How to Spend Less Time Cleaning and More Time Side Hustling

Midlife often comes with lots of responsibilities, a busy job, stroppy teenagers, elderly parents and a home to look after. No matter how far equality has come over the past few decades in my opinion caring responsibilities and household chores still fall to women more often. Or at least women tend to do more than men.

Whilst you could just say, sod it, the house will just have to be a tip when I’m starting my side hustle, after a while you’re likely to get fed up of living in a mess. Building a side hustle is a long journey and it could be months or even years before you can think about going part time or even giving up your day job. And that may not be your aim. You might need that regular income and your side hustle is a bit extra on the side, just to supplement your main income.

The challenge is in  finding a way of staying on top of the housework and having time for those you love, all whilst making time for a side hustle. In this post I wanted to look at the easier task to tackle and that’s the chores. Making decisions about how much time you have for looking after your parents is much more complicated and very personal, so I’ll leave that up to you.

Whether you’re just thinking of starting a side hustle or you’re in the midst of already building your business there are some actions you can take to make your housework quicker and easier, freeing up time for your side hustle. 

Decluttering

I think someone once said that we spend the first half of our lives accummulating stuff and the second half trying to get rid of it. We live in a very consumerist society where you are bombarded with tempting adverts trying to convince you about all the great stuff (i.e. crap) you need to buy to feel fulfilled. It’s so easy to believe this, particularly if you’ve seen your friends with the latest gadgets. You don’t want to feel left out.

The problem comes when you have to look after all this stuff. Clean, clean under it, maintain it. That takes up valuable time that you could be spending on your side hustle.

This is why one of my biggest tips when it comes to being able to live in a clean and tidy home whilst building a side hustle is to declutter. Ideally before you even start your side hustle. Make your house easy to clean. I am fortunate enough to leave in a fairly large house, but it doesn’t take a long time to clean as we are minimalists. Perhaps not in the truest sense of the word, but we don’t have a lot of ornaments. I have a modest amount of toiletries in the bathroom. The vanity unit and windowsill are empty except for soap to wash your hands. This means that when I do clean there’s not a lot to move out of the way.

My advice, and I’m not a professional declutterer (yes that is a thing), is to start small. Try getting rid of a few things or at least putting them in a box out of the way. Admittedly in this way decluttering is going to take a while. But better something than nothing. If you want to speed it up and feel that you’re ready for it, be ruthless. I’ve thrown out old school photos, basically because I couldn’t remember the names of anyone in them. For me it was all such a long time ago and my life now seems much more important than what I was going forty years ago. But it’s up to you. You do what you’re happy with, but remember, everything you keep is something extra to clean and maintain. 

If you’re still not convinced about the benefits of decluttering then have a read of this blog post I wrote recently all about its benefits.

Giving Everything a Home

One way of finding out if your house needs decluttering is to try to give everything in it a home. And when I say a home, I mean a place that it belongs when it gets tidied away. It doesn’t need to be there all of the time, but if you’re not using it, that’s where it should be and if you need it, you know where to find it.

And if you can’t give everything a home because there aren’t enough cupboards, drawers, storage? Then you’ve got too much stuff.

However you get there, this is the next step in making keeping your house clean and tidy quicker. When you know where something should go you won’t waste time dithering about where to put it. In fact, if it’s not you that used it you can get the kids or your partner to put it away. And they won’t need to ask where to put it as they’ll know it has a designated home.

So when you’ve got less stuff and it’s all got a place it lives, your surfaces and the floor should be fairly clear, except for the furniture of course. You won’t need to keep moving stuff when you vacuum or dust. And so it’s quickly and easily ticked off. Then you can get on with working on your side hustle.

Creating a Routine

Routines may sound boring to you, but they are the key to getting the less important stuff done and freeing up time for what you want to be spending time on i.e. your side hustle. When you have a routine your brain has to make fewer decisions. You don’t waste time choosing what you’re going to do in the moment, because you’ve already decided ahead of time.

So what does a cleaning routine look like? That’s up to you. But there’s probably things you need to do each day and some just once a week or even less. So spend some time planning out a regular week when it comes to your household chores. If you’re brave you could get your family involved, particularly if they want to support you in building a side hustle.

When you’ve got a regular cleaning routine in place you won’t feel like household chores are piling up whilst you’re working on your side hustle. There will be no reason for anyone to complain about you devoting time to your side hustle.

There’s also benefit in doing something regularly. Taking two minutes to wipe around the bathroom sink when everyone has used it in the morning is easier than scrubbing off a week’s worth of dried on toothpaste.

Reducing Stress

Building a side hustle is stressful, there’s no getting away from it, particularly when you feel like nothing’s working (which in my world is a regular occurrence, but maybe it’s just me). So you need to reduce stress in other areas. If you just let the cleaning slide, being at home is going to be stressful. You won’t want to spend time in certain rooms as just looking at everything that needs doing is too overwhelming. A messy home can make you feel anxious and that your life is out of control. This can make it difficult to focus on your side hustle, especially if you’ve got to work in a messy room. When your home feels calm you can devote the brainpower needed to your side hustle.

Conclusion

Creating a regular cleaning routine might not seem like the most obvious key to side hustle success, and might not be the most sexiest thing, but it plays a significant role in helping you stay on top of the chores and helping you to focus on the challenging task of building a successful side hustle. So spend some time this week thinking about how you could create a cleaning routine that works for you.

If you need more help finding time for your side hustle grab my free guide ‘Five Simple Steps to Making Time for a Side Hustle’.