Note: This article is based on the blog of Michael Pietrzak, in which he tells us about the secrets of success in life despite being busy with additional work alongside our main job.
You have to cancel a client consultation scheduled for 11 AM, and you’re supposed to start a new teaching job at the university at 4 PM. Thankfully, the paediatrician clears your child to go home just in time for you to take a quick shower.
You don’t have a minute to review your lecture notes, but you manage to make it to class. Meanwhile, a million tasks are waiting for you at home, none of which you can tackle because your friends decided to drop by for dinner.
On Saturday morning, you head to an internet café to prepare a presentation due on Monday. A stranger strikes up a conversation just as you're ready to put on your headphones. It turns out that this person is your ideal client. After a 90-minute chat, you say, “Sorry, I’ve got to go,” only to find three texts on your phone: “Is the meeting still on?” You missed your online team meeting for your side gig, so now you have to reschedule everything.
When you get home, you ignore the breakfast dishes from Friday and open your laptop to spend the next seven hours pitching products to clients. You spend your day off finishing that presentation, then return to your 9-5 job the next day and work like a pro while chaos swirls around you.
This is life for most people juggling a side hustle: a frenzy of activity and stress.
Twelve efficiency secrets for busy people
Can you finish everything on your to-do list without your life falling apart? Yes, chaos is part of pursuing your goals, but you can regain control. Here are twelve efficiency secrets for busy people balancing a side hustle with a full-time job, social life, exercise, sleep, and countless other things:
1. Clearly Define Your Purpose
Certainty is unstoppable. Knowing your purpose provides at least 80% of the motivation needed to achieve anything. Unfortunately, many side hustlers lack a clear purpose. They might say, “I want an extra $1,000 a month” or “I want to quit my job.” But when faced with challenges like a sick child or bad deals, “I need more money” won’t cut it. This success requires a “burning desire,” and the only way towards it is to connect with your purpose emotionally.
Humans rationalise decisions, but science shows we make them emotionally long before our rational side gets involved. So, take the time to connect with your purpose emotionally. Write about it and give it much thought until it becomes ingrained in your heart. This will give you the drive to eliminate chaos.
2. Make a "Don't Do" List
The Latin root of “decide” means “to cut off.” Cutting off what’s unnecessary is just as important as choosing priorities.
Most successful people have no problem identifying clear goals, but they let time-consuming “opportunities” slip into their schedules. Be ruthless with your time to grow your side hustle while balancing a full-time job. Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism, calls this “the power of no.”
Make a list of activities you won't do and hang it on your wall. Start with trivial things like after-work drinks, and work your way up to non-life-improving pursuits. This might mean cancelling a birthday party or telling your in-laws that weekend dinners are off the table. When you carefully choose what to sacrifice, you build the courage to say no when the time comes.
3. Adopt a Strike Strategy
Billionaire Chris Sacca, an early investor in Twitter, Uber, and Instagram, credits his success to leaving Silicon Valley to escape the constant hustle of routine meetings and endless coffee invites. "I was reacting to everything around me instead of taking the initiative," he says. So, he moved to a quieter place to focus solely on his priorities instead of every shiny opportunity.
You’re forced to play the hero when your car breaks down, a client goes bankrupt, or your child gets sick. But you can consciously decide to focus on your priorities and not let others control your time. Be unavailable so you can be more proactive and effective. It could actually mean missing out on exciting opportunities, but when you chase two rabbits, you lose both.
4. Practice Self-Care
The most neglected component of any productivity plan is “You.” Entrepreneur and success coach David Bayer asserts that mindset accounts for 80% of achievement. Mental programming rife with doubt, fear, worry, and dissatisfaction will prevent any amount of planning or effort from producing the desired outcomes.
Investing in self-care is key to creating the right mindset. Do whatever brings you back to life, whether it's going on an energising walk through the woods, playing your favourite game, having a meal, or hanging out with your closest friends. You can't perform at your best when your mind and heart are exhausted. Yet, we often push ourselves to the limit and wonder why we’re burned out.
Brushing your teeth, taking your meds, and reading self-help books are self-maintenance, not self-care. To get more done, prioritise the activities that uplift your spirit. This is the missing link in many entrepreneurs' success plans.
5. Attend to Your Health
Disclaimer: This is not medical advice. Talk to your doctor before trying any of these tips favoured by top Silicon Valley achievers:
- Coffee Mix: Start your day with a blend of coffee, plant-based butter, and coconut oil for a brain boost that lasts until lunch to help you tackle the next step.
- Intermittent Fasting: Don’t eat for 16 hours a day. This means having lunch at noon, dinner at 6 PM, and coffee mix in the morning. Benefits include fat loss, muscle gain, and enhanced brain cell growth, keeping you at peak performance.
- Supplements: Nature offers plenty of good things. Ginkgo biloba reduces anxiety and stress and improves memory and attention span. Omega-3s can enhance your sleep and protect you from diseases. So, find what works best for you.
- Cut Out Sugar: It causes illness, weakens your immune system, impairs cognition, and increases stress. You have to eliminate it from your diet now.
- Sauna Sessions: Thirty minutes twice a week boosts growth hormone levels and improves mental and physical capacity.
Take care of your health and watch your productivity soar.
6. Leverage Your Strengths
Stop doing things you’re not good at. Sure, in the early days of your business, you might need to juggle bookkeeping or mop the floors. Greg McKeown, author of Essentialism, calls these "slow walkers" because they steer you off your path. He says, "Even productive activities like research or email can be obstacles."
Entrepreneurs need to play to their strengths. While learning how to code an app quickly might feel great, you can outsource that for a fraction of the effort and cost.
To be effective, spend as much time as possible on what you excel at. Email marketing might be better than video production for you if you're a stellar writer. If you’re a talented photographer, showcase your work on Instagram. Don’t confuse activity with efficiency. Invest in your strengths to achieve more success.
7. Rise Early
Time is the one commodity no one can make more of. So, tap into the goldmine of productivity—the early morning hours. When you wake up, your willpower and creativity are at their peak, free from notifications and demands. Waking up late forces you to rush, skip a healthy breakfast, and miss out on the peace that brings happiness and clarity.
Tackle your most important tasks during these hours. Productivity expert Brian Tracy calls this "eating the frog"—doing the toughest task on your list first that you might postpone if done any later. It’s not necessarily that bad because winning in the morning sets a tone of accomplishment that fuels your day, no matter how daunting the task.
How do you own your morning? Author Robin Sharma suggests:
- Exercise: Start with 20 minutes to get your brain chemicals flowing.
- Meditate: Write down your thoughts or meditate to create a productive mindset.
- Inspiration: Read or listen to inspiring books to lift your spirits.
8. Understand the Schedules of Makers and Managers
In 2009, Paul Graham, co-founder of Y Combinator for accelerating startups, wrote an essay called Maker’s Schedule, Manager’s Schedule.
We recommend you read it to grasp the rhythms of work. Managers have hourly blocks, shifting from task to task, while decision-makers need uninterrupted half-day sessions to excel. A programmer or writer can’t do great work in just an hour, since this hour can barely get them started on work.
Side hustlers are both decision-makers and managers at different times but often lean towards managing. Their business success comes from creating value, and creativity thrives in the decision-maker's time. Therefore, wise entrepreneurs schedule making time in the early morning and manage time later in the day.
Tim Ferriss simplifies this with his saying, "Create before you manage." He adds, "Even symbolic efforts keep me sane and fend off anxiety. I’ve created something today." Understand which work belongs to which field and prioritise making time each week.
9. Meet Deadlines
Planning is crucial, but over-planning is poison. You spend another hour researching, read another self-help book, and dive deep into analytics—these are just excuses to avoid work, also known as procrastination.
The antidote to "preparation paralysis" is setting hard deadlines for "turning the work in." Post that article, call the client, record the video, launch the app, and eat the frog.
Seth Godin acknowledges that turning the work in is risky because it exposes us to criticism, failure, and financial loss. He says, "You can’t spend your life sitting on the sidelines. You’ll turn it in any way, so why worry?"
Set non-negotiable deadlines regularly. You don’t need as much time as you think. Work diligently to meet your client’s needs. This will provide valuable feedback and keep you motivated to keep going.
10. Get Multiple Wins from the Same Work
Always aim to "kill two birds with one stone." This could mean getting paid for the same work multiple times, repurposing blog content across different platforms, or choosing a side hustle that complements your day job.
Brian Dean founded a thriving SEO training company by creating high-quality blog posts. He didn't create new content when he wanted to start YouTube marketing. Instead, he turned his blog posts into videos. This is working smarter, not harder.
This might mean using your company data in your side hustle or sharing clients. If you’re an interior designer on the side, get a job in a furniture showroom where you can meet a slew of potential clients.
Get written permission from your employer. Reward yourself for the same work more than once, and your productivity will skyrocket.
11. Embrace Logical Analysis
You can't hit a target you can't see, so setting goals is crucial. However, you can only reach those goals by tracking your progress. That's where analysis comes in—it's the art of extracting valuable insights from raw data. It can reveal how app or website visitors behave and which features drive sales. But analytics are even more powerful when you apply them to yourself.
You can track any metric: the number of gym sessions or cups of coffee consumed this week. Prioritise metrics linked to your main goals. If you're marketing your side hustle through social media, create a spreadsheet to log engagement rates, comments, and clicks from social platforms to your website. If your work is client-based, track leads, sales calls, and conversion rates.
There's also hidden power in analysing your mindset. Any free mood-tracking app can show which activities boost your productivity and happiness and which ones hold you back. When we analyse the results, we can evaluate our strategies. Tracking your tasks can create a motivating picture of progress.
12. Adjust the Plan
As General Dwight Eisenhower once said during World War II, "No plan survives first contact with the enemy." The same holds true outside the battlefield. No business or life plan remains intact once we start executing.
The planning process is essential because it forces us to anticipate outcomes, setbacks, and the resources needed to succeed. However, reality always has surprises in store.
In your side hustle, you either adapt or you fail. Tracking analytics gives us the real picture, but this information is valuable only if used to tweak strategies. When you bridge the gap between your present and desired future, be ready to navigate obstacles and keep your eyes on the prize.
In Conclusion
Building a business while working full-time and trying to maintain a personal life can be incredibly invigorating. One day, you'll reflect on this struggle as the best chapter of your life.
However, the road to an extraordinary life is filled with challenges, and you’ll need every advantage to stay motivated. These 12 secrets aren’t magic solutions, but they can remove some roadblocks and set you on the right path to keep moving forward.
Add comment