Successful Side Projects
I have a lot of hobbies. Lockdown really drew my attention to this. I bake, I draw, I play the guitar and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There’s also the running, the knitting and the constant reading. Plus, I’m massively into creative writing. Basically, when everybody was forced to stay at home, I had a lot to keep me busy.
In fact, one of the main things that drew me to freelancing in the first place was the idea that it would give me more time to focus on my creative pursuits. And that, hopefully, some of these things would become part of my career and how I earn a living.
I’d been trying to write a novel for a couple of years, for example, but it was really difficult to fit this around my regular 9 to 5 working hours. I’d also always been interested in literary translation, but I could never find the time to devote to it.
Today I want to talk about side projects and how to fit them around your “main gig” (bit of a trendy American expression there, but you’ll have to forgive me). Side projects are also often referred to as “side hustles” and they usually represent a secondary income source or something you might hope to monetise in the future.
Assess Your Priorities
Side projects are a great way to shift the trajectory of your career if you’re looking to expand into a new field, but they usually require a significant time investment. In the beginning, you may not be getting paid that much (or anything at all!) so the project will need to be quite important to you, if you’re willing to prioritise it over paid work and relaxation.
It’s always worth taking the time to figure out what you love and why something matters to you. You might even want to write this down, because this will act as motivation if you start to lose focus later on. It’s always good to remember why you started something.
Define Success
As well as working out why something is important to you, you also want to have some concept of what you’re looking to achieve. This doesn’t have to be some kind of big lofty goal, but it does need to be tangible. Maybe you’d like to publish a piece of work, open an online store or get a paying client. Give yourself some kind of a direction, so that you know if you’re on the right track. Obviously, it’s totally normal for your goals to change, but you don’t want to be stumbling around in the dark with no concept of what you’re trying to achieve.
Manage Your Time
Once you know why you’re doing something and what you’re hoping to achieve, you’re ready to carve out some time in that busy schedule of yours. If it’s a creative project, try to pick a time of day when you usually feel creative. The beauty of managing your own schedule is that you can save all your dull admin work for the times of day when you feel the least motivated. I’m not much of a morning person, so I tend to tackle creative projects in the late afternoon/early evening.
Decide whether you want to work on something in small increments or big chunks of time. You need to think about your personality here, but also the nature of the project. If something requires a lot of set up, then it might make sense to take one full day off a week to work solidly on that project. If something requires minimal set-up, however (e.g. you’re writing a book) then you could always devote a small chuck of time each day to that task. Over time this will really add up and you’ll barely realise it’s happened.
Accountability
Once you’ve started your project, there will almost inevitably come a moment when you start to lose motivation. Even if you really love something, it might take you a while to see results or you might hit some kind of stumbling block. At this point, you need to remember why you started your project. What was it that you were trying to achieve?
It also helps if you’ve told a bunch of people what you’re up to. This can feel pretty scary, because we’d often rather just work on new things in secret, but if people know, they’ll keep asking you about it. This will probably annoy you, but in a good way. Sometimes you just need a little push.
Self-Promotion
This one feels gross, but if you want something to be successful, you have to promote it. Find a way to do this that feels comfortable for you. You don’t have to adopt an overly braggy tone or anything. You’re just letting anybody who’s interested know what you’ve been getting up to and how they can engage with the thing you’ve created. I find it helpful to remove my own ego from the situation. Ultimately, it’s not about me as a person, it’s about my business.
So, there you go. It’s definitely possible to set yourself up for success with your side projects. Having said that, though, one of the benefits of side projects is that there’s a little less risk involved. Even if you fail, you’ll probably learn a lot and at least you won’t always have to wonder about what could have been. That’s its own kind of success.