I’m always struggling with how to balance my work. I don’t want to focus too much on projects that don’t generate much or any income right now but not also spend all my time on work where I make money but the income and growth potential are low. Lately, I’ve been starting to get frustrated when I feel like I’m spending too much time on projects that don’t bring in any income right now. But I’m resisting the urge to drop this work because I know that 1) I still have a job that provides steady income and 2) I’m building up for the long-term and for greater returns. Steve Jobs (thank you for everything and R.I.P.) didn’t build Apple overnight. He even ate free meals because he was so broke at one point in his life. But he succeeded by not being short-sighted. Here’s how to look at it in your life.

Short-term versus long-term

This isn’t really anything too scientific or complex, but this is how I group projects and work:

Short-term – This is something that generates money right now. It’s typically a time exchange for money (not passive), and there’s little potential for scale or growth. Pay is relatively low and probably won’t increase substantially.

Some examples: your job (for most people), selling stuff on eBay, anything that earns less than $25 an hour (arbitrary amount – this is just the ballpark for me right now) and you have to directly be doing it to earn money.

Long-term – This generates little or no money right now. It’s typically something that you spend time on with the hope that returns will be much higher in the future. It also has at least some passive income potential. If it does involve a time exchange for money, there’s an upside for increasing your hourly rate.

Some examples: creating a product, building a website and increasing traffic to it, building some other kind of business, or (if you don’t want to start a business) managing your investments

How to break it down by time

Here’s what my weekly breakdown looks like currently (I’m now tracking my side-work time):

Time spent on short-term work/projects

• Job – 35 hours a week
• Freelance writing – 3 hours a week

Total short-term = 38 hours

Time spent on long-term work/projects

• Freelance work/partnerships – 10 hours
• Blogging – 5 hours

Total long-term = 15 hours

Total short-term and long-term = 53 hours

Short-term time, percentage of total = 72%

Long-term time, percentage of total = 28%

This is just a rough idea to give you an idea of where I’m at. I realize this is pretty rudimentary, but I do have limited time to get stuff done, so I need to be effective with my time.

What if you don’t have a job?

Personally, I think as much time as possible should be devoted to long-term projects and goals. After all, these projects have larger and more desirable returns, they just take longer to get to. I want to get rid of the low-paying, short-term stuff as quickly as possible. Ideally, I would devote nearly 100% to long-term goals, but that’s not possible when you need some form of income to live.

Once I leave my job next year, I imagine that my time will shift to about 60% short-term and 40% long-term initially. This is mostly because I don’t expect that everything I do for immediate income will bring in a lot of $$ – I’ll probably have to settle for some lower-paid work that will simply take more hours to earn the level of income that I need than I would hope.

The best part about this model is that the more success that the long-term work brings and guarantees, the more you can “re-invest” time into other long-term projects. Once you start seeing returns from your long-term ventures, there’s less of a need to do the crappy, short-sighted stuff just to bring in income. My long-term goals are much more tied to my interests and aspirations in life rather than simply collecting money and living life day-to-day.

Does it have to be so complicated?!

Absolutely not. I’m just an analytical person, so I like to look at the numbers whenever possible (after all, numbers don’t lie). Don’t make this overly complicated. You don’t need to track hours and break it all down with percentages. At the very least, just have an idea of how you’re spending your time, and re-evaluate on a regular basis to check on yourself. If you’re busy putting out fires all the time and haven’t done anything to look at the long-term, that’s a problem.

Cliche (but true) – It’s a marathon, not a sprint.

Do you evaluate what you do  in terms of short- and long-term? How does your time break down?

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photo by: Gamma-Ray Productions

As many of you know, I still have a full-time job where I work the typical 9-5. While I think this has provided me great structure, it has, of course, made things challenging for me, including keeping up with this blog. I know that’s nothing new, but I’ve managed to write consistently on Money Spruce for almost 8 months now, which is something I’m proud of and has been no small accomplishment. However, as I’ve taken on more responsibilities, it’s been harder to manage my time. Altogether, I’d say I’m at about 70% effectiveness in terms of how I spend my time productively, so I think there’s still room for improvement. Here’s what works and what doesn’t.

What Works Best

Keeping my schedule clear Monday-Thursday.  I do my best to not schedule any social events Mon-Thur after work. This is generally my most productive time during the week, and I like to make the most of it. I know I won’t get as much done on Friday and Saturday, which gives me more motivation to work on things during the week.

Scheduling my work. I’ve done a great job scheduling block of time on weeknights after work. I don’t always follow it perfectly, but it helps me prioritize and gives me the ability to be realistic about what I can get done, too.

Setting deadlines. I’ll never miss a deadline, especially if someone else is waiting for me and/or holding me accountable. Missing deadlines is unacceptable to me, so I just don’t do it. Whenever possible, I set real deadlines for myself to make what needs to happen, happens.

What I Still Struggle With

I wish I was perfect in dealing with all these things, but they have posed some tough challenges.

Days without the structure of my job. Simply put, I’m not as effective on days completely off from work as I am on workdays. This is mostly because of how I’ve made this side business work so far, but I need to figure out how to effectively devote more time to side ventures.

Burnout. When filling my nights and weekends with work after coming home from work, it’s easy to get burned out. Generally, I’ve experienced a fairly wide range of emotions when it comes to my side work. But I’ve never come close to throwing in the towel on everything.

Distractions. Most other 9-5ers don’t attempt to work nearly around-the-clock like I do. Those that work full-time, like me, often take the nights and weekends off completely. My friends want to hang out and do things during the times that I want to be productive, which makes it hard to say “no.”

Mornings. I simply can’t get things done in the morning before work. For now, I prefer to stay up as late as possible and then just sleep later in the morning. Plus, it seems I’m most creative later on in the day, anyway.

What Will Help

Partner Up. If the right opportunity comes along, I’d love to partner on an exiting project. Who knows, maybe some opportunities will come my way at FINCON11 next week! There’s definitely potential with the crew in Location Rebel, too.

Keep accountability. I just started my accountability journal to coincide with Think Traffic’s Million Dollar Blog Project. Based on what he’s seen in his paid courses, Corbett is convinced that those that keep a journal are much more likely to succeed. I’m committing to updating this at least once a week, and making sure I stay on task. Please, keep me accountable, and I’ll let you know how well it works for me!

Schedule more effectively. I’m a believer in scheduling my time in order to get the most done. It helps me prioritize my work but also helps me to figure out when I’m doing to schedule in some fun stuff. I’m going to do my best to schedule time on weekends, too, so I can get what I need done while working around other commitments and activities.

Keep a regular “shut down” schedule. It’s easy to feel like you need to be doing work all the time. But that’s simply not going to happen. In order to keep the overwhelm low, I’d like to try shutting down my computer at the same time every week. I’m thinking something like Saturdays after noontime would be best to get away from the computer.

Practice. As I pointed out, I’m currently not very effective at working on days when I don’t work. There’s too little structure. But, the reality is that, if I’m going to quit my job, every day will be like this. My plan: take a few days and practice treating it like a freelance work day. I’ll do this either on holidays, vacation days, or, perhaps, Saturdays. This would be a good test for coworking, too. Whatever it takes, I need to get this down.

Do you have any struggles like these? Share in the comments.

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photo by: Philo Nordlund

As I announced on here a few weeks ago, I’m starting a new position at my nonprofit soon (August 29). I’m super psyched to finally be getting paid more than the meager stipend I get now. But I’m also pumped for my 2 week break before I officially start my job! I’m camping in NH and ME for the first week, then hitting the beach in Cancun for the second half. It’s not vacation time, so it’s unpaid leave, but I don’t mind that at all. Here’s why it works out so well:

I’ll save my valuable vacation time. I only get 15 total days of *paid* vacation per year, and this is the only time off that I’m allowed. I’m very stingy with those 15 days. I don’t take them off for just anything, and I’ll go months without using a vaca day if there’s not a good reason to use this time off. But I’ve gotten around the 15 day max by taking an unpaid leave while I change positions. Now, I’ll have a total of 25 days off this year, not even counting all the holidays I get, too. Yes, 10 of those 25 days will be unpaid, but time is more important than money to me at this point, so I’ll gladly take the unpaid time.

I’ve been inspired by some great stories of other people doing this, whether it’s been taking the time between jobs or just requesting unpaid time.

One of my co-workers (back in my days of being an engineering intern) took 6 months off from work to sail the Caribbean with his wife on his own boat. I caught up with him afterwards, and he explained the that it was one of the most amazing things he’d done in his entire life. He left his position on leave without the guarantee that he’d have a job when he got back because he was that committed to taking this awesome trip. The company liked him so much that they gave him his position back (although I’m certain he would have much rather still been sailing).

My sister is in a similar position this summer. Ally quit her (awful) job back in May. Instead of searching for a new job right away, she decided to take the summer and travel across the country by bicycle. They’re off having a blast somewhere on the West Coast right now. You can read more about their fun journey on their site Free Wheel Women.

I’m planning a similar escape to Ally’s for myself next summer. These two weeks off this year will be great, but I really want more. My new position is more or less temporary, and I plan to leave in May 2012. After that, the possibilities are limitless as to where I’ll travel. I’ve already thought about buying an around-the-world ticket and stopping in places like New Zealand, Holland, Czech Republic, and Ireland. I’m definitively considering South America, too. I have a ton of frequent flyer miles to work with, which will definitely come in handy.

After this journey, I’m not exactly sure what I’ll do. With my freelance career heating up, perhaps I won’t even come back to the U.S. for months.

I’ve digressed a bit, but my main point is that people that don’t take time off between jobs are really missing out. I’m not saying you have to take half a year off, but at least give yourself a break and take a few weeks. Most new employers will agree to that without a problem. You’ll be saving vacation time, or, if your job doesn’t provide vacation time to start with, you’ll at least have a break before you have to work months on end. If you’re a recent graduate, give yourself a few weeks after graduation to relax a bit and reward yourself for hard work. If money isn’t an issue for you and you’re always wishing you had more time to do what you love, this is really a no-brainer.

Have you taken time off between jobs?

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photo by: jthetzel