5 Reasons Why I Like Working Full-Time Alongside Creating Content
Updated: Jan 27
I work 42 hours a week from Monday to Saturday at my day job.
Yet every week, I write:
1 Medium article
3 LinkedIn posts
5 tweets
Social media content for clients
Now, this article isn’t about how I manage my time to write while working full-time.
This article is about why I like working full-time alongside creating content. And I hope it inspires you to do the same.
1 – It fuels your writing.
What do I mean by this?
Well, you’re always learning at work.
You learn how to interact with people. You learn how to handle criticism and rejection. You learn how to deal with and overcome setbacks. And you learn how to manage conflicts.
These lessons are building your character. They’re making you a person of depth.
And if you instil these teachings in your writing, it makes your articles more insightful, valuable, and relatable to your readers.
2 – It forces you to have more structure in your day.
If you don’t schedule content creation time in your calendar…
If you don’t know when you’ll create content…
Then, you’ll never get around to doing it.
Because if you’re always trying to find time for it:
You’re killing your creativity because you’re wasting valuable brain power searching for a pocket of time to create.
You’ll wait for inspiration to hit before you find time to create, so you’ll most likely be waiting forever.
More often than not, you’ll give in to the path of least resistance. Meaning, you’ll find an excuse not to write.
Maybe, your excuse is you’re too tired after work. Your friend asked you out for coffee. Or you just want to binge-watch Single's Inferno with your partner.
And you think… “I’ll do it later.”
But guess what, later usually becomes never.
3 – You get to socialize with others.
If you’re an introvert who lives alone in a foreign country like me, then having a job gives you your daily dose of social interaction with others.
Look, I get it. It’s hard to make friends as an adult.
It’s a lot easier in school because you meet tons of new people every day in class.
But when you’re an adult, most people have already established their close circle of friends from their high school and university days.
So, you really have to put in loads of effort, and be bold and brave, if you want to meet people and make friends in a new city.
You’d have to strike up conversations with random strangers in a café. You’d have to attend meetups. You’d have to go to classes you’re interested in like dance or pottery.
But… doing those things is 10x harder when you’re an introvert.
This is why I like having a job alongside creating content. Because I get to see and connect with my colleagues. And I get to meet others through them.
4 – It forces you to be disciplined.
Even if you have your day planned out on Google Calendar…
Even if you know when you’re going to write…
None of that will matter if you don’t have discipline and execute your plan.
If you don’t create content at the time you planned, then:
You’re going to sacrifice your me-time or family time to do it.
Or you just won’t do it at all.
Both of which aren’t great.
5 – You enjoy it more.
I made enough money to pay the bills and buy things I wanted when I was freelancing and creating content.
But I felt a lot of pressure to keep finding clients in case something happened. And I felt a lot of pressure to “make it” and make money quickly. Plus, I created content for others, and I found out I didn’t enjoy that.
All of these factors eventually killed my creativity because creating content became a job rather than an enjoyable hobby.
So, I went back to my regular day job.
And now, I pay the bills with the income from my job. And I:
Make extra money from writing online by working with clients I like
Enjoy content creation much more with the pressure off of my shoulders
Wrapping Things Up
As a recap, here are 5 reasons why I like working full-time alongside creating content. And I hope it inspires you to do the same.
It fuels your writing.
It forces you to have more structure in your day.
You get to socialize with others.
It forces you to be disciplined.
You enjoy it more.
I hope you found this helpful. Thank you for reading!
Photo by Domenico Loia on Unsplash