Finding Balance Between A Job And “Side-Hustle”

Harshal

Jul 14, 20243 min read

Hopes And Plans To Balance A Full-Time PM Job With More On The Side

Balancing a full-time job with a side hustle can be challenging but rewarding. A friend recently asked how I manage my consulting work alongside my day job. I started a new job in July 2024. I aim to maintain my previous activities while managing a full-time PM job.

Archilochus said,

"We don’t rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training."

This quote underscores the importance of preparation and planning to achieve goals.

I spend 33 minutes writing this. You need 2 minutes to read this.

Ancient Greek quote on intentions vs plans to meet your goals.

Consistent Marketing Activities

To stay on track, I've committed to the following:

Daily Writing: Spend 1 sprint daily on writing, including blogs and case studies. I usually do 25 minute sprints, but might reduce it to 20 minutes.
Weekly LinkedIn Post: Publish one post on LinkedIn every week.
Weekly WhatsApp Share: Share one post to WhatsApp every week.

Weekly Networking Approach

Networking: Keep in touch with connections every week, by messaging a few daily. My target is to message at least one person daily and responding to all inbound messages.
Engagement on LinkedIn: Spend 1 sprint (25 minutes) every Friday messaging or commenting on Irish connections' LinkedIn posts.

"Intentions are a start, but without plans and actions, they're just ideas floating in the wind."

Tasks To Avoid

To manage my time effectively, I have decided to avoid:

Website Work: No work on the Spark Creative Technologies website.
Lead Generation: No active lead generation, but I remain open to incoming calls.

Opportunities I’m Open To

I am open to the following opportunities as they arise:

Consulting Calls: Open to incoming consulting calls.
Coaching Clients: Open to incoming clients for coaching. I got one more client between writing this and publishing this.
Resume Parser: Open to inbound paid usage of the resume parser.

Aspirations I Forgo In 2024

There are a few additional activities I wanted to pursue as part of my 2024 goals:

Audience Research: Conduct audience research by engaging with my most active Substack and LinkedIn followers.
Marketing Backlog: Execute the marketing backlog for the resume checker product.

I haven't found a way to integrate them into my weekly routine. I will forgo these aspirations because if I cannot spend time on an activity every week, I will not be able to accomplish it.

2024 Family, Fitness, Adventure, And Mind Goals

I will continue pursing my other 2024 goals related to family, fitness, adventure, and mind. These goals do not impact my working hours. I will:

Focus on family every weekday and weekend,
Meet and make friends,
Workout and eat macro-measured meals,
Delegate work to VAs and house help,
Maintain high productivity,
Find the one most important thing to do everyday,
Write 52 blogs.

Concerns And Challenges

While I have clear plans for some activities, I worry about finding enough time for others, particularly audience research and marketing tasks. This remains a challenge I need to address or make peace with.

Have you ever faced similar challenges in balancing multiple responsibilities? If so, how did you manage to stay focused and productive without feeling overwhelmed?