Why Journalling Will Free Up Time for Your Side Hustle

Life is busy, no matter what age you are. Being a middle-aged woman can often mean you still have grown up children living at home, a full time job, ageing parents and a house full of items you’ve accumulated over the last few decades to take care of. It’s a lot. There are so many demands on your time and you can struggle trying to decide what to make a priority when it feels like everything is.

Having the time to start or build a side hustle usually comes bottom of the list. It may feel completely unrealistic and slightly selfish, when you’ve got so many other commitments, to say that you want to find the time to start your own business. You might feel that you daren’t say it out loud for fear of the responses you may get. Or perhaps you’ve already started, but are struggling with making it a priority and feel that you don’t have anyone to talk to about it that really understands what you’re going through. 

One tool that I’ve used on and off over the past few years as part of my side hustle journey is writing in a journal. It’s become a popular mindset tool and I think it lends itself to being used in many different ways. It can help you clarify your thoughts and to make plans when it comes to working on your side hustle.

In this post I want to look at several different ways you could make use of a journal either to decide whether you want to and have the time to start a side hustle and then once you start, to help you maintain your motivation and ensure there’s space in your calendar for what you want to work on when it comes to your side hustle.

So let’s look at these ideas and as we go through them, have a think about which ones would help you, wherever you are in your side hustle journey. That includes even if it just feels like an unobtainable pipe dream at the moment.

Assessing How You’re Currently Spending Your Time

One of the first steps to finding out if there’s space in your busy life for a side hustle is to look at how how you’re currently spending your time. Whilst you may think that you already know this, studies have shown that most of us don’t actually have a true picture of what we’re doing with our time. We like to think that we use our days efficiently or fill them pursuing fun activities that we enjoy, but there are often large gaps where we’re not doing much of anything.

With the use of a journal you can keep a daily log of how you spend your time. Basically,  keep a note of how you’re allocating the 24 hours you get every day. Then once you have a true picture of how you’re spending your days you can decide whether you’re happy with what you’re choosing to do.

Are there periods where you’re not doing a lot? Do you take your time over some activities that you could compress into a shorter period? This is true for me when it comes to cooking dinner. If I have an hour it takes an hour. I’ll watch YouTube and basically faff about a bit. Realistically I could have made same meal in half the time.

It’s not about me telling you how you should or shouldn’t be spending your time. Your calendar should reflect your priorities. More time equals a higher priority in your life. If I looked at your time allocations I should be able to guess what’s important to you in your life at the moment.

Once you know whether there are actually gaps in your schedule or if you’re spending more time than is really necessary on some things, you can use that space to start or grow your side hustle.

Setting Weekly Intentions and Goals

Journaling is an excellent way to set daily or weekly intentions. You can either just focus on the area of your side hustle, or think about your life as a whole. One tool you could use, taken from life coaching, is the wheel of life. This asks you to consider the different areas of your life e.g. finance, business and career, family and friends, environment. There are many different versions and the categories differ, but you get the idea. At the beginning of the week set out your intentions for each of these different categories of your life.

You can then refer to these intentions when it comes to setting your daily goals and reflect on the progress you’ve made each day. It will really help to keep you accountable. You’ll be more likely to stay consistent, even when you’re feeling pulled in lots of different directions.

Somewhere to Share your Thoughts

Starting and building a side hustle can be a lonely journey. Your friends and family may not understand why at your age and when you’ve got such a great, well-paid job, you want to do something completely new. And perhaps something that is never going to make you a lot of money.

Your journal can be your sounding board. A place to write out your ideas and your thoughts and feelings, along the way. Somewhere to air your frustrations, particularly when you feel no one else undertands. You can also keep track of your wins. Those little victories that make you feel like you’re moving forward. Your best friend may not understand how difficult it’s been learning to edit an Instagram reel or give you a rather blank look when you show up excited because you’ve just gone live on Facebook. But your journal will understand.

To Evidence Your Progress

Building a side hustle can be a slow process. It will often feel as though you take two steps forward and three back, or that it takes an enormous amount of work to make even the slightest progress. But looking back through a journal and seeing how far you’ve come can really help you to see get some perspective on what you’ve achieved. You’ll realise that you are moving forward, you just have to keep going and you’ll get there.

Conclusion

Finding the time to start and grow a successful side hustle doesn’t have to feel like a lonely, constant uphill battle. If you incorporate journaling into your routine, you can gain greater clarity on how you're spending your time, set goals and track your progress. Your journal can be your side hustle confidante and accountability partner rolled into one.

Why not try starting with just five to ten minutes of journaling each day in an old notebook and see how you get on. You never know, over time you might find that this simple practice can unlock more time and energy to dedicate to your side hustle, helping you move closer to the life and business you dream of building.

To make more time in your life for a side hustle grab my free guide ‘Five Simple Steps to Making Time for a Side Hustle’.