Time management tips to Make More Money

With ongoing supply chain issues, a rise in oil prices, and inflation just getting out of control, things have never been more expensive. It's not surprising then that for a lot of people, making some extra money on the side just wouldn't be nice. It's necessary for survival.

When I started my side hustles two years ago, my main goal was to make an extra couple hundred dollars a month to supplement the money I was making from my full time job. But after working on them consistently week after week, I went from earning 4 to $500 a month to over thousands now.

It's actually gotten to the point where the money that I'm earning from my side hustles has become a significant portion of my overall income. The journey has been pretty life changing for me, and I'm pretty much recommending side hustles to everyone I know now. But I know that the biggest obstacle that most people face is that they just don't have the time.

So today I'm going to be talking about how I personally manage my time in hopes that I might help you carve out an extra one to two hours a day so that you can get started on your side hustles too, and start earning a significant income iust like I did.

Time Management Tips

Tip 1: The time audit

In the past I would describe myself as like a busy chicken, just running around. I would spend the entire day doing a whole bunch of stuff, feeling stressed the entire time, but by the end of it, I would feel like I didn't really accomplish anything.

The problem is, when you're doing similar things every day, your mind goes into autopilot mode and you don't really know how you're spending your time. But the thing is, if we want to make meaningful change, we have to actively monitor how we're spending our time.

And the best way I found to do that is time tracking. I use this app called Toggl, which lets you start and stop timers on your phone and your laptop. And it's really nice because it has this feature where it will generate reports for you based on the last seven days or 30 days or however long you want. And it will show you visually how you've been spending your time in different categories.

Personally, it works really well for me, but I actually wouldn't recommend it for most people because it's pretty intense. If you're using it, you're pretty much living your entire life on a timer, which can get stressful at times.

So if you're old school, I would just recommend doing an Excel spreadsheet or even just using a pen and Paper. For example, if I was doing it on a spreadsheet, I would make a column for the hours of the day, a column for what I'm doing at that time, and another column for category. The categories that I use is have to do, don't have to do, regret doing, and love doing.

Doing this exercise every day for about a week was really helpful for me because it really showed me exactly where my time was going and whether I personally thought that was a good use of time or not. Things that I regretted spending my time on were things that I could easily eliminate from my day. And it would also help me identify patterns that I was falling into that would lead to wasted time.

For example, for me, something that would lead to a lot of wasted time was getting a notification on my phone. When you get a notification on your phone, I feel like it requires a lot of willpower to ignore it. So for me, a lot of the times it would cause me to pick up my phone, I would check it, see what's happening, and then I would get distracted with something else. I would reply to the message or whatever it was, and then I would spend my time browsing on Instagram or TikTok and then 30 minutes would have passed.

So what I ended up doing is just turning all notifications off completely. And I really haven't missed it at all. I felt like it just doesn't add much value to my life. Like, I don't need to know exactly when I get a message or like on my socials or exactly when I get a message or an email. I don't have to reply to it right away. I'll get to it when I get to it.

So, yeah, doing a time audit and picking up on patterns that led to a lot of wasted time helped me eliminate them and just led to a lot more hours that I could use to be more productive. But just a side note before I go on, you don't have to eliminate everything that's not productive in your life.

I see a lot of people doing this exercise and eliminating things that they actually enjoy. If you like playing games or watching movies or hanging out with friends, and those things are helping you relax or recharge your energy for the rest of the day, that means it's actually bringing you value, right? That means that you don't have to eliminate it.

What I'm trying to say is that we don't have to transform ourselves into these super productive robots that only care about output. We're humans and we're living a life, and life is meant to be enjoyed as well. So please don't sacrifice things that you actually enjoy and things that you actually get value out of.

The goal of this exercise is to find things that you actually regret spending time on. Like if you're watching "The Office" for the fifth time and Dwight just isn't as funny as he used to be, that could be a sign that you're not getting value out of it anymore. And that could be something that you can cut out. But if you're still enjoying things and you're getting value out of them, please don't cut them out of your life, Right? They're still valuable.

Tip 2: Making your time count

Hopefully, after you've been time auditing for about a week, you'll find some extra time that you can actually use to start a side hustle. If you're like me, though, you'll be really motivated in the beginning, but over time, that motivation is going to die and you're going to need some kind of technique to keep you going.

The single most effective productivity technique that I found works best for me is something called the pomodoro technique. If you've never heard about this before, it's a technique that uses a timer to switch between periods of work time and break time. And it's really effective for breaking up longer periods of time into smaller manageable chunks.

For me, it's really effective because it gives me a sense of urgency. There's something about a timer ticking down that just really makes me want to work. It's like I'm taking a test or something. The standard timing that most people use is 25 minutes of work followed by a 5 minute break. This interval of time is called a pomodoro. And after four pomodoros in a row, that's when you'll take a longer break.

For me, I'm not super strict on the timing, so I'll actually do a modified version of it. I'll set the timer for 45 minutes, and that tells me to work for at least 25 minutes. If the timer goes to zero and I still feel like working, then I'll just continue until I don't.

The reason I'm not super strict about it is because sometimes when I'm working, I'll get into the zone and I don't want to take a break just because the timer's at zero. For these times, I'll just keep working until I naturally want to take a break. And that's when I start a 15 minute timer for my break time. And just like before, I'm not super strict on the timing of my break. Sometimes I just need a five minute break, sometimes it's a ten minute break.

The thing is, I just try my best not to go over the 15 minutes. Because if you're taking a break that's longer than 15 minutes, sometimes that turns to like 30 minutes and that can go on for like an hour, so I really don't want to take that long of a break. These are just the best time intervals that work best for me and the type of work that I do. But you might have to experiment a little bit to find what works best for you.

For timing, I use a timer called the time Timer. It has a real nice tactile, visual way of setting the time. I'll just turn it until the disc hits 45 minutes and I'll set it down at the bottom of my monitor so I can keep an eye on it. And yeah, I just really like it because there's no ticking at all. And you can turn off the alarm so it doesn't distract you when it hits zero. And it's just really nice to see like a visual representation of how much time you have left versus like a digital timer or something like that.

Tip 3: Staying on track

When you start a side hustle, you are your own boss and nobody's going to keep you accountable for your work except you. It can take a long time to build a side hustle that generates any amount of significant income. So you have to find a way to keep yourself motivated to keep progressing towards your goals.

One of my favorite ways of staying on track is something called the Daily Highlight. This is an idea from a great book called Make Time by Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky. The concept is that we all have a lot of things that we have to get done in a given day. But the daily highlight is something that you pick for that day that you can shine a spotlight on, something that you can focus on to make sure that you get done. It's a way to highlight a task that might not be super urgent, but still really important in helping you achieve your long term goals.

So every morning, or if I'm being extra keen the night before, I'll set one thing that I can do that will have the most impact in helping Me reach my long term goals. If you're new to the blog, my personal goal right now is to reach financial freedom doing something that I actually enjoy doing.

But yeah, the daily highlight doesn't have to be huge task. It could be as simple as brainstorming sticker ideas for my sticker shop, doing a rough design for a landing page on my website. It's just something that you can do today that will get you one step closer to your goals.

And you're not gonna be perfect, i'm definitely not perfect at all. There's going to be days where you're super productive and you get it done. And there's gonna be days where you miss your daily Highlights, and that's okay. Because let's say you only get half your daily highlights done for the year. That's still 182 steps closer you are to reach goals. And those steps, even if they're small, they can really add up to a lot over the span of years.

I get comments all the time asking how I built a this blog, or how I got my Etsy shop to over 5,000 sales. And the answer is the same. It's one step at a time over the span of a couple years. It's really that simple. Like, it's not easy, but if you can keep yourself dedicated and consistent, you can do it too.

The most important takeaway

With all that being said, I think the most important thing that you can take away from this article is to be kinder to yourself. Hustle culture gets a bad rap because people are pushing themselves to their limits. People are cutting back on sleep, neglecting their friends and family or things that they enjoy. And it really doesn't need to be that way at all.

I understand that when people first get started, they put a lot of pressure on themselves to reach success as quick as possible. But in my experience, it's best to take things slow. You really need to be able to enjoy the journey too. That's the only way it's going to be sustainable. Some days you're going to be really productive and get a whole bunch of things done, and some days you're not. And that's okay, right? Try not to beat yourself up too much.

People are always talking about how important it is to be kind to others, but it's really important to be kind to yourself too. So if you're finding yourself wanting to start a side hustle with all your extra time, one of the most important things to do is to choose the right side hustle to start.

Personally I think the smartest thing that you can do is to choose a side hustle that will eventually lead to a passive income stream. A lot of people pick up a second job or go with something in the gig economy like driving Uber or delivering food, and I really have nothing against that type of work.

In this economy, all income is good income, but the problem with this type of work is that it's just not scalable. One hour of work will always equal one hour of pay, and if you want to make as much money in the little time that you have to work, you really want to do something that's scalable.

If you're interested in learning more about picking the right side hustle and my thoughts on passive income, I'll leave a article right over here. It has a cheeky title, but I think it's a helpful article, especially if you're in the beginning stages of starting a side hustle.

So, that's it for the article guys. I hope you found it useful. These are just the time management techniques that I found most effective for me over the past couple years. If you have any more, please share them down in the comments below.