For over two and a half years now, I have been balancing a full time career in marketing in the financial services industry and blogging and content creation for Hello Emily Erin. Working a full-time job, 9-to-5, 40+ hours a week can be a lot to adjust to on it’s own. Then, you throw in a whole SIDE HUSTLE in content creation and blogging and you’ve got a full plate. Not to mention, a social life, cooking, cleaning, working out, etc….it can get a bit overwhelming. Oh, and promotions, increased responsibilities at work, and professional development… WHEW.
Luckily, I have developed some strategies to make the balancing act a bit easier. Today, I will take you through my time management process and strategies for balancing the corporate career with a side hustle.
Consider (and Negotiate) Your Brand Deadlines
When I first started content creating, I would shoot for brand deals pretty much the day before the deadline. I would never negotiate the timeline of campaigns, but I would just accept them as is. Even if it meant having one day to shoot once the product arrived – CRAZY! Now I am super careful with deadlines, ensuring I can balance them with my busy schedule and job. I ask for AT LEAST one week to shoot after the product arrives, but two is my preference. I do this because there is a lot that goes into shooting content. If a brand is not able to honor my preferred two week turnaround time, I ask that they provide a rush fee for the content.
Prepare in advance
Before a shoot, I prep EVERYTHING! This could mean styling my home or steaming some clothing items and grabbing shoes to match. I come up with content ideas – whether it is scrolling Pinterest or reviewing the creative brief for the campaign. Coordinating a shoot time with my photographer comes next, all assuming weather permits (which it often doesn’t here in Florida). Once I iron out the details, I create a planning document in GoodNotes on my iPad. This process helps me to prepare in advance for my shoots and move quickly throughout the shoot date.
Consider the time you need after creating the content
I think sometimes it is easy to forget that there is a time requirement involved after shooting the photos. After shooting, I give myself about two hours to turnaround the content. I prefer to do so the day of as I find the longer I sit on it, the longer it takes me to turn in. So I try to just knock it out immediately and budget time for doing so.
Here’s my process: once the photoshoot is done, I review and edit photos, making sure they meet brand guidelines. After that, I’ll create my caption and send everything off to the brand for approval. This entire process allows me to be a better partner to brands. It also ensures that the content is meeting both of our needs.
Shoot on Weekends
Each week, I am consistently busy 9-to-5 Monday-Friday with my corporate marketing job in the financial services industry. Knowing this, I reserve all of my content shoots for the weekends!
As you know, I negotiate this into all of my contracts. With at least a two week turnaround time, I will have AT LEAST one weekend to work with when I’m planning out my shooting time.
I do plan to shoot most weekends – it’s always nice when a weekend frees up, but it’s better to block the time anyway. Sunday is usually my day of choice. My preference is to shoot in the afternoon or closer to golden hour. I’ll batch out all of my looks and products to shoot to ensure I’ll have time to accomplish everything.
Get Your Life Together on Sunday Night
This step is SO IMPORTANT to me – like if I miss it, $#@* hits the fan. I grab my iPad and plan out my days ahead in the GoodNotes app. My first step is to fill in all of my work meetings and commitments. For this, I’ll compare my schedule against my Outlook Calendar for work. I write in each meeting for the week in the schedule section.
Once I have a good idea of my work schedule for that week, I’ll plop in my workouts or any social engagements. I like having a page dedicated to each day in my planner. This helps me visualize my day and see when there are gaps when I can be accomplishing different tasks.
My planner on my iPad also has a to-do list section for each day. I’ll write different tasks such as “push blog post live” or “share X brand Instagram post”. I like to keep these separate from my work tasks. Visualizing all of my tasks on the same page helps me to understand all that I have going on each day, whether for work or my blog.
Content Scheduling
Creating a schedule for each month helps me stay on top of brand deals. Doing so helps me to ensure that brand deadlines aren’t overlapping. This process also helps me to make sure I’m not inundating my audience with sponsored post after sponsored post. I like to make sure I am sharing enough original content to break up the sponsored posts that I share. I keep this in mind even though I am selective with sponsored content. To me, it is important to ensure I genuinely love the product before I choose to share it.
Setting up my content calendar allows me to post 5-6 days a week to my Instagram feed, knowing exactly what to post each day. I like to take a monthly calendar view and fill in content and deadlines as I am aware of them. For example, I know I share Tip Tuesday posts every Tuesday, so I will block out those days and write in the topic as I come up with it. I write in any sponsored post dates.
In the side panel next to the calendar, I write in any posts I know I will be sharing this month. I also write in any brands I’d like to pitch that month. Lastly, I write down any ideas I have, and pencil them in for days I don’t have another post planned. Pretty quickly, the days fill up and I can have a clear idea in mind of what I am posting each day.
Posting Times
Since I work the typical hours of a 9-to-5 job with lots of meetings, I post at specific times. I post either before 9, between 12-1, or after 5. Following this schedule ensures that my posting times do not interfere with meetings or my corporate job. When I share a post, I like to make sure I can stay on for at least 30 minutes following the post to engage with my audience, so I factor this in when planning my posting dates and times
That’s it – those are the tips for ya! Do you work a full-time job in addition to a side hustle? What has worked well for you? Any tips? Share them below!
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