Balancing a Full-Time Job with School or a Side Hustle

Author: Elizabeth Grace Saunders

If you were part of the pandemic-era entrepreneurial boom, you may have taken up some work outside of your regular day job. Maybe you launched a side hustle with the goal of becoming your own boss. Maybe you decided to go back to school and pursue a part-time degree. You’re not alone. Small business applications jumped 53% from 2019 to 2021; and graduate degree enrollment increased by 4.3% after years of descending.

Even so, the initial luster of starting a venture outside of your nine-to-five is likely wearing off. The joyful string of “Congrats!” that sprang from your peers may be dampened by the reality of the grind: staying up late to complete assignments; the strain of balancing work, family, and friends; the to-do list that never seems to end.

Adding a major commitment to your life is never easy. Without the right tools, it can leave you feeling like you have no margin of error, or worse, that you’re failing in everything.

As a time-management coach, I guide people facing this problem—people who are looking to find balance in their lives while going above and beyond in their pursuits. Getting a degree or starting a small business, especially while you’re working full-time, poses unique challenges. That doesn’t mean it’s not possible. Here’s what I find works.

Acknowledge the challenge

Whether you’re putting more time into your side hustle or working on a degree part-time, it’s going to be a challenge to manage your time while also working a nine-to-five job. That’s the reality, and you’ll go further if you accept it rather than beating yourself up.

Most people working a full-time job have a few discretionary hours in the mornings and evenings. Depending on your personal commitments, you may also have another two to four hours to yourself on the weekend. That’s not a whole lot of extra time when you factor in personal to-do items and family responsibilities.

If you feel like it’s hard to keep up, that’s because it is—and if you didn’t have things on the side, you would have more freedom to engage in all sorts of activities. Acknowledge that this is your reality before you can take ownership of and maximize the time you do have available.

Sharply define your work time

When you’re excited about something big outside of your day job, it’s tempting to do whatever you think is most important at any given time. But this method doesn’t work well for most people. More often, it leads to analysis paralysis.

Many of my clients who tried this approach spent more time thinking about whether they should work on a report for their boss, post on their grad school forum, or attend a friend’s birthday party than they did getting anything done. Others spent too much time on the activities they found most interesting (like searching LinkedIn for new business leads) and too little time on mundane but necessary activities (like answering the emails in their inbox or filing taxes).

When juggling multiple priorities, it’s more powerful to sharply define when you’re “on” and when you’re “off.” Create strict boundaries around the time you focus on your day job and the time you’re free to devote to each of your personal priorities.

It’s helpful to clarify the measures of success in your day job: important deadlines, annual goals, and any other touch points that matter to your boss. Emphasize the tasks that contribute to those things, and minimize as many volunteer commitments, special projects, or extra meetings as you can. When you have a side hustle or school to worry about, putting in extra hours at work isn’t sustainable. You need to put those hours toward your other goals if you want to succeed without sacrificing your mental and physical well-being.

Establish personal touch points

When you work a full-time job and have a large commitment on the side, you won’t have the ability to participate in every family activity or social event, but you don’t need to cut yourself off from society altogether.

What I find works best, in terms of a sustainable approach, is to first figure out what you need in order to take care of yourself:

• How many hours of sleep do you need a night?

• How much physical activity do you need?

• How present do you need to be with family and friends?

• What personal commitments are most important to you and your loved ones?

If you have a close circle of friends or people outside your immediate family, carve out a time to call them each week or designate a Friday Friend Happy Hour, where you make them a priority instead of allowing yourself to lose track of relationships.

Your commitments may vary depending on what you need to thrive. Once you determine what’s most important to you, put it in your calendar as a recurring event and try to stick with it. You may not hit the mark every time, but if you’re consistently and intentionally investing in your health and your most important relationships, you can sustain your physical and relational well-being even in this intense time.

Dedicate time for school or your side hustle

Finally, just as you clearly defined time for your day job or personal touch points, I want you to dedicate time for school or your side hustle. Exactly what time you devote will depend on your preferences and constraints, but here are some common times that I’ve found work well for clients:

• Mornings before logging into work

• Evenings during the week

• One or two blocks of time on the weekends

• Lunch hours for more-discrete activities like posting on your class forum or returning client calls

Put these times in your calendar as meetings with yourself to devote to school or your business. Then stick to those hours and see if all you need to get done fits in that time. If it does, great! If not, then you’ll need to consider finding additional hours for your special projects. Or you may need to reduce your expectations on certain things, like skimming a book instead of reading the whole thing, or extending the timeline for when you launch your new business.

This clarity helps you to decide specifically when you’re working on your side projects instead of feeling like you’re too tired or too busy with something else and then putting them off. Finally, it gives you the ability, if helpful, to physically separate yourself from home and go to a library, coffee shop, or coworking space to get your business or schoolwork done.

Balancing the demands of school or a small business on top of a full-time job and personal life is a lot. But with the right strategies, it is possible. Get clear on when you’re working your day job, investing in life outside of work, and completing your side projects. Then let that structure support you through this fulfilling yet busy time.