I started my side hustles in my pre-college days as a home tutor. I kept this going for several years even as I ventured to build my next online business later.
Like most, the reasons that I started my side hustles are to supplement my income source, to increase my savings and investments, and achieve personal freedom.
Even when the pandemic hit the world where many industries faced disruption, numerous jobs were forced to turn digital and home-based, life was relatively manageable for me. I attributed to my days of side hustling as I was already used to juggle changes with online work, and working on several hustles at the same time.
After going through multiple rises and falls from these side hustles (how to make money from fiverr), I now learned 3 practical ways to make my side hustle life much better.
1. Diversify my side hustles, but keep them to the magic number 3
When I started my side hustles, I was experimenting with all kinds of online and offline opportunities. I did not know which ones would yield the results I desired. After some time, I also had difficulty deciding which of these should I give up pursuing and which ones to preserve.
It was only of late that I learned from Jay Shetty, the best-selling author of Think Like A Monk.
In an interview with Jim Kwik, Shetty suggested using the “rule of 3” as the maximum number of side hustles to take during the initial phase. He added the reason behind not overdiversifying but kept it to three, is because typically after 3 months, the other 2 would most likely fizzle out either due to lack of traction or results.
Looking back, that was exactly how it turned out for me.
Initially, I was home tutoring and ran my online business. Soon, I began my third side hustle with personal training. I wanted to add freelance writing but realized I was overstretched.
3 years later, I wound up my online business and that opened up time for me to pursue freelance writing. Depending on the times of each year, my main hustle would either be personal training or home tutoring.
With the pandemic ongoing, freelance writing now became my main hustle and I have since added content creation and coaching to my hustle plate, keeping them to the magic number of 3.
2. Have a long-term strategy to know when to pivot or to stay the course
My long-term strategy with side hustles has always been about attaining 3 freedoms – financial, time, and creative freedom.
I used these three benchmarks as reality checks to decide when to pivot from any of my side hustles, to stay the course, or to completely ditch them.
Since side hustles take up my time and energy (how to handle side hustle with a full time job), no matter what they may be, having a long-term strategy has definitely helped me prevent any burnouts, or chase after the next shiny object syndrome.
This is especially relevant to those who may be parents of young children and/or caregivers to family members. Though I am neither, I can definitely share the mental toil when I lost track of my long-term strategy. This reiterates the point of having a long-term strategy as I continue side hustling.
It has also helped me to remain in a responsive, not reactive state when unexpected events take place, like with a sudden retrenchment or a global pandemic, even though the latter does not occur often.
3. Build a system to nurture personal and professional networks along the way
As the saying goes, your network is your net worth, though I feel to some extent, quality of network triumphs the quantity, having a list of networks as I build different side hustles is useful later, especially when I have built these quality connections.
Truth be told, I struggled for a long time to find a way to create a system to maintain my network contacts as a self-confessed empath-ambivert. Getting on social media isn’t my preferred cup of tea, neither was it sustainable for me to hold meet-ups regularly.
Eventually, I realized that when I moved away from my online business, I could have kept these already acquired contacts to reach out with my next endeavors or gather their feedback to test the viability of my next hustle, be it a new book, new service or a product for an e-commerce store.
Moreover, since I had nurtured this list of contacts over the years, they are considered high-quality warm leads. In marketing, warm leads are more valuable than acquiring cold leads all over again.
That said, better late than never. Now with my current side hustles, I started collecting email addresses via free newsletter tools and social platforms at low or zero costs.
All in all, from my experience, side hustles demand a lot from us.
No doubt, I started side hustles in the hope to build a better financial future, but I wouldn’t do so at the expense of my physical, emotional or mental health. I have learned that no amount of money or success achieved can buy me quality time and the joy of meaningful relationships.
Side hustles are not for the faint-hearted, one has to realistically weigh the pros and cons, evaluate their own mental, physical and financial wellbeing, and their social support system.
Though side hustles are truly not easy, when I have found a system that makes the side hustling life work for me, it became some of the best times of my life with additional streams of income.
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