Starting a side project to make some extra cash can be tempting. But make sure you count the cost before jumping in with both feet.
Over the years, I’ve taken on numerous side hustles: I’ve built websites, produced wedding videos, and even started Redeeming Productivity—now my full-time work—as a side project. Through these experiences, I’ve made plenty of mistakes and learned a few valuable lessons about the tricky business of side hustles.
And I was thinking about those lessons as a set out to answer the following question from a newsletter reader:
“Should I start a side project to get me more income? I work at a Christian non-profit, which means my income is moderate. As a father of a family with three children, extra income would be great.”
Whether you’re already doing a side hustle or are considering taking one on, hopefully, the following insights and biblical principles can help you think more clearly about that decision.
Benefits of Side Hustles
When I say “side hustle,” “side project,” or “side gig,” I mean any way of making extra money that you take on in addition to your primary vocation. A side hustle differs from a hobby because it’s purpose is to produce additional income. Whether you’re flipping furniture, tutoring in the evenings, or delivering groceries, the main benefit is to garner a little more money.
Sometimes, however, you start a side hustle in the hopes that it could eventually become your full-time occupation.
I’m in a text thread with Christian YouTubers, and most want to incubate their channel part-time while working a full-time job so that they can eventually create content full-time. That’s an excellent example of another significant benefit of starting a side project. It de-risks a new venture, allowing you to test the waters before you burn the boats.
I’m a big fan of side projects for those reasons. But sometimes believers look at those benefits and jump into a side hustle without adequately pausing to consider the potential costs. And there are two in particular I had to learn about the hard way.
The Cost of Divided Focus
The biggest drawback of starting a side hustle is the cost of divided focus. I discuss a few other drawbacks in the podcast version of this article, but I think divided focus is the most important one.
Too often, we evaluate opportunities only in terms of time management. We think, “I’ve got all this extra time in the evenings. What if I put that into a side project?” But you need to consider not just time but also energy. There is a cost to splitting your attention.
I felt this keenly when I was writing and editing full-time for Not the Bee, while still also trying to produce weekly articles and a podcast for Redeeming Productivity on the side. When I looked at the hours of the day, I had the time to do both, but splitting my focus between the two was making me worse at both.
It was during this time that I read an issue of Aaron Renn’s newsletter that highlighted this issue. He wrote:
“If you have a side hustle then you lack focus on your main gig. That’s going to undermine your performance at some level.”
That helped me face reality. I either needed to stop doing Redeeming Productivity or go all in on it. I was shortchanging my employer and my side hustle because I wasn’t focused on either.
You’ve probably noticed this for yourself if you have a side hustle. Even when working at your main job, you’re always thinking about your side gig—new opportunities, how to improve it, next steps. And if we’re honest, we can effectively be stealing from our employers by not having our eye on the ball at work.
In the worst-case scenario, you end up using the time you’re supposed to be working for an employer to build your side gig in secret. I once knew a guy who was constantly trying to start side ventures during his working hours. That’s not right. Your boss is paying you for a job, not funding your start-up.
But even if you aren’t going that far, you still have to admit that a lack of focus is damaging to both ventures. But more than that, you’ve got to consider how divided focus affects your stewardship.
The Cost of Divided Stewardship
Your entire life is a stewardship (Matthew 25:14–30). And one of the big domains God has given you to steward is your vocation. What can happen when you take on a side hustle, however, is you split that domain in half. You bifurcate it such that now you have two vocations—your main job and your side job.
When you have a main gig only, theoretically, 100% of your working hours—the “vocation minutes” of your day—are dedicated to that. So when you’re at work, you’re at work. That’s the thing you’re focused on. Even when you’re away from work, sometimes you’re taking a shower or driving, thinking, “How am I going to solve that problem at work?”
But when you take on a side project, your attention is divided—part of your brain is thinking about the main gig, and part of it is thinking about the side gig. And something we often underestimate is that another portion of your brain manages the overhead of switching between these two modes of thinking—a sort of mental overhead.
Faithful stewardship means focused stewardship. You can’t do with excellence what you aren’t fully paying attention to. Our most significant consideration regarding vocation shouldn’t be “How much does it pay,” but “Am I doing what God has called me to do?” If you are doing what God has called you to do, you can trust Him to care for the money side of things. This is precisely what Jesus was promising in Matthew 6:25–34.
Things to Consider When Considering a Side Hustle
Let me conclude by reiterating that this is not an argument against taking on a side hustle, but rather an encouragement to count the costs.
Here are a few questions and considerations you might find helpful as you seek to prayerfully discern your next steps:
- Get clear on the end goal. If you are currently doing a side hustle or considering taking one on, get clear on the end goal. You want to live in this divided focus for a while. It’s unsustainable. Is the goal to earn extra income to pay off debt or get through an economic lull? Great. Define the number at which you’ll know you can stop. Is the goal to incubate something that might become full-time? Great. Could you define when you know it’s working well enough such that you can quit your main job and focus all your energies on it? And likewise, define when you’ll know it’s not working and it’s time to pull the plug.
- Do you really need the extra money? Perhaps you have a spending issue more than an earning issue. Or perhaps you are operating out of fear instead of faith. Are your anxieties about money coming from a lack of trust in God’s provision? It’s cheaper to keep a budget than to give up some extra spending money on your nights and weekends.
- Don’t use a side hustle to hide from the truth. Are you putting off the inevitable? Are you taking on this side hustle because you don’t want to do the more challenging thing of admitting you need to change jobs or career paths? Maybe you need to go back to school. Perhaps you need to talk to your employer about a raise. A side hustle won’t solve these problems. It will only delay the inevitable and make things worse in the long run.
- Should your side hustle be your main gig? Some folks rush into taking a full-time side venture before proving it viable. But the opposite can be just as bad. Out of fear, some chug along doing two things for far too long. At some point, you’ve got to make a decision. Am I going to go all in on this, or not? Don’t waste your life riding the fence out of fear.
- Ask: What will most glorify God? Still not sure what to do? Just ask that clarifying question prayerfully before the Lord. He promises to give wisdom to those who ask (James 1:5).
