Protecting Time for Your Side Hustle
I want to talk to you about boundaries as it is a really challenging, but important topic when it comes to finding time to work on your side hustle.
You can change your own schedule and organise your time well to find space to work on your side hustle, but all of that can be derailed due to the behaviour of others around you. The problem is, how other people behave around you affects how you can manage your time. Now whilst you can’t control what others do you can control your responses to other people, which is where boundaries come in.
We know what practical boundaries are, like your front door is shut and you don’t expect people to just walk into your house. If someone broke in then you would call the police. You can't control whether or not they choose to respect your boundaries, but if they don't there is a consequence for them.
It’s the same when you’re trying to find time to work on your side hustle. You need to make it clear to others what your boundaries are so that your time is protected. You need to explain to them the importance of this new project that you're working on.
The problem that can arise is when it’s a side hustle people may not give it the importance it deserves. If you’re doing your day job at home people recognise that it’s important that you shouldn’t be disturbed. If you’re at the office your husband or wife wouldn’t just turn up there unless it was an emergency. They respect and recognise the importance of your day job.
When it’s a side hustle, something you’ve just started and it’s seen by others as a hobby, they’re more likely to walk in on you or push you to go and do something else together, whereas you really want to stay home and work on your side hustle. So if you want to have those boundaries and that protected time then you need to tell other people what your expectations are. Tell them that you want an hour to work on your side and don’t want to be disturbed. Then you need to tell them what the consequences would be if they did disturb you.
So say a neighbour turned up and knocks the door when you’d said to them earlier that you weren’t free in the afternoon. You’ve got to ask yourself if you could tell them I’m not available now and I’ll be available in an hour like I said and can we do something then. That can be the really hard bit. We all want to be liked, want to please other people. Could you turn them away or maybe even not answer the door at all? That is the challenge.
You need to guard your time the same as you would your money. You wouldn’t just allow people to open your handbag, take your purse out and help themselves to £20. You would expect them to ask and you could say that you’re not happy to give that to them at the moment; that you need your money to spend on something for you. If you think about it like you would your money I believe that can really help because most of us would not be happy with others taking money from us without asking and yet we allow them to readily steal our time. Remember you can always earn more money. You are never going to get back those minutes and hours in your life that you spent doing something that you don’t really want to do and that’s not a priority for you. Ultimately it will jeopardise your dreams of building that side hustle.