How I manage my time with full time job, freelance & side hustles ☕️

In 2019, I worked as a product designer full-time. Once I've gotten the hang of things, I had new goals. I wanted to earn more income and expand my knowledge outside of my job. So I took on freelance work. Two years later, the pandemic happened. I started a YouTube channel and it blew up. Three months after that, I created digital products to escape the rat race. I was juggling a full-time job, freelance work, YouTube and creating digital products on the side. But I find myself with a problem. I don't have enough time. We all have the same 24 hours in a day. Minus 8 hours of sleep, 8 hours of working in your full-time job, 3 to 6 hours to cook, eat, poop, run errands, do house chores, commute, spend time with friends and family. That leaves me with less than 3 hours of free time in a day. How could I possibly pull this off? All the productivity hacks in the world can't help you if you don't know why you're doing what you're doing. In the beginning, I made a huge mistake. I thought that checking off to-do lists and filling up my calendar with busy work is the way to go. I had burnout. Yes, I got a hundred things done, but none of them brought me closer to my goals. So don't dive into your to-do list just yet. Ask yourself what is important to you. What are the things that will bring you fulfillment and a sense of purpose? I wrote down my short-term goals. These goals are my compass to make sure I don't get distracted by shiny objects that come my way. Then I break down my goals into smaller manageable tasks. It should not be goals that are set because of other people's expectations of you. I've also made another mistake back then. I was greedy and putting more goals than I could handle. So this made me really overwhelmed. And in the end, I got nowhere. So please don't make the same mistake as I did. So how do I find the time and energy to do all these things? The principle is simple. Eliminate to create more time and energy. Even if we have all the money in the world, we still cannot buy time and energy. The less time and energy you spend on things that don't bring you closer to your goals, the sooner you reach your goals. I said no to the things that are irrelevant to my goals. As a freelancer, I no longer take on each and every project that comes my way. I always remember to protect my time. I stopped watching TV during high school. If you spend two hours a day watching TV, that's 730 hours a year that could have been invested somewhere else. And by learning how to say no, I created time for myself to work on side projects like this YouTube channel and learning new skills. Now in case you're wondering, I did more of the things that give me energy as well. I did not quit entertainment cold turkey. Occasionally, I still play games. I still watch Netflix and I still go shopping. I'm happiest when I spend time with my family and friends. So work-life balance is possible. I also cut down on the activities that drain me. When I was a full-time employee, I try to keep every meeting short and efficient so that I still have time to actually get work done and protect my energy. As a freelancer, I would set my clients' expectations that I will only be available for meetings on certain times in a week. I said no to unreasonable deadlines. I also avoid clients who micromanage. Reducing interruptions helped me stay focused for a longer period of time. I disabled irrelevant phone notifications. Sometimes all you need to do is just to sit down and get to work. Social media is designed to hook you to keep you coming back and stay engaged. While likes and comments do give you some dopamine hits, it doesn't really help you stay focused for a long time. I also unsubscribe to irrelevant emails. Every email is a to-do item that requires our attention. So I only subscribe to a handful of newsletters that I feel that really brings value to my life. I also eliminated commute from my life by working from home. I understand that this doesn't apply to everyone, but if possible, negotiate with your employer or find a job that allows you to work from home. The amount of time you can save by eliminating commute and eliminating decisions on what to wear is really game-changing. I also stopped keeping up with messages. I realized I don't need to read every single message in a group chat or to scroll through every single social media feed because if something is really important to me, it will come to me directly. These are the time management techniques and mindset I applied every single day. I allow myself to procrastinate. Now this sounds like terrible advice, but hear me out. Procrastination is a signal that you should either eliminate, delegate, or outsource the task. In other words, I allow myself to procrastinate, but I also make sure I reflect on why I procrastinate and what can I do about it to make sure I'm motivated to do the things that I'm supposed to do. One thing I never procrastinate though, is to make sure I'm making progress towards my goals. That is a non-negotiable. I created repeatable systems for repeat work. For example, when I get the same questions over and over again, I turn my replies into templates or make a video like this one. And I never sacrifice sleep. A clear mind is essential. I wake up after 9am and I sleep 8 to 10 hours a day, sometimes even more. I also practice asynchronous communication. For example, if I want to share a design revision to a client, I record a loom video instead of calling a meeting. This saves me so much time. I also embrace silence. I wake up in silence, I work in silence. I prefer silence over music in the background because I find myself unable to focus with any noise at all. When I need to learn something, I practice just-in-time learning. Just-in-time learning means I only learn enough to solve the problem I currently have. If I want to learn how to do something, I just google it instead of spending years to study the entire syllabus. Google is free, so make use of it. A mindset that helped me is done is better than perfect. Perfectionism is the enemy of progress. If we spend time perfecting things and not focus on completing what we're tasked to do, then we're most probably never going to get things done. For example, instead of revamping my entire website, I paste things out. I focus on the things that follow the Pareto principle. Which brings me to my next point. In order to prioritize what I should do first, I follow the Pareto principle, which is basically the 80-20 rule. 20% of the things you do will account for 80% of your results. For example, I spend very little hours on freelance work compared to my full-time job, but it accounts to 80% of my total income. Now, apart from using my Google Calendar for meetings and personal appointments, my calendar is also my to-do list and my reminder. I block out time for projects with deadlines. Setting a time limit on each task doesn't work for me. I always underestimate how much time each task would take and end up feeling guilty for not being able to do it all in a day. So I learn from my mistakes. I try to have less than four time blocks a day. Every day, I refine my time blocks so I can track how much time I spend on each task. By doing so, over time, I get better at estimating how much time I need for each task. I manage all my tasks, ideas, notes in Notion. This saves energy. It works like a storage of my brain so I don't need to remember what I need to do. When things get crazy and I find it hard to keep track of what I need to do, a good old to-do list on my desk is the way to go. I only do this when I absolutely have to. Most of the time, I stick to Notion and my Google Calendar. Another thing I do is to set deadlines for the things I need to do. For example, if I have to launch a project, I will set a deadline that I launch it within two weeks or less. If you don't set the deadline for yourself, you'll probably never launch it. I'm also into the idea of being goal-oriented. To stay focused on one thing at a time, I find that it helps to keep going back to your goals. If you have a clear idea of what you want to achieve, motivation comes natural. Going back to your goals, is this an opportunity or a distraction? Ask yourself that. It takes time to get into the zone so we need to protect our focus by reducing context switching. For example, batching all my meetings in the evening and keep mornings blocked for deep work only. This way, I plan around my energy levels and make sure that I'm always efficient. Some of you have also asked, how do I overcome low mental energy and anxiety for the feeling of having no time to do everything? My take on this is, if you find yourself in this spot, it's probably a sign that you're taking on too much. Go back to your goals and evaluate if you really need to achieve all of your goals right now. Consider reducing your goals or find more ways to create time. At the end of the day, my goal is not to do it all, but to get myself to a point where I can live comfortably while working less. Whatever I've shared in this video might or might not work for you, but I do hope it helps you in some way. Thank you for watching and these are the recommended videos for you to watch next.