Sometimes being a student can feel like a full-time job. We have lectures to attend, essays to write and textbooks to read. In between classes and studying, we have some time to fill hanging out with friends, relaxing and, you know, doing essential things like eating and sleeping. Looking at our busy schedules, it can be difficult to see where we can fit in time for ourselves—not necessarily time to relax, but time to work on non-school-related interests or hobbies.
You may have heard the term “side hustle”—acknowledging that it’s a relatively new phrase with a potentially shifting meaning, Merriam Webster defines it as “work performed for income supplementary to one’s primary job.” Personally, I’d say that a side hustle doesn’t always have to involve earning a supplementary income. I have a blog that I write for at least once a week, and while I don’t earn money from it I know my blog has made me a better writer and critical thinker. Blogging has given me an audience for my writing, and helped me build my journalism portfolio.
If you take a moment to think about it, there’s probably something that you’d love to take up on the side of your schoolwork—be it pursuing something related to your field of study or not. What’s holding you back may not be a lack of passion or interest in the subject, but rather a perceived lack of time. As I’ve alluded to already, being a student is akin to working in a job (plus, many students do actually work part or full-time while in school). So where can you find the time to work on a side hustle?
Doing more than your schoolwork—pursuing a side project, developing a hobby—requires strong time management skills. I love the quote that says that we all have the same number of hours in a day as Beyoncé. I mean, you’re not going to see me dropping a Grammy-winning album any time soon; however, there are people who have done the things I’d like to accomplish in life who, just like the rest of us, have 24 hours in a day. All of your idols, the people you look up to, have 24 hours in a day.
The difference between most of us and our idols is that we have to fulfill all of the responsibilities that come with being a student. However, the idea remains: we have 24 hours in a day, and if we use them correctly then we can make time for the things that we want to do. If you often feel like you’re running out of time to do things, take one day and, throughout the day, write down everything you do and the time you spend on each activity. When you look at your list at the end of the day, you might be surprised by how many times little time-sucking activities appear (such as texting friends or scrolling through Twitter).
Becoming aware of those activities, which not only distract you but also eat away at your time, is a good way to start managing your time better. Once you are able to only focus on the necessary tasks sorry, social media is not counted in this) then you can tackle your schoolwork, breaking it into daily chunks that can help spread out your workload (and not result in you finishing everything in an all-nighter hours before the assignment is due). When you’re on top of your schoolwork, you then have time to focus on something like a side hustle.
While being a student can feel like a full-time job, it doesn’t have to be an experience where you leave university feeling like all you worked on was school-related. Push yourself to develop your own projects based on things you are passionate about and manage your time in a way that allows you to work on those projects. And voila! A new side hustle has been born.