- 4 months ago
NYC, Entrepreneurship, & Healthy Living
Howdy, I'm Taylor. I'm a 20 something former management consultant and ivy-league grad from California turned solopreneur in New York City, and I love making videos that follow all of the above. Stick around 😊
Howdy, I'm Taylor. I'm a 20 something former management consultant and ivy-league grad from California turned solopreneur in New York City, and I love making videos that follow all of the above. Stick around 😊
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LearningTranscript
00:00Hello, this is Taylor. If you're new here, I'm a 26-year-old former management consultant and
00:05YouTuber, recently turned full-time YouTuber, and that's exactly what we're going to talk about
00:10today. How I balanced two full-time jobs for three years. And spoiler alert, I'm not just
00:16going to tell you the typical productivity tips and tricks like time blocking and prioritizing,
00:21partially because I don't just want to make a run-of-the-mill productivity video, but
00:24mainly because I genuinely didn't even do those things. I'm not awesome at time management,
00:29believe it or not. So yeah, these tips might not be what you're expecting. And at the very end,
00:33we're going to discuss whether I would even recommend this, to have two jobs and build the
00:38other one up until it can stand on its own, or to just go all in on the one that you presumably love.
00:44And I got to address something kind of important right now. A lot of people referred to my management
00:49consulting job as my 9-to-5. And I need to clarify, management consulting is anything but a 9-to-5.
00:56It was more like 10 to 12 hour days on average, with exceptions. And I definitely took advantage
01:01of those exceptions, but certainly not a 9-to-5. And I don't tell you that to be self-aggrandizing,
01:05but to highlight the actual scarcity of time that I had left over to dedicate to YouTube. Because
01:11these tips would actually be quite different if consulting was a 9-to-5. That actually leaves
01:15you with a decent amount of extra time. So yeah, I just had to flag that. So let's jump in. And if
01:20you've been here before and you care to like and subscribe, it helps me out a lot. And it's my
01:24full-time job now. So I'd really appreciate it. All right, let's go.
01:30All right, the first thing I did is less of a thing and more so me laying some really important
01:36groundwork here. I leveraged my genuine passion as fuel and motivation. A lot of buzzwords. I know,
01:42it sounds great, Taylor. What does that even mean? So let's talk about what I mean,
01:45why I think it's so important, and how this could apply to you. So when my friends would ask me this
01:49question, you know, how do you do the two jobs? My answer was always, I don't know, I just do it.
01:56Or I just do it through brute force, I know I've said before. And that is the truth. But when I sat
02:00down to write this video, I was like, okay, Taylor, but how? And I came to the kind of annoyingly simple
02:06conclusion that I was able to do both because I actually wanted to do it. I wanted to do YouTube.
02:13And so before diving into the more nuanced tips, because I do have some, I do think it's important
02:18to note that at a high level, it was this genuine love for the thing that kept me doing it. Because
02:23I could have just easily say it in consulting or say it in the corporate world and just said,
02:27peace to YouTube forever as that fun side hustle I did during COVID. But no, it was the thing that
02:31energized me and gave me purpose and fulfillment a lot more than consulting did. I don't tell you this
02:36so you think, oh wow, she's so passionate. No, it's because all the best time management and
02:41productivity tips in the world would not have got me to put in the hours on some side hustle with the
02:46free time that I had when consulting left me with so little free time to start with. I did it because
02:51I wanted to do it, period. Dare I say I needed to do it, but more on that later. So last thing on
02:56this, to be brutally honest, if your second job or side hustle doesn't give you that same feeling of
03:01energy and motivation, I doubt it would be sustainable to maintain alongside another demanding
03:08full-time job like consulting. Unless you're an absolute machine and just don't care about having a
03:12social life. So what's the tip here? Well, like I said, it's less of a tip and more so laying some
03:16groundwork. But if I had to squeeze a tip out of it, I would say to really pay attention to what
03:22energizes you and figure out how to harness that. Because once you know what that thing is for you,
03:27putting in the hours for it really doesn't feel like work. And I just think it's a really cool
03:31thing to know what that thing is for you. Okay, now let's get into what you came here for. Cold,
03:35hard tips and tricks. Next thing I did, like actually did, was efficient creation. This tip might sound
03:42very specific to video making, but stay with me, it will apply more broadly as well. So efficient
03:47creation. While I was doing both jobs, I simply had much less time to dedicate to YouTube, obviously.
03:53And so when I did make videos, I focus on making ones with a workflow that best fit with my consulting
03:59schedule. Typically, those videos were sit-down videos like this one. These types of videos are
04:04more efficient to make because most of the work is in the script writing rather than in the filming or
04:09editing. And this was more efficient for me because what I could do was pull out a script
04:14and write for 20 or 30 minutes at a time when I had breaks from consulting. What I could not do,
04:19unfortunately, was edit a video for 20, 30 minutes at a time because I need like many hours to get in
04:25a creative flow to do good editing, personally. And I couldn't just film for 30 minutes at a time.
04:30I mean, vlogs maybe, but I had nothing in my life film worthy during my 30-minute breaks,
04:34I'll tell you that much. It would just be like me in the bathroom looking through memes.
04:37So what my YouTube workflow looked like during this time was I would chip away little by little
04:42at a script. Once it was ready, I would film the entire thing on a Saturday or Sunday. And then I
04:46would edit it the following weekend. Or if I had a good amount of free hours, some weekday evenings,
04:51and I had the energy to do it, I would work on it then. And these sit-down videos are also much
04:55easier to edit than, say, a vlog because it's mainly just cutting, transitions, audio adjustments,
05:02overlays, versus vlogs are much more involved. So applying this to a broader audience,
05:06not making videos, figure out what parts of your workflow you can do for small chunks at a time,
05:12versus the ones where you actually need many hours to do a good job at it. This will differ
05:16person to person. I wish I could just knock out some editing in small time increments,
05:21but I know I can't. What I can do in small increments is right. So figuring out how I kind
05:25of mentally compartmentalize these different parts of my workflow definitely helped me balance it
05:30alongside my consulting job. It is very worth noting that I don't think I made my best videos during
05:35this time, but, you know, I do think that quantity produces quality to some extent. You need to get
05:41your reps in, and so at least I made them. And done is better than perfect a lot of the time.
05:46The third thing I did, perhaps counterintuitively, was I actually took breaks. Like, seriously. And this
05:53was essential for being able to balance the two. So to be totally clear, I posted videos very
05:58infrequently while I was in consulting compared to now. And that's because, while it might not sound like
06:02it, I only made videos when I had some time to do it. If I was on a crazy project with long hours
06:08and consulting, I wasn't making videos. Period. Because with whatever little slivers of free
06:13time I had during the crazy projects, I'd usually take those to relax or see friends or catch up on
06:18sleep. Just the basic, you know, mental sanity maintenance. Because if I held myself to the
06:23standard of posting videos every few weeks while I was also in consulting, I would have totally burned
06:28out, like, permanently and fallen out of love with it. Now, to be fair to myself, when I was on more
06:32chill consulting projects and actually had some free time in the evenings and more energy on the
06:37weekends because I'd be more well-rested, I was pretty good at taking advantage of that free time.
06:41But more on how I took advantage of that free time in a minute. So my tip here was very simple.
06:45I think it's counterproductive to force yourself to work past a reasonable capacity, even if it's on
06:50something you love. Take breaks when you need to. Maintain a social life. Otherwise, things can get
06:54pretty lonely pretty fast. Next thing I did was always keep sight of my long-term goal.
07:01Just pretend it's over there. Whatever that is for you, write that shit down. Of course, it can be
07:06subject to change. In fact, I actually think it should be. I don't think we should box ourselves
07:10in as we grow and change and evolve as people because goals change with us. But in my case,
07:14I knew that I only wanted to be in consulting for about two years before moving on to something else,
07:19which is actually normal, by the way. The average lifespan of a consultant is a little over two years.
07:24Which might sound weird, but that's the business model. So I knew I wanted to learn as much as I
07:28could while I was in consulting, build my consulting toolkit, as they call it, and then move on to
07:33something more specific and tailored to my interests afterwards. After not too long, though,
07:38I realized that I wanted that thing afterwards to be my own business, specifically my YouTube channel
07:44and the revenue streams and business that you can build off of that. And so knowing that that's what
07:48I was working towards and had to look forward to was a really helpful North Star in keeping myself
07:53energized and motivated. And this especially came in handy during the most challenging times in
07:58consulting. And you might think, well, Taylor, if you knew that that's what you wanted to do the
08:02whole time, didn't that make you super unmotivated to do a good job at consulting? At the very end,
08:07yes. But for almost the whole entire time before that, no, actually. I actually noticed that rising
08:13tides on my YouTube channel also lifted my consulting votes. I don't know why I'm speaking a metaphor,
08:18but basically I noticed that when my YouTube channel was doing well, I also felt more energized
08:23and motivated to do a good job at my consulting job. So what's the tip here? Keep those North Star
08:28goals in mind. Without them, I think it can be very easy to just kind of stay where you are without
08:34actually thinking about why you're there. And I am just a huge proponent of being very intentional
08:39with these career decisions. Even if you stay right where you are, that's perfectly awesome. I'm not
08:44saying a corporate job for everyone, but having a reason for being where you are, I think is very
08:49important. Even if that reason is that it's a really good stepping stone. Hello. So I actually
08:54conflated just a general career advice that I would give with the tip. So the general career advice is
09:02just thinking if my room is messy, the general career advice is what I just said to keep those long
09:07term goals in mind, because I think it really helps you make intentional career decisions. I stand by
09:12that. But that's actually not the tip here. The tip was not necessarily have a side hustle, but to
09:17have hobbies and passions and things that you like working on outside of work, because that at least
09:23helped me stay motivated and energized in my consulting job. So they're two separate things. It's a very
09:28kind of hard to notice difference. But you know what I mean? Do I need to do this aside? Maybe not.
09:34Let's carry on. The next thing I did was surround myself with winners. But actually, this isn't something I
09:39did consciously. But the people that like my friends that I spent time with during this era,
09:44who are largely still the people I spent time with, absolutely encouraged my dual pursuits and
09:49didn't make me feel weird or self-conscious for doing this other thing that was not traditional
09:54compared to the rest of my peers, which is more important than you might think, by the way. I know
09:58what it feels like to not have a supportive network, and it is not fun. So the tip here is to really pay
10:03attention to this. Take a look at your circle and ask yourself, are these people bringing me up and
10:08encouraging my passions? Because without that, having to rely on your own conviction and gut
10:12feeling, it's doable, but it is much harder. The next tip is as close as we're going to get to a
10:18typical productivity hack, but I'm going to try and add some nuance. I effectively took advantage of my
10:24free time. So by effectively, I don't just mean that I worked on YouTube and I had free time instead
10:29of scrolling on social media. I mean that I paid attention to what times during the week I felt the
10:34most effective and creatively inspired and planned to do my most creative work during those times. I
10:40call those times my effective windows. I just made that up, but I think it's good. Versus some other
10:45times when I might have had some free hours in the evening after I finished my consulting work, but I
10:50felt kind of mentally drained from the day. Sure, that's free time, but it's not an effective window.
10:54And so I would just do like YouTube admin work or just some kind of work that didn't involve
10:59creativity. An actual example for me that I lived by when I had both jobs, my most effective window
11:05was on Sundays. Because by the time Sunday rolled around, usually I had caught up on a little bit
11:10of sleep or at the very least had fun with friends on Friday and Saturday. And so I felt motivated and
11:15energized by the time Sunday came to work on YouTube. Plus, I've always kind of treated Sunday like
11:20more of a me day where I can choose to do whatever I want. And like I said, I wanted to do YouTube.
11:25So I usually did most of my video editing on Sundays. I'd go for a walk if the weather is
11:30nice, grab my coffee, you know, a tailored day. So the tip here is kind of similar to what I said
11:35earlier about paying attention to which parts of your workflow you can do a little bit out of a
11:40time versus what you need like a lot of hours for, but it's slightly different. Pay attention to the
11:44times in your week and the places where you feel the most creative, inspired or effective and plan your
11:50work accordingly. And you can kind of combine these tips. So for the parts of your workflow,
11:55that are much harder and require more creative juices, sync those up to the effective windows,
12:00whatever it looks like for you. I think this is a good way to just more effectively squeeze out
12:05good work from the limited amount of time that you have. So what I even recommend doing what I did
12:11having two jobs, specifically one very demanding full-time job and one side hustle or other thing
12:17that you're very passionate about. Yes and no. Yes, because from a risk mitigation standpoint,
12:22I had built a strong enough foundation with YouTube that by the time I left consulting,
12:27it was more of a calculated risk than a rash one. And doing both for the three years that I did is
12:32what allowed me to build that foundation and have so much conviction around my decision.
12:37But it was really hard. I will not sugarcoat it. And that might be why this list of tips
12:43feels kind of short and like not your typical practical ones because I really wasn't even
12:47in a place to balance the two jobs. I found it to be very unsustainable. And if I had kept up with
12:53it the way I was doing it, one of two things would have happened. One is it would have eventually
12:57fizzled out like I was posting one video a month, you know, it would have turned into one video every
13:01two months. And it just kind of would have died a slow, painful death. Or I would have forced myself to
13:07post more frequently. And like I said, I think that would have permanently burned me out. And I just would have fallen out of love with it.
13:12And so while I am all for being a boss babe and having side hustles, I do think it's important to
13:17be aware of these trade-offs that you might be making. Because to be truly great and reach your
13:22potential at something, I do think you have to go all in on it. Eventually. I have so many more insights
13:27into the full-time creator life and the associated finances coming very soon. So thumbs up and subscribe
13:34so you don't miss it. It's totally free. And again, I would really appreciate it. Until next time, turtle out.
13:40Also, did you spot the turtle?
13:42I'll see you in the next video.
13:43I'll see you in the next video.
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