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Side jobs are more common than ever before. In a recent survey by MarketWatch, 54% of Americans say they’ve worked an extra job to earn more income in the past year. If you’re one of them, it might be time to focus on making your side hustle work harder to maximize your time, effort, and earnings.
If your side hustle helps you make ends meet, it can be difficult to give it up, even if you experience burnout. Fortunately, you can reduce the stress of working a second (or third) job – without sacrificing your additional source of income.
Optimize your side hustle with these tried-and-true strategies borrowed from successful business owners. You’ll learn how to work efficiently to amplify your efforts while shielding yourself and your business from burnout.
1. Build a Strong Support Network
Connecting with like-minded individuals can help you stay motivated and inspired to work on your side hustle. In addition, networking with others gives you new ways to spread the word about your company. Maybe your dog-walking business can partner with a local pet store. You offer your clients coupons to their shop, and they refer their shoppers to your services.
2. Take Advantage of Automation
Think about ways to put certain tasks on set-it-and-forget-it mode. For example, if you promote your side hustle through social media, try an automated tool that can time your posts throughout the week. If you find you spend a lot of time answering customer emails, see if a chatbot could handle some of the more straightforward questions without impacting client relationships.
3. Track (and Act on) Relevant Data
Many side hustles start as hobbies, but treating your second income stream like a business is important. Use a simple spreadsheet to keep track of your clients, hours, tasks, and revenue. Evaluate the information periodically to see which activities drive the most profit – then focus extra effort on those tasks while reducing the time you spend on less valuable actions.
4. Increase Your Profit Margins
If you need to earn a certain amount of money from your side hustle, you might commit an unrealistic number of hours each week. If you can’t sustain an excessive workload, raise your prices so you can afford to decrease your time commitment.
Let’s say you’re a dog walker (one of the most common side hustles). You can handle 10 clients a day, and you charge $10 per walk. If you increase your price by $5 per walk, you can decrease the number of hours you work without impacting your profit.
5. Prioritize Your Tasks
One helpful tool, the Eisenhower matrix, helps you decide what needs to be done now so you can fill your time intentionally. With this framework, you divide your never-ending to-do list into four boxes:
Do now: This list should include time-sensitive tasks that have a critical impact on the business
Schedule for later: This category includes important but not urgent items
Delegate: Outsource these less critical but urgent tasks, like responding to emails and preparing meals
Delete it: Get rid of to-do list items that won’t have a big impact on your business and don’t have a time-sensitive deadline.
6. Refine Your Niche
Instead of serving a large market with your side hustle, strive for smart growth by thinking small. Broad business ideas can overwhelm you and may not connect with your target audience. Maybe your neighborhood has too many daytime pet sitters but few who focus on nights and weekends. Pitch your service as the dog-walking solution for dates, late shift workers, and short getaways.
7. Have a Mission in Mind
Consider why you want to work a side hustle to focus your efforts effectively. I worked multiple jobs throughout high school and college, so balancing a side hustle to pay off student debt seemed like a natural transition.
Having a plan for your side hustle income allows you to set the right scope. Do you want to build a company that you’ll eventually run full-time? Or do you simply need to increase cash flow to pay short-term bills? The answer will help you decide how much time to devote to earning extra income.
8. Plan Side Hustle Sprints
Block off a few weekly hours to focus solely on your side hustle. Work only on your top priorities – the most business-critical and time-sensitive tasks. If you don’t have a few hours, even 30 minutes of solid attention to key objectives every day or two can significantly lighten your weekly workload.
9. Establish Strong Systems
Do you feel like you’re reinventing the wheel for every new client? Repetitive tasks like collecting forms, answering emails, scheduling appointments, and sending invoices can drain your energy, especially without a clear system in place.
Creating routines can keep these seemingly small actions from eating up your entire work week. For example, maybe you spend an hour sending invoices every Friday or set up a system that automatically emails out a new client packet in response to online inquiries.
10. Try Time Management Tricks
When you have a long to-do list for the day, avoid the temptation to jump around from one thing to the next. Instead, test out the Pomodoro method. Set a time for 25 minutes, and focus on a single task for that entire interval. Take a 5-minute break before shifting focus to something else. This approach helps you clear your mind and look at each challenge with fresh eyes.
11. Find Time to Unplug
Harvard Business Review studied 1,000 people to learn more about their side hustles and identify the benefits and negative effects of the multi-job lifestyle. Most participants report on their side hustle on weekday evenings, at least four nights a week.
Even shifting that schedule slightly can help you avoid burnout. For example, take a break for at least an hour or two before shifting from your day job into side hustle mode. Consider limiting extra work to certain days of the week to build in time for yourself. I find that when I take time to breathe, I’m much more productive when I return to my desk.
12. Set SMART Goals 
Break up big dreams into small milestones with the SMART approach. Set weekly, monthly, or quarterly goals that follow this framework:
- Specific
- Measurable
- Achievable
- Relevant
- Time-Bound
Working toward side hustle success is much easier when you change your mindset from “I want to get more clients and make more money” to “I want to make $500 by finding five new dog-walking clients in the next eight weeks.”
Your side hustle can create life-changing opportunities, but beating burnout is central to success. Left unchecked, excessive stress leads to performance and productivity issues, not to mention emotional and physical exhaustion. These 12 tips help remove the hustle so your side job works for you, not vice versa.
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