Show Notes
In this solo episode of The Localist, host Carrie Rollwagen tackles a challenge familiar to many creatives and entrepreneurs — finding time for a side hustle while balancing the demands of a full-time job. Drawing from her own experience juggling a day job, podcast production and writing a book, Carrie shares practical and mindset-based strategies that help her stay productive and inspired. She emphasizes that while traditional advice — like waking up early or using lunch breaks — can be helpful, it often isn’t enough. Instead, she introduces more impactful tactics, like planning quarterly solo retreats, batching work on weekends and using passive time for research and creative inspiration.
Carrie discusses how changing environments, such as booking a hotel or visiting a favorite coffee shop, can dramatically improve focus and productivity. She also highlights the importance of maintaining a balance between work and rest to prevent burnout. Even when she’s too tired to produce, she finds ways to stay connected to her creative goals — like watching writing classes or reading about her craft. Carrie encourages listeners to rethink how they structure their time, making space for side projects in a way that’s both sustainable and fulfilling.
Mentioned in this episode:
Brandon Sanderson’s free class on fantasy writing
Localist episode with Ladybird Taco
Episode Transcript
Carrie
Welcome to the localist, a conversation with local business owners and independent entrepreneurs. I’m your host, author of The localist book and former small business owner, Carrie Rollwagen. So today I wanted to talk about finding time for your side hustle. So whether or not this is like a true side hustle where you’re just trying to make some extra money, or you maybe want to have a small business someday, or you want to level up in your career, or even if you just want to do something that’s kind of like a hobby, like writing a book or taking up painting, but it’s something that is actually difficult to find time for that you’re going to have to find some serious time. Then it can actually be difficult to work that into your normal routine.
Carrie
I think we get the advice pretty consistently that we can get up an hour early or use our lunch break, or stay late an hour at work, and all of that is good advice. And I do that if you’ve done something like this, you’ve probably done that too. But sometimes it’s also not enough. Like, sometimes you just need some sessions where you just make a lot of forward progress on your project, and you need those times. Like, part of it is that you need those because you just need to actually do more work or studying, or whatever it is. And to some extent, you also need those as like a like, a mental kind of push forward to say, like, I am making progress. Because when you make incremental progress day by day, yes, it’s true that that is where the real progress is. And over time it you actually are moving forward. But sometimes psychologically, it can be difficult, because when that is just moving forward, a little bit of it at a time, it feels like you’re not getting anywhere. So I do like to kind of have different ways to stay inspired, to stay motivated, and to really make time for deep work that is not exactly possible when we’re just carving a little bit of time at the beginning or end and or in the middle of our day.
Carrie
So there are a few different ways that I do this. So in my life, like I have a pretty demanding day job. I also have the localist, and I’m also trying to work on a book. So when I it is tough to find time to work on the book. And sometimes I do try to get up every morning and write. Sometimes that works, and sometimes I just don’t have it, you know, like, my day job is more demanding than usual, or the localist needs something else, or I’m just really tired, or I just don’t have the energy to kind of focus in. So even when that’s not happening, happening and I’m not doing the day to day, I do try to carve it, carve out different spaces.
Carrie
So one way I do this is to plan a retreat. So you may have like when you were in school, heard of people booking a hotel room for a couple of days just to kind of hole up and just study without anybody distracting them with a different environment. And I use this method a lot, even in my like, even post school. So I will literally book a hotel room or book an Airbnb, or sometimes I go to a place called Camp McDowell, where I am just going there with the sole intention of doing work. So I find that, first of all, a lot of times I try to go to somewhere on the retreat that actually looks cool and is inspiring, like nature, essentially. So that does help. But even when I don’t do that, and even when I’m just in a hotel room, it helps me a lot. First of all, it just gives me uninterrupted time to actually work on my project. Also, I find myself doing checking social media, talking on the phone, kind of wasting time less, just by putting myself in a different environment. So it is weird to say that I need to go somewhere else to save myself from myself, to get to get my habits a little bit different, and to make make sure I’m only focusing on this thing. But personally, I do need that, and ideally I try to do this like once a quarter. That doesn’t always work out, but usually, if I try to plan for once a quarter, I end up going, like twice a year. So that that is helpful, and it is also, like, just helpful for me to say, like, I’m on a writing retreat, or I’m gonna knock out a bunch of work, and that, just like, mentally helps me a lot. I do have some I think I have a newsletter list of things that you can do to make your retreats more successful. We have a localist episode on that as well. So if you are wanting to deep dive into doing a retreat, retreat and what’s involved in that, then I can definitely help you there, because I’ve done I’ve done this a lot, and I have a lot of thoughts and a lot of not necessarily expertise, but I have lists and what’s worked and what’s not worked, and hopefully that can help you out. So I do find that taking that time and setting aside that time and planning a retreat is a great way to make forward progress.
Carrie
Another thing I like to do is to remind myself that I don’t always have to be doing something in order to be progressing. So it is also helpful to research. At the end of the day I don’t have a lot of mental capacity left to actually write my book. I am like, still have kind of what’s been going on the day in the day buzzing around in my head, and it’s hard for me to flip the switch and be in that world of fiction. However, I can research the book, so I like to watch master classes. I think that’s a really great program. If you don’t want to pay for masterclass, you can find tons of free stuff on YouTube for writing. I kind of do both. There are a lot of master classes by really great writers, and also there’s a free class by Brandon Sanderson on YouTube that I’m watching on fantasy writing. So whatever it is you’re doing, there’s tons of stuff about it on YouTube, on the internet. You can read books, you can watch things. And I find that even when I’m kind of exhausted from the work day and I can’t produce more work, I still can stay inspired and remind myself like kind of stay in that world. So throughout the week, I can’t necessarily make progress on my side hustle, but I can remind myself that this is something that matters to me, and I’m still kind of like dipping a toe into that so that when I am able to revisit it, it isn’t like, oh my goodness, like, where even am I? I felt like a different person. And now I’m trying to shift into this mode. I can just kind of shift into that mode a lot more easily.
Carrie
And then I also will batch work on the weekends, so throughout the week, if I it’s very hectic, I typically just will kind of dip into, like, research or inspiration, but I do set aside those weekends. Now, to me, this is very different than when I go on a retreat, because when I go on a retreat, I’m like, blocking off the entire two or three days to do work. On the weekends, I don’t want to do that. Like if I worked 48 hours every weekend, well, obviously I would sleep, so I wouldn’t do that. But even if I work like Saturday and Sunday every weekend, I would get burned out really easily. So what I try to do is make sure I have at least one day that’s like a Sabbath day or a rest day, and for me, that’s usually Saturday, and then on Sunday, I have a little ritual that is working like it is doing work, but it’s also a little bit of a respite for me. So I go to a coffee shop I love a lot. I go to LadyBird coffee, which who we’ve had on the podcast, but i The people there are really nice. Their coffee is really good, and I just enjoy it’s like, really easy for me. I kind of go and typically get my own table. I like the ritual or the routine of that. And so throughout the week, I will dip into whatever project I’m working on and kind of prep it with the idea that I will at least block off a couple hours in the morning on the weekend to kind of make forward progress.
Carrie
So if you are doing something like this and trying to level up or trying to do something different, and your life is just not allowing you to get much time on a day to day basis, these are three things I would try, like, try and see if you can plan a retreat. If you can’t plan a retreat, maybe see if you can get a few hours alone on the weekend. I would say it probably is best to leave the house for that so you don’t have those distractions around you. And whether or not you can do one of those things, maybe look at some ways to research, even watching movies or like, if you are a musician, like listening to inspiring music, something that reminds you of doing this thing that you want to do, and can kind of like remind you again why this is worth it, why you want this can be really helpful. So I hope these tips work for you as well as they have worked for me, and that you’re able to move forward on whatever area of life that you want to even when your daily life is pretty hectic.
Carrie
So the localist is written and produced by me, Carrie Rollwagen. We record right here at infomedia studios. So if you’re interested in podcasting, or you want us to shoot some social media, like reels for you, or you want blogs or anything to do with media or your website, hits up at infomedia.com and fill out that contact form. We would love to help. We love shooting in here, and we would love to have you in here too. Our showrunner on the localist is Taylor Davis. Jen Tucker is our outreach manager, and Alana Harmond is our promotions Manager. You can find show notes at carrierollwagen.com and you can find me on pretty much all social media @crollwagen. So until next time, here’s to thinking global by acting local and putting small shops before big box.