Introduction to Balancing a Full-Time Job and Making Money Online.
The sound of the 4:00 a.m. alarm forces Jack to open his eyes. It is not the sound of a birdsong or a gentle sunrise that greets him. It is the harsh reality of chasing a double-life. On one hand, he has a demanding full-time job. On the other hand, he has flickering flames of an online dream. In this article we are going to learn about balancing a full-time job and making money online through Jack’s experiences.
For many, Jack’s struggle is a familiar struggle. We are constantly in an internal tug-of-war between stability and passion. We deal with packed full-time job schedules and burn the midnight oil just to make our ends meet. This is a story of balancing the scales of wins and setbacks that come with chasing a side hustle while holding onto the eight-to-five job.
Why get an online side hustle?
Many individuals like Jack find themselves drawn to the benefits of a side hustle, driven by various goals. Financial motivations are the most prominent. People seek to increase their income for diverse reasons.
- To enable them to pay their debts and loans.
- To enable them pay their house mortgages.
- To enable them attain their savings goals.
- To enable them afford school for their siblings and children.
- Or to simply improve their overall financial status.
If not for financial motivations, people seek side hustles to explore their passions, hobbies or interests. They do so intending to transform them to income-generating ventures. Take for instance the case of Jack. Jack is cashier at a local hardware. He is servicing a bank loan that cuts his monthly salary and leaves little money just enough for food for his family. He is passionate about writing. Any early evening, you will likely find him punching on his computer with a half-written blog. Blogging is his side hustle. His salary is never enough. He is paying his family car loan. He needs to pay school fees for his two little kids. In addition to that, he also meets other needs for his young family.
Several other serious factors can influence one to look for an online side hustle. The pursuit for new skills in one of them. Although a prolific writer, Jack wishes he was a professional graphics design artist. Every night before going to bed, Jack ensures that he has drawn several cartoons on his tablet. He uses these cartoons as illustrations in his blog posts. He wishes are unending. With graphics design, he sees himself leaving his current day time job soon. He thinks that his financial freedom will come from working full-time on graphics designing and blogging. That is why every weekend, he is always working on his laptop studying new concepts. He follows graphics design and engineering courses based on Adobe software system from Udemy.
Some people like Jack focus on their other side hustles to gain and maintain financial security. Jack works for a private supplies and hardware company. The company has come to the blink of shutting down several times before. Jack has held in faith in his daytime job in the company. But he also knows that if bad economic times come, he might be in the list of employees to be laid off. This makes him need a backup plan. He could invest in assets but his small salary in only enough to service his car loan and feed his family. This is another reason why Jack is always determined to find more ways of making money online.
These are just a few of the reasons that make people like Jack go for an online side hustle.
What online money making activities can one do to supplement his/her full-time job?
Jack chose to write blogs for money. He also intends to start doing graphics design as a separate income generating job by itself. Like Jack, you too can participate in any online job that will earn you reasonable additional income. You should have passion and good skills in what you think you can do. Your choice should not affect your performance in the real full-time job. For Jack, writing is his hobby. He doesn’t arrive to his full-time day job feeling tired because he wrote some blogs last evening.
There are many other activities you can take up as online jobs, such:
- Freelance writing.
- Online teaching and tutoring.
- Web design and development
- Video Editing
- Data analysis
- Data entry
You can get most of these jobs from freelancing sites like Fiverr, Upwork etc.
Why need to balance working on a full-time job and a side online hustle?
Several problems can arise from not being able to effectively balance your full-time job and the online side hustle. Jack has a personal experience to tell about this. During his first days after taking his first online job, he made mistakes that he regrets till this day. He used to spend many hours writing in the evening and just as few as two hours asleep. Thus, he was not having enough sleep at night. He could tell that his performance had started going down, yet he continued. This happened until one day, his full-time day job employer caught him sleeping on his desk. Having been the best employee of the year saved his job. He luckily got only a “disciplinary warning” from his employer.
Having a second job, an online job, will possibly divide your attention and commitment to work. Without the two job, the following bad things are likely to happen.
- Neglecting your full-time job to work on your online job will decrease your performance. You will miss deadlines and possibly get potential disciplinary actions from your manager.
- Working long hours in every single day will likely cause you mental and physical exhaustion. This will bring down the quality of your work and your overall productivity.
- You will likely get stressed and exhausted physically and mentally. This cause you like anxiety, sleeping difficulties or even depression.
- Divided attention and commitment will cause you stagnation in your full-time job. You might miss important opportunities for professional development.
- Your commitment to the two jobs will make you neglect you personal and social life. This will damage your relationships with your family and friends.
Check some of scientific health research concerns about holding multiple jobs by National Library of Medicine.
How to balance a full-time job and an online side hustle.
Balancing the two hustles requires careful planning, excellent time management and commitment to set boundaries. The following is a list highlighting some of the ways to follow to balance working on the two jobs.
1. Set your goals.
Clearly set your goals right from the word go. Decide what you hope to achieve with your online job. Jack had objectives in his mind. First, he needed an additional stream of income in his house. He wanted to do something that would make him happy as well. His blogging job helped earned him enough additional money to take care of all the needs of his family.
2. Have realistic expectations.
Start by taking a workload of the side hustle that is not so big to overwhelm you in any way. You can gradually increase the amount of work you are taking for the side hustle as you gain experience. Jack may have started all well but very soon took more and overwhelmed himself. He slept late and under performed in his full-time day job. This happened during the first days when he started blogging.
3. Set out time for both jobs.
Your full-time time job may have fixed time schedules that you may not change. Regardless, decide the time that you will be spending on the second job. Do not let the times you are required on the two jobs collide. Your side job is also important and needs just enough time. Set enough time for sleep for yourself as well for other important things.
Jack corrected his mistakes of time management. He stopped sleeping very late.
4. Inform your employer about your other job.
Some employers may allow you to take side hustlers while you are not working in their businesses. Informing the employers of your side job may save you from future conflicts. Your employer may not give you additional assignments to do at home if he knows the truth.
5. Look for an online job with maximum flexibility.
Having a flexible second job means that you can work on it, at your convenient time. You can also work on it from any place. Its schedule is not fixed. This is important to allow to you to focus on the fixed schedules of the full-time job.
6. Set boundaries.
Do not work for any of the job when you should reasonably be working on the other. Do not carry your full-time assignments home to work on them when you should be working online. Likewise, do not go to work online in the day time when you are working on your full-time day job. Nobody knows whether Jack never sneaked online to write blogs while in his full-time day job. He would have been risking his full-time day job if he did so.
7. Use the extra money to achieve your financial goals.
Use the money you earn working online as you initially intended. Jack paid school fees for his kids. He also met other basic needs for his family such as buying them new cloths.
Conclusion.
It is not usually possible to work on two jobs simultaneously. However, having something passionate that you do when not working, can change this. You can turn your hobbies to money making activities. If you love talking to people, you can teach them online. Such opportunities are abundant on the internet. All you need is passion for them.
However, if you identify your second job, you should make sure you are able to work on the two well. Do not overwhelm yourself with a lot of work that you won’t be able to finish. As we have discussed, it is important to manage the two jobs effectively.
Also read The Pros and Cons of Freelancing. Is it right for you?