Essential Email Management for Side Hustlers
If you’re starting a side hustle you’ll need to decide how you’re going to set up your email for your new venture and what arrangements will help you make the best use of your limited time. Some questions you might want to think about are:
Should you have a separate email address for your side hustle or just use your personal one?
When are you going to deal with your side hustle emails?
How are you going to stop important messages getting lost amongst all the spam clogging up your inbox.
As a social worker, dealing with email, like in most jobs, can be overwhelming. I tend to start the day with email, against the advice of Laura Vanderkam, a time management expert and author. I have always done this and can’t seem to get out of the habit. (Alright, of course I could if I really wanted to, but there’s always that little voice in my head telling me that I might miss something very urgent if I don’t check my emails first thing).
Fortunately, although this is a regular habit, I’ve managed to find ways of limiting time spent on email by implementing rules and routines; ways to tame it so it doesn’t constantly take me away from those important tasks.
When I started my side hustle I realised that I needed to implement similar rules and routines so I could find time for content creation. I wanted to avoid being in my inbox all the time, where the temptation to be constantly looking through all those exciting freebies I’d signed up for would be taking me away from creating my own work. In other words, I wanted to avoid spending more time consuming other people’s content than creating my own.
Should you have a separate side hustle email address?
Using your personal email address means that you will be reading your side hustle emails wherever you read your personal emails. If you have one phone where your work and personal email addresses are linked to your inbox then certain issues may arise:
When you’re at your day job reading side hustle emails is going to distract you from what you’re getting paid to do, meaning you’re more likely to take work home more often (resulting in less time for your side hustle).
If you’re dashing off a quick response typed on your phone you’re not going to be giving your best to your new side hustle clients.
When at home you could be preoccupied about a work problem because you happened to check your email for side hustle messages and noticed a worrying work message.
If you have separate work and personal phones this might not be an issue, but if not it might be better to set up a separate email address for your side hustle and not link it to your phone.
How to deal with side hustle emails
At this point you might be thinking, ‘I’m going to miss something urgent if I don’t look at my side hustle emails during my work day’. The likelihood is that if someone is contacting you about something urgent then they are unlikely to be using email.
The solution is to have one or two slots each day to check your side hustle email, perhaps one before you start your day job and one in the evening. If you implement this then you’ll be able to get back to people within 24 hours.
If you’re still not convinced that having access to your side hustle emails throughout the day is not necessary I want to remind you of the commonly known fact that reading emails is all we tend to do on our phones. We rarely reply using our smartphones. Just think about the last time you did that. And if you did, it was probably just to say ‘OK’ or something similar. It wasn’t a well thoughtout response to someone. This means that you’re going to be reading every email twice. Once on your phone and once when you open up your inbox on your computer.
How to Reduce Side Hustle Spam
Another problem with managing email when you’re building a side hustle is managing the extra junk. If you’re anything like me you’re frequently signing up for freebies. (And if you haven’t signed up for mine, why not? Here’s the link ‘How to Find Time for a Side Hustle When You Really Don’t Think That You Can’. Thirty tips and techniques to help you get organised and find time for a side hustle).
Freebies are a great way to learn when you’re just starting out and your budget is small. The problem comes when the person whose freebie you signed up for bombards you with emails. And when I say bombards you, I mean it. I get emails from some people two or three times a day. It’s a full-time job just keeping up with them.
The truth is that I almost never open them and just scroll on by. But instead of doing that I should be unsubscribing and this is what I would encourage you to do. Change from scrolling and deleting to scrolling, unsubscribing and then deleting. You could have a regular time each week or month, depending on how much you sign up to. Perhaps you do this during the adverts when watching TV or whilst waiting for the train in the morning. Just five minutes or less will be plenty. Not only will this stop you missing the emails you want to read it will save time going through your inbox deleting messages, as there won’t be so many coming in.
Finally, I want to remind you that email is not the only form of communication. You can pick up the phone. If you find yourself going back and fore, for example, trying to book a date for a meeting with someone, try picking up the phone. It’ll probably be sorted with a two minute conversation.
I hope that you found all of these tips helpful. If you’d like more help to manage your time when it comes to your side hustle then sign up for my course. It will help you to be more efficient in your home life and day job, so you can free up space in your week to build your side hustle. You’ll learn the value of routines and boundaries and how to deal with procrastination. Click here to find out more.