Do you often find yourself asking How do I balance my side hustle with my full-time job as a mom? If so, then these tips are perfect for you. They’ll show you how to manage your side hustle with everything else you have going on in your life as a mom entrepreneur.
Let’s get right into it.
Planning sessions to ensure you make time for your side hustle
I know you’re already busy but taking the time to have a planning session to schedule out your week is going to be crucial for your success.
Not everyone loves to have a routine they follow (I can definitely relate), but if you don’t schedule a time to work on your side hustle, it can easily not happen. Other life priorities and work things can come up and take over any extra time you have.
In order to truly “balance” work and your side hustle, you have to literally put it on your calendar. One of my favorite planners is the Living Well planner for fitting it all in because it’s not just about home life or business but allows you space for all of it.
Time constraints to increase productivity
This is a concept I just heard about earlier this year from Michael Hyatt when he was on the Do It Scared podcast with Ruth Soukup.
Basically, the idea is that you give yourself a specific time window to accomplish a task, and it has to get done in that time (this is the constraint part).
Have you ever noticed that if you give yourself 4 hours to do something, then you’ll take the whole 4 hours? But if you only have 1 hour, then you’ll find a way to get it done.
Use this to your advantage when making time for your side hustle.
Whatever time you put on the calendar for working on your side business needs to be focused and protected time. It isn’t time that’s negotiable because you’ve got things you have to accomplish in that time or you won’t be growing your business.
Find an accountability system that works for you
While making time for your side hustle is the first step to balancing your side business with your job, you also have to actually do the work during the scheduled times.
To do this, make sure you have some way of holding yourself accountable.
If you’re the type of person that can simply write it down on your calendar and it’ll get done, then that’s amazing. Do that. I’ve always dreamed I could do that, but that’s definitely not my type of personality. I am the type of person that needs an external source of accountability. If that’s you too, then find someone that you can check-in with about your productivity.
Learn more about how to understand the kind of accountability system you need by identifying your natural tendencies.
If you’d like to be part of a group of other mom entrepreneurs on a similar path, then come on over to The Liberated Mommy community (it’s free!) where you can find accountability, too.
Know the specific tasks you need to work on
The other big part of making sure you’re productive during your side hustle work time is to know exactly which tasks you need to be working on.
This might sound obvious, but it’s not always so easy.
For a long time, I was always “busy” working on my side hustle but at the end of the week, I would look back and realize that I didn’t actually accomplish that much.
When I started to analyze it more, I found that on my schedule I would often just put “work on ebay” or “work on blogging”. And while that’s good, it wasn’t specific enough. So basically, I would sit down to work and instead waste time trying to decide what needed to be done instead of actually doing anything.
The other part of this is that having specific tasks that are aligned with your bigger goals means you know you’re on track to moving toward your dream of leaving your full-time job and turning this side hustle into your full-time income. Believe me when I say it’ll take way longer to get there if you keep using your limited time to fumble around and not really get much work done.
So make sure you know exactly what your specific tasks are so you can make things happen.
If you need help prioritizing tasks, I have a free printable to help you easily decide on the top tasks you should work on to reach your business goals.
Mindfulness helps reduce stress
As a working mom entrepreneur, you’ve got a lot of things to juggle between being a mom, working your full-time job, and growing your side hustle business.
Because you care so much about all areas of your life, you risk feeling easily overwhelmed thinking about all of the things you have to do.
This is the beauty of creating the schedule. You can balance work with your side hustle and being a mom and wife. Scheduling time for everything helps fit it all in, but the key to actually feeling less stress is to not worry about all of the things you’re not doing.
So being mindful of what you’re doing when you’re doing it is important. Practice being present in the moment rather than worrying about all of the other tasks on your list. Knowing you have blocked time out for each important part of your life will allow you to be mindful and present in the moment.
So when you’re playing with your kids, you aren’t worried about working on your business because you know you’ve got that blocked off for later.
Use creative ways to work on side business
Sitting in front of a computer isn’t the only way to work on your business. You can also do a lot of different things on your phone or even with good ol’ pen and paper.
When I was still teaching, I would often use some of my lunch time to listen to a course I’d been meaning to finish or draft up listings for ebay or even pin new content on Pinterest for my blog, all from my phone.
For more ideas on things you can do from your phone for your business, check out these posts:
♦ 6 Productivity Hacks for Moms with a Reselling Business
♦ 6 Easy Ways to Work on Your Blog Using Only Your Smartphone
A big part of being successful with your business is planning out ideas and having goals.
This is where the pen and paper comes into play.
If you’re creating a course or wanting to refresh your business goals, get out some paper and write down your ideas. Or if you’re a blogger, create some blog post outlines.
Often, physically writing them down really helps process through your thoughts better than typing.
Asking for help so you can work on your side hustle
I know you’re already limited on the time you get to spend with your kids, but asking your spouse or even other family to let your kids visit for a few hours a week could really make a huge difference in how much progress you’re making on your business.
Which means that you’ll be that much closer to your goal of working from home and getting to spend more time with your kids.
I struggled with the mom guilt big time on this one, but I kept telling myself that it was just for a season. Also, it was really good for my son to get spend some one-on-one time with other family members to build that connection with them.
To make sure I didn’t just give up time with my son in vain, I always made sure I was super productive.
Don’t be afraid to ask for a few extra hours of focused work time. Knowing that you’re blocking the time off specifically for your business will really help you be productive.
Take advantage of your commute time
Say what? And you thought commutes were useless times of day. Well think again. One of my favorite things I did while commuting was listen to business-related podcasts or even course material (without watching it of course).
Sometimes we overlook the importance of growing and learning so that we do our job better. Using your commute time is the perfect chance to do this.
Related posts
♦ 7 Mindset Podcasts To Encourage You as a Mompreneur
♦ Improve Your Side Hustle Using This Time Hack
Conclusion
If you keep these tips in mind, then you’ll have more balance between work, your side hustle, and family life. Making time for your side hustle is key and making sure that time is productive to get you toward your goals of working from home faster.
Remember these 8 tips to manage your side hustle as a working mom entrepreneur:
Planning sessions to ensure you make time for your side hustle
Time constraints to increase productivity
Find an accountability system that works for you
Know the specific tasks you need to work on
Mindfulness helps reduce stress
Use creative ways to work on side business
Asking for help so you can work on your side hustle
Take advantage of your commute time
Hustle doesn’t mean you have to be miserable in the process, but it does mean it will be challenging. You’ve got this.
Over to you. I’d love to hear if there are any tips for managing your side hustle as a working mom that I didn’t mention. Share them in the comments below so other moms can benefit from your amazing tips as well.
