Side hustles & hobbies: the keys to a balanced life/work

You hear every day of the benefits of a side hustle. It balances your primary work life, helps supplement your income, provides a creative outlet, or enhances your primary career. Hobbies, which are equally important, help you energize and develop a different level of creativity. I would argue, hobbies refocus your brain away from the challenges you face at work every day. It’s vitally important to be able to set them aside for a time and engage in something different.

How do I know this – first-hand experience. Though I’m only in the mid-point of my professional career, the past few years has taught me a thing or two about being too involved in work. Even if you love what you do (maybe, especially if you love what you do), work can consume you, leaving little time for you to be YOU outside of the office. A few of my hobbies were able to eek out an existence amongst the 16+ hr days of the past few years, yet all my creative pursuits fell to the wayside. I’ve realized those creative pieces energize me in a different way which, in turn, enhances my performance at work.

One of the side hustles/hobbies that squeaked through the past 6 years was canning. Yes, you heard that right: that old-time activity of taking raw food, putting it into jars, and sacking away for a year. And yes, I do realize, although love to forget, that everything we process and can is readily available in the grocery store.

But there’s something about canning we love. We used to have a huge garden (like 1,200 sq feet huge) where we grew, ate and processed everything that came out of it. On good years, I would show up at work multiple times a week with my “Dorothy basket” full of tomatoes, green peppers, chilies, and jalapenos to share.

When we moved, our new yard wasn’t conducive to such a large garden and neither was our schedule. We had a choice – do the garden or continue canning. We chose canning. And then a we met an organic farmer who could grow what we wanted to process. Bingo – we get to continue something we love.

When you farm, you realize how fickle Mother Nature is. Some year’s the weather works with you, some years against you. While 2020 has been crazy in more ways than one, middle TN weather has been ideal for growing – like really ideal.

Thus a few weeks ago we turned 57 pounds of green beans into 114 pints. Yes, just for two people. This continues to ensure I don’t have to buy canned green beans from the store for another 2ish years, which would break our almost 10 year run of eating our own green beans.

Since EVERYONE I tell about this unique hobby is super interested, I thought I’d share some pics of the process. No, none of this is really related to leadership, employee experience or HR, but it feeds that creative part of me, enabling me to step back into my work life energized and excited.

Psst – I realize based on the definition of a “side hustle” green beans are more of a hobby than a hustle. Pasta sauce, however, is entirely different and coming in a few weeks. More to come on how a side hustle is an experiment for our second career post-retirement.


If you’re interested in reading a bit more on the benefits and cautions to side hustles check out these two articles I recently came across:

From Harvard Business Review (HBR) on “Making Your Side Hustle Work

Really interesting and well-presented study from the Henley Business school on side hustles in the UK (a few years old but still quite relevant): “The Side Hustle Economy


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