Don’t Quit Your Day Job

You don’t have to quit your day job to begin working on going solo, a second income, or a second career. You might believe that you don’t have time to do these things, but it’s more likely that you don’t have time not to. It is 100% certain you will have to want what you want bad enough to start making different choices with your time and energy.

Early Hours

You have time before you start your day job. The hour between 5:00 AM and 6:00 AM is an awful lonely hour. No one else is awake. No one wants your time. No one is making any demands of you at that early hour of the day. In that single hour you can write a blog post, shoot a YouTube video, write a description of your offering for your website, or build a list of prospects.

Late Hours

There is no reason to hustle if not to take care of the people you care about. When you get home from work, you can eat dinner and spend some time with your people. If that carries you until 9:00 PM, that gives you another solid hour. Between 9:00 PM and 10:00 PM you can write more or edit what you have already written, produce your YouTube video, or send a newsletter to your burgeoning email list. You can also brainstorm new activities and new ideas.

Over the course of your regular work week, you’ll have put in 10 solid hours of work. That’s 25% of the hours you put in on your day job. That’s pretty good, but you are just getting started. You also have the weekends. “What,” you say, “I have to work weekends?” You don’t have to do anything if you don’t want to, but the only way to find success is to pay for it in advance.

Weekends

It’s easy to put in 4 hours on Saturday morning between 6:00 AM and 10:00 AM. It’s easy to do the same on Sunday mornings. You can still watch football, still spend time with the family, and still do whatever you do to take care of your spiritual needs. That’s 8 more hours to add to the 10 that you put in through the week for a total of 18 hours. That’s almost half of your day job. And, you can still spend an hour on Sunday night planning your work week.

You don’t have to quit your day job and, in fact, you probably shouldn’t. But you do have to make different decisions about how you are going to invest the time that you are likely spending elsewhere.