How Do I Balance Work With My Side Projects

Being present online is difficult when you have a full-time job. I keep my social accounts active, I write on my blog, and occasionally I upload videos on YouTube. As a result, I want to answer a question people often ask me - how do I balance everything?

The article gives you an insight into my daily life, and I hope to answer the above question. I am happy to answer more questions in the comments, though.

Before and after work

To keep up with everything, I usually wake up before I start work. For instance, if I start working at 9 am, I wake up at 6:45 am. That gives me roughly two hours of uninterrupted work. Of course, the hours depends because I do not start working at 9 am every day. However, you get the idea. I always do between one hour and two hours of uninterrupted work.

What do I do during that time? I start by checking my social media accounts, and scheduling content for the day (more on scheduling later). After that, I spend the rest of the time learning for my AWS certifications. An approximate of one hour and a half allows me to learn new AWS services, and do some practice. Once the time is up, I start working for eight hours for my company.

Rarely, when I am unusually energetic, or without anything else to do, I spend time after work on my side projects too. However, I limit myself to a maximum of one hour. After work, I never try to learn new stuff because I am exhausted. If I spend time on my side projects after work, I usually create content - whether that is my blog, social media accounts or YouTube. The reason why I only create content after work is that it relaxes me.

That is all regarding my schedule. To recap:

  • Most of the time, I spend time on my side projects before work. In the morning, I have the most energy.
  • If I spend time after work on my side projects, I do it to create content on various platforms.

Scheduling content

When you are at work, you cannot stay on social media or write content. Thus, I have to schedule my content ahead for the day. However, for social media content, I can squeeze a few minutes in my break to post. I schedule content on my social media accounts using Hypefury. But, there are other alternatives such as Buffer, for instance.

On the other hand, for my blog and YouTube content, I have to spend more time to create content. As a result, I have to do it before or after work. I can schedule blog articles and YouTube videos directly from the respective platforms.

Therefore, I schedule most of my content in the morning or one day before. For my social media accounts, I both prepare the content and use the spare time at work to post.

Conclusion

That is all. I am curious to see if you like this type of articles because I could post more articles like this one. Let me know in the comments what you think!

To recap:

  • I wake up two hours before work, and I spend it to schedule content and learn new stuff.
  • I rarely spend time after work, but when I do, it is for creating content on various platforms.
  • I schedule most of my content because I have a full-time job.
  • I use my spare time at work to squeeze content on social media.