How many times a day do you find yourself saying, “There aren’t enough hours in the day”? Or maybe you think, “If only I didn’t need sleep, I might catch up on everything I need to do.” If only…as if sleep were the problem. How many times have I been asked, “Can’t you sleep less and leave a little earlier?” To this question, I typically reply, “If I didn’t sleep, eat, or do anything but work 24/7 for the next month, I still wouldn’t get caught up.”
I’m sure it feels this way for all of us at one time or another. Me? I feel this way all the time.
And why? I own and manage nine franchises. I run two brands, an ecommerce venture, and a property management firm. I’m also a partner in many other businesses, including real estate, although I tend to play a less active role in these enterprises than my partners do. Not exactly a Trifecta.
People often ask me, “How do you balance the things you like to do with the 80–100 hours you devote to your businesses every week?”
How does a juggler manage to keep all those plates spinning so that they don’t fall to the ground and shatter?
Focus, focus, focus.
To the first question, I would have to answer, “In the past, I didn’t actually manage to establish a balance between the demands of my businesses and the rest of my life.” I was like a juggler in that sense. Jugglers aren’t spinning plates while texting, booking flights online, binge-watching Breaking Bad, ordering takeout from the local Chinese restaurant, paragliding, or doing Pilates. They’re spinning plates…and doing nothing else. My own life in the past was typically focused on and revolved solely around my work. On the other hand, I wasn’t especially unhappy with my life choices. I have always taken great pride in my success and constantly striven to learn and grow because I knew that doing so would ultimately bring more and greater success.
That being said, 2021 was the first year in which I made a commitment to myself to focus on doing more of the things I enjoy and to work on my physical and mental health. I play tennis a few times a week, work out with my trainer (on Zoom) a few times a week, and also take private yoga classes on Zoom a couple of times a week. I’m playing music at home more regularly (piano and guitar), and I have done some IG Live Sessions over the last six months. I started dating again and have spent more time with friends in the last six months than in the previous two years (outside of romantic relationships).
Jugglers also have lives outside of performances.
How might you find the proper balance between work and life? My first recommendation: Don’t take on too many things. (Learn from my experience, and do as I say…and not as I’ve done!) When the queue of things you have to deal with stretches out beyond the horizon so that you can’t see where the line starts and when the pace of forward movement has slowed, you get stuck, and things tend to spiral downward quickly (a case in point: my original warehouse/distribution/ecommerce businesses). But when you do try to scale the metaphorical mountain, a sheer rockface that appears insurmountable, I find that making a to-do list each night and syncing it up with my calendar is very helpful. I know what I have to do when I get up because I have a schedule to follow. And I can prioritize, establishing a list of most- and least-important tasks as well as quick versus long/complicated tasks. Often, I take care of a few quick jobs first to give myself a boost. (If you really want to get a running start on the day, you could always make “Start a to-do list” the first item on your to-do list.)
What are some of the things that help you be more productive in planning your day? Do you have a plan for each day? Do you wing it instead? Is the way you organize your time working? And if you had twice as much to do as you do now, could you handle the extra work? How would you handle it? Would you be willing to double up your workload to make more money? Would you be willing to increase your workload 20–30 percent to make an extra $1k/month? How much is your time worth?
There are a lot of questions to ask yourself when starting a side hustle or business. The list of questions in the previous paragraph is not comprehensive, but it is a jumping off point. As I split my time between different businesses and different tasks now, I remember how disorganized I was when I first started expanding in 2009. At that time, I owned four businesses, and each one was suffering and only moderately successful because I didn’t have an overarching plan. I also didn’t have enough experience in running a single business, let alone four, and I thought that because I was smart, I could just wing it. Time has not humbled me; rather, it has given me plenty of invaluable experience, and because of this experience, I now possess many of the basic skills I need to run successful businesses even as I continue to learn and grow. I know, for example, the importance of planning. You need to know how to plan; you’re in serious trouble if you’re spending all of your time instead reacting to challenging situations and problems that arise over the course of doing business. Time has made me business savvy. Wisdom is one of the well-earned rewards of experience.
Key takeaways for managing your time/growing your side hustle:
- Planning is a must. You can’t just wing it forever and grow.
- Determine how much time you’re willing to commit to your business, and if you’re unable to finish everything in that time, are you willing to extend your deadlines, or are they set in stone?
- Don’t be afraid to delegate tasks to someone you work with. (Or find someone who is willing to help you get started!)
- Being organized cuts down on wasted time (create a full to-do list, for example, one that includes the timing for each task). Why? Because you then know what you have to do and can spend the time doing the tasks on that list. You don’t have to waste time trying to figure out which tasks you have to do.
- All of this is summed up in this commandment: “Be proactive, not reactive.”