animation
Side Hustle

First Things First

Gregg Blanchard    

For the last 4-5 months of 2019, I really wanted to make some progress with SendView. So instead of the usual evening and weekend, I decided that I’d wake up at 6:00am – an hour before the rest of the family – and get some extra work in.

On the surface, it worked. During that stretch I:

But slowly, around the first part of December, I noticed all those early morning and short nights add up. Specifically, I noticed that it was impacting the day job:

  • If I got frustrated by a bit of side-project code not working, I’d end up starting the work day frustrated and on the wrong foot.
  • If I worked on something that was mentally taxing, I’d feel tired before I could even have my first meeting at the day job.
  • Fridays afternoons had never been a relief for me, but they started to be. I was just worn out.

The end goal of SendView isn’t to quit the 9-5, so I decided to put first things first and not do any side hustle work until after the day job.

Two weeks in, it’s made a huge difference.

I’m more creative at work, I’m more patient, I’m more focused. I’m finding myself in situations where I might have gotten frustrated a couple months ago, but now it ain’t no thang. And when I get to SendView work after some dinner and skiing with the kids? I’m feeling refreshed and doing great work there too.

Plus, I’ve had time for a bit more exercise and reading which is awesome.

I’ll report back on this one again in a few weeks, but so far so good.

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