I caught some bug or virus thing. It doesn’t feel like when I had covid, if anything I’ve been nauseous a bunch and coughy. It just sucks because this kicked in when I was supposed to go do my Uber grind.
I have a minimum money goal I’m supposed to meet to ensure I make enough this year. The problem with the freelance hustle is there are no sick days. When you get sick, you are just sick. I feel better today but definitely needed more rest than I budgeted for with my plan.
Thankfully I can rearrange my life to compensate for this and I have plans for this circumstance, but I’m nowhere near a place where losing 3 days of Uber driving is good for me. That being said, I'm too old to be ignoring my health. I made the responsible choice to not push myself working too much and instead got more sleep.
When you are hustling, make sure you start saving
Some days are amazing and the money flows. On those days, you should strike while the iron is hott and go harder. Work later, take advantage of the fortune being bestowed onto you. A few times things were going well with Uber and I stopped early like damn, I blew past my money goal that day. Only for the next day the money to flow in much slower.
One Thursday I clocked 38$ per hour. The next day I made 20$ per hour. In hindsight I shoulda pushed that Thursday harder. The same kind of all over the place happens in sales. My commission in December was one fifth the size of January.
Since I use my car for money, I need a couple of grand stacked up just for unexpected car repairs. I need to make sure that when I am sick, leading to a solid 450-500$ less in income that week, I am prepared for it.
The truth is I still need to make whatever money back. It may be the next 5 weeks I add an extra 5 hours of grind to the week to compensate for the hours I’m not working this week. It sucks, but this is part of life.
Now there is a version of life where the situation is less responsible. In that version my body is immortal and I can constantly go as hard as I want. Then you hit a weekend like I’m facing where arguably the worst is over and I’m almost back to myself, but if I had some bills due on Monday and no money, I’d be in a bad place.
Basically when you get into hustling, make sure you plan for the rainy days.
Rainy days are blessings in disguise
While this weekend is not going to generate the income I wanted, I did get an unexpected Saturday morning to just chill. Then I got to putzing around and the next thing I knew I had an optimized Linktree for Behind That Suit.
I’m having a lot of trouble taking care of the minutiae while chasing a dollar. My goal is to pay off credit card debt, so past a certain number, all the minimums will be much smaller. Then I can slow down a bit. For now the only times I get to slow down are when I’m sick.
I stayed in bed longer than planned. Once I was up, I was a restless fellow. I’m not going to just spend the day doing nothing. I have some stuff to deal with later on so with this block of time, there is a blessing. I can spend a few hours taking care of things on my checklist I have been ignoring for months.
The more little things that get cleaned up, the less clutter there is on my mind. Lately with the all systems go approach I feel very exhausted. It’s not a physical thing, I feel my energy going up. It’s more on my mentals. Every tangent in my mind hits a roadblock of logistics. I’m no longer able to track my wins and see the blessings.
Instead week over week passes by and I don’t end up recording music. I am working toward releasing music though, nothing is being ignored. This was the plan. It just sucks to live through it sometimes.
It’s human to need time to recover
I’m not one of those superhuman focus types that can grind forever without consequence. As I get older, rest becomes more important. That may be recreational time, but sometimes it’s literally making sure I get enough sleep in a day. I can no longer operate on 4 hours of sleep without a nap.
Whenever I do, for a couple of days I get sick, like I was. The consequence of that ends up being more lost time. It’s on me to pay attention to the rhythms of my life and hack the shit out of them to optimize my success. The way your body operates is likely not the same as mine and I recommend you listen to your rhythms.
Lost time is not the right way to put it. I still had to write my blog today (box checked). I still have a list of chores I can do including my sales gig. I can just clock hours for next week now, and then go do some morning Uber rushes.
There was a time where I would have had to go out and grind that money instead of recover. Thankfully I’ve been a lot wiser with my spending and can afford to miss a few days, because my plans are for the year, not for the week. I emphasize the amount of money I need to make does not change, I am just reprioritizing when I am going to go make that money.
Next week when I do more Uber and less other stuff, it will be what it is. You want to get to a place where there’s enough of a buffer to think more long term with your planning. My daily blog exercise is an effort to be a ridiculously talented writer in 2027. I am investing in this craft now for future gain. That is a privilege to be in a position to do that, despite how much I end up having to work sometimes.
I currently feel like crap and I’m going to go take a nap before I go get some cold medicine and grind out the evening.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone
Comments