This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
Hey friends, thanks for tuning in today. This is Chris Guillebeau, your host of "Side Hustle School," bringing you episode 2,468, 2,468. We've been going since January 1, 2017. I'm so honored and thrilled to make this podcast for you seven days a week. And today we're gonna hear from a listener in Minneapolis.
Her name is Sasha. She's already juggling a retail job and two young kids. And now she's thinking about adding a side hustle into the mix. Well, that's probably a good idea at some point, right? But of course her concern is time.
And I totally respect and understand that. How much time is she gonna need to carve out of her already packed schedule to make this new venture truly successful? And can we answer that without more detail? Well, I think we can give some general advice. And this is something everybody's always trying to figure out.
Yesterday we heard from Marcus. He was trying to figure out, do I keep investing in this project that's not working? And by investing, I mostly mean time. Time is your most valuable asset, of course. And so he was like, should I try something different?
When do I pack it in and such? So for Sasha here on the front end, she's trying to figure out the kind of the same thing. It's like, is this the right time? How much of it do I need to make this work? So let's see if I can offer something helpful.
How much time do I need to spend while managing, in this case, a retail job and family life? Detailed question from our listener and my answer, coming up in just 30 seconds. [Music]
Hello, I'm Sasha from Minneapolis. I work in retail and I have two young kids at home. So my schedule is pretty packed.
I'm interested in starting a side hustle, doing something totally different, but I'm worried about time commitment. How many hours per week do I realistically need to invest to make my side hustle successful? I wanna be able to buy back more of my time and I feel pressured over making the right decision. [Music]
First of all, I wanna say I get it. Like this is no small feat, juggling work and family responsibilities.
We've got a lot of listeners out there in similar situations. But I also wanna say kudos to you for wanting to diversify your income. You always have to think about the short term and the long term. And in these situations, the short term is, man, I'm really pressed for time. And it may be the case that you just can't take this on right now.
I totally understand if that's the answer. I also encourage you though to, as much as possible, think about the long term because hopefully in the long term, your side hustle is gonna help with some of this. Like by having more income, you're gonna have more opportunity and more choice, more autonomy, more freedom for yourself, even in the midst of all these responsibilities. So that's what you wanna work towards in whatever time you have without working so hard that you just end up getting burnt out and frustrated with everything, okay? So the next point is you wanna choose the right kind of side hustle, all right?
Some side hustles can be much more like set it and forget it, requiring only like a few hours a week, perhaps for maintenance or they can be the kind of thing where you're gonna make more money if you put more time in, but if you have a busy season with work or some family responsibilities that preclude your ability to side hustle, then that's okay. Obviously others may need a more consistent time investment. So I think choosing the project, the right project on the front end is especially important in this situation. So you may wanna consider starting with something that has a lower time requirement. We just talked about dropshipping yesterday and that doesn't always work for everybody.
Our listener yesterday was struggling with it in fact, but dropshipping or print-on-demand services, that kind of thing can be started with fewer hours a week. So can affiliate marketing, where you recommend products and earn a commission, anything with SEO where you're like building websites and trying to optimize them. That's the kind of thing that you can kind of pick up and put down and such or put down and pick up as the case may be. E-commerce is gonna require a certain amount of customer service, but it can be the kind of thing that once it's up and running, it's just maintenance. Of course, lots of other side hustle categories as well.
I'm just naming a few examples. And then the last point here is to remember that a side hustle doesn't have to start big. That's one of the benefits. A lot of successful projects we featured started with just a few hours a week. The more important thing is to get started and adjust as you go along.
A little bit of progress every day or at least every week. I think that's the way to do it. So I hope those tips are helpful. And to our listener and to anybody else out there who's just really busy, well, you're the reason I make the podcast, just so you know. I mean, like I make this show for busy people.
It's why it's 10 minutes a day or less every day. So that it's always a little bit of a boost of encouragement or motivation, a little practical tip, interesting story, something to kind of keep you going and hopefully motivated to do something for yourself, which is what it's all about. So thank you for tuning in today. You're awesome. I hope you'll come back tomorrow.
My name's Chris Guillebeau. You are listening to "Side Hustle School." [Music]
- From the Onward Project.
