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Today I’m speaking to those working full-time jobs while attempting to build businesses on the side. I have to disclose this, as other people will take this completely the wrong way.

As someone that spent years building on the side while I had 7am-6.30pm effectively stolen from me by my employer, I can say with absolute certainty that the best way to spend a whole day off work is not to working on things within my business. For most people in this position, evenings and weekend are the times when you get proper work done. I was there and, at one point, I even added lunch breaks into that.

With those times established as the times when you’re doing whatever it is that you need to do for your job, days off should be treated a little differently. I know you will always feel an annoyance that you don’t have enough time to get things done, but that’s why we’re going to treat this day a bit differently.

It’s vitally important, because if you don’t do it at a time like this, it’s most likely something that you only ever do when it’s an absolutely necessity. And it shouldn’t be, because it’s going to be the thing that determines what your day-to-day schedule will be like moving forward.

I no longer work a full-time job for someone else, but as a parent with young kids I still use these reset days in exactly the same way as I used to. If I know that I’ve got a rare day where the kids are out with the kids, I’ll make a fresh schedule for the day in which I’ll do something like:

8am-9am

  • Admin

9am-11am

  • Decide which projects are being prioritised and parked
  • Map out next month(s), day by day on Trello what I should be working on
  • Target-setting

11am-1pm

  • Amend process documents
  • Scheduling (social, content plans)

1pm-2pm

  • Lunch

2pm-3pm

3pm-5pm

  • Get some actual work done

It actually runs like that. And on some of those days – to be absolutely real – one of those hours (usually the first) might even be taken up by doing a declutter and deep clean of the house, so it’s a better environment to work in. There’s barely enough time to do it properly unless the kids are out of the home, because I always think there’s something better to do. Unless I’ve got the maddest deadlines to hit, I find that a day of resetting, scheduling and planning is a lot more important than one where I’m just doing all

Chiino
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