write for an hour. If I finish before the hour is up, I spend the rest of my hour responding to questions from readers, connecting with peers and readers on Twitter (follow me here) or Facebook.
I launched Unsettle on January 5, while I was still working full-time, and I had an incredibly successful launch.
I have more time now. But when I launched the site, if I didn't follow this system, I wouldn't have launched with so much success.
Start Building Your Side Business
If you're thinking that an hour a day isn't nearly enough time to become successful, you're missing the point.
You have a day job. You have responsibilities. You can't spend all day every day building this thing.
You can however find somewhere to start. And this is the best place.
In The Creative Habit, Twyla Thorp describes a commercial writer who coaches writers to write a page a day of their first draft for a year. It doesn't seem like much, but at the end of the year, the writer has 365 pages under their belt.
At the end of the year, you'll have 365 hours under your belt. That's a lot of time.
So you might as well start here.
This article was originally published on Unsettle.org