Trying to kick start a business whilst holding down a full time job is hard.
There were times when I didn’t sleep. There were times when I cried.
There were times when I was constantly sick. There were times when I
wondered why I was bothering at all. And there were times that I wanted
to pack the whole thing in and resign myself to sticking to a job that wasn't my passion forever.
It was a struggle, but looking back it was so worthwhile and
I’m immensely grateful for the experience it gave me. This is a total
cliché but I truly believe that the harder you work at something, the
more satisfying it is when you finally reach your goal. If you’re stuck
in that place, I just want to give you a big hug and remind you that it
will all be OK in the end. I also want to offer you some practical
advice…
Have set working hours
It’s so easy to think you have to work all hours of the day (and
night!) to get things done, but baby, that just isn’t true! If you try
work too much then your productivity will be shot. You won’t be able to
concentrate, you won’t be at your best and you won’t have time to
process anything properly… and you know that thing called ‘a life’? The
thing you’re probably striving to have a better one of by running your
own business? Yeah you won’t have one of those either.
I’m obsessive about my work. I’m utterly head over heels in love with
my job but I’m so strict with myself on the hours I do and don’t work.
When you’re trying to juggle your business with a day job it can be
really difficult to get the balance right so my advice to you would be
to have set working hours… and stick to them. If say, you work 9-5 and
you get home at 6, maybe have an hour set aside for family/’you’ time
and then work 7-9? Two hours of productive work a day is better than 5
hours of stressful not-getting-anything-done work.
You also really need to sleep.
Have a strategy
To optimise the time you do have to work on your business, get
yourself a strategy. Write down exactly the things you want
to achieve in each working session and how you’re going to do it. You
might think that taking time to document things would be a waste of time
but it’s so not! I’d imagine the morning commute being a
good opportunity to do this. Write checklists obsessively to get
anything you possibly can out of your head so you can focus on each task
one by one.
If you’re a photographer, spend some time really honing down your
editing skills. Set time aside for learning and improving your technique
so you can do things quickly and efficiently. If you’re a blogger, keep a notebook on
you at all times and jot down any blog post ideas you might have. Don’t
get to your 2 hours of work time and spend the first hour sat there,
wondering what to write! Pre-planning is everything! If possible try work in advance too (don’t leave things until the
last minute!) This is something I always do and it stops me from going
insane. (As we design our line seasonly it's also really important to have deadlines)
Ask for help and out
source
Listen, you know you can’t do everything yourself, especially if you
have 2 full time jobs to do. So stop and ask yourself what you can palm
off on other people! Book keeping? Accounting? Processing? Emails?
Cooking?! Focus on the things that really need your personal stamp and
pay someone else to do the jobs that are just a time-suck. I’d
personally rather work harder doing the bits I’m good at, to earn more
money to pay someone to do the things I’m rubbish at or don’t enjoy.
Realise that it wont happen overnight
Give yourself a break. If you take just one thing from this article
let it be this – allow yourself the time to grow and hone your
skills before making the leap. Don’t feel like you’re failing if you’re
still working full time a few years down the line. Take things slowly.
Take one day at a time. Tackle tasks individually and don’t beat
yourself up so much.
Ignore what everyone else is doing or even the advice they give you
(you have no idea how many people were telling me to quit the day job
waaaay before I did!) This is your life and your career, no one else’s!
Don’t quit your day job… yet
Small goals or big goals… I’m a big fan of having them. Whether it’s
just “I’ll write this post and then have a cup of tea” or “I’ll quit my
job by the end of the year” it’s always a positive thing to have
tangible milestones to aim for.
When I got to the stage of thinking about the possibility of quitting
my day job, I sat down to properly with my mama (always trust ya mum) if it would ever
work. I’m kind of impulsive. If it was just down to me I would have
probably quit as soon as I made my first £100 but luckily for me, my mum
is a much more sensible and practical person. We discussed the
possibility of me going part time… but only when I was earning
enough to supplement that half of my salary. I was very lucky that my
job were so accommodating and allowed me to do this.
It took time but having that end goal of going part time (and then
quitting all together) was an amazing motivator. Plus having a hard and
fast benchmark to reach (I had to be earning 50% of my salary through
the business for at least 3 months before I could go part time and then 100%
off my previous salary for 3 months before I went full time) made sure I
didn’t make any decisions too hastily. It might sound like the
benchmarks we set were high… and yes they were… but it’s better to be
safe than sorry right?
It was hard work doing two jobs but at least I didn’t have money
worries on top of everything else. Not having to stress about where the
next paycheck was coming from meant that I was able to really play
around and experiement with how I ran my business, without always
thinking in the back of my mind “is this going to make us any money?”
Oh gosh there were days when I just wanted to storm into my boss’s
office and scream “I QUIT!” in a hugely dramatic fashion, but having an
ultimate goal stopped me from doing this thank goodness!
I didn’t leave my day job completely until January 2013 – 4 whole years after I started the line.
So what’s your situation right now? Are you still working full time or
part time? What are you struggling with? Or maybe you’ve got into a good
groove and you have some advice to offer others? To those of you that
have made the leap, did you have any goals to reach before you did so? I
want to hear from you all!
Coffee dates and always laughing with my little Immy 
