How do you stay productive on a side-project while having a full time job?
Hey IH,
so I'm working a full-time job while building T1 and Geoman (currently making a combined tiny revenue of ~$370/mo) and I have done quite some work in the past years on how to stay productive while still having a full-time job.
I would like to share this here with you.
How does a normal day for a normal 9-to-5 look like?
- Get up at 8am
- Get ready, commute, start work
- come home
- Force yourself to do a workout
- Meet friends, family, etc
- Netflix
- Bed
I looked at this and with the goal of creating a profitable side project, I chose to immediately replace the Netflix time with some productive work as well as using my high-energy parts of the day instead of the exhausted hours. Because let's face it: NOTHING changes in your 9-to-5 when you did something before work. But for that something (aka your side hustle), doing it before or after work means 50% to 100% more output in my case, simply because I'm fresh, awake and full of power 💪.
Here's how my day looks like now:
⏲️ Get up at 6am
🧘♂️ a 1-hour Mourning Routine wakes me up, gets me focused
👨💻 Work 2 hours on my side project
😵 Work my 9-to-5
🙌 Do "lighter" work on my side project (Social Media, Blog Posts, Customer interactions, conceptual work, etc)
👨👩👧👦 Family
🛌 Bed
Specifically the morning routine is a keystone habit for me. I'm more productive than ever.
Can 100% recommend going for the morning. I'm not doing any all-nighters anymore. I go to bed around 11pm. Taking care of my fitness, health and relationships is something I constantly need to remind myself of as I will neglect it when I'm on my projects, but I will suffer from it down the road.
So I'm putting it into the morning because making small baby steps every day is like compound interest for your life.
Anything worth having comes from compound interest.
I've went into more details of my specific day and how I work on my side projects on YouTube, feel free to check that out if you're interested:
https://youtu.be/2YKzLtMPk7k
How do you structure your day to make this work?
Hey Sumit,
Interesting to meet you on IH as well. I wish I was able to get up that early in the morning and actually do productive work. I always struggle to get going with my day job. I'm working fully remotely. I doesn't matter how early I get up and sit in front of the computer, it takes about 1-2 hours to get really into the zone. Usually, that is around 10 am for me.
Do you suggest I give it another go? Or do you think if I can manage productive time in the evening it also works out?
I'm usually tired after working 8 hours, eat something, do a workout, talk to my girlfriend, and start working on my side projects between 9 pm and around 1 am.
So far it works, but I always assume that others must be more productive than I am.
Anyway, thanks for sharing your insights on how you improved your productivity.
You're certainly more organized than me 😄
I am struggling with my routine and feel like I am not accomplishing much of my tasks.
This comment was deleted a year ago.