Alarm Clock — 11:56 pm: Reading

In the jam of our side hustling, you may forget what in the end counts the most. Studying.

Building your online platform, mailing list and social media sharing system is a chore that takes a good amount of work and concentration. It is enjoyable, yes, but quite demanding. Hence, you need to carve out time for it during the day (or night). At the same time, you have to create content, without which your mailing list and online platform cannot exist. And that also takes a good amount of time and concentration.

Finally, you have to cram these two essential and important tasks in the time you have left from your day job; a double shift restaurant service which breaks the side hustling routine in various, discontinuous chunks in my case. This is the most frustrating part. You don’t get things done when you want them to, you have to gather your forces all over again and focus despite the fatigue and sleep hovering on your eyelids.

In all of this, you neglect the most precious part. Studying. Reading.

Two days ago I received in the mail Your Creative Career, Anna Sabino ‘s book on turning your side hustle into your full time, rewarding job. It is an astounding book. Every one of us, both starters and experts solopreneurs should have it on their shelves. That book is my study material and I have to cut out space and time to read it and study it, despite all of the work I have to do. I cannot let the work schedule devour all of my time and neither should you.

There will always be work to do. A pretty damn lot of it. But if you do not stop to study a little each day, your work will look like coming from a drying well. You will feel it and worse, your audience will too.

*Alarm Clock is a 30-part series of tales of self-awareness and awakening. Sometimes we are blind to our inner power and we need a third eye to watch over us. And a voice to bring us back to reality, before it’s too late.