You had a good day at work today. Meetings done. Deadlines met. Decisions made.
Now it’s evening. You’ve got an hour for your side hustle. And somehow you can’t make yourself do anything.
You’re exhausted before you even begin. Not from the work ahead, from everything that came before it.
Here are 6 energy drains that kill your side hustle before you even begin, and how to fix them:
1. Decision fatigue from your day job
The drain: You’ve made hundreds of decisions at work. By evening, your brain is done. Every choice, even small ones, feels impossibly hard.
What happens: You stare at your laptop trying to decide what to work on. Switching between tasks. Starting three things and finishing nothing. You probably end up scrolling your social accounts telling yourself that it’s research.
The fix: Decide what you’re working on BEFORE your workday starts. Write it down. When you sit down in the evening, you’re executing, not deciding. When I finish working in the evening (or weekend) I write down the first task for next time. If possible, I leave the tab open and visible on my computer screen, or the paperwork I need is stored on top of my laptop. Then I have a written and visual reminder, but I’m also ready to start work. No excuses.
2. Context switching between employee and entrepreneur
The drain: Your brain is still in ‘employee mode’ from your day job. You’re waiting for direction. Looking for permission. Operating like someone is watching.
What happens: You hesitate before making decisions. Seeking validation. Feeling like you need approval before you take action.
The fix: Create a transition ritual. 10-minute walk. Change of clothes. Different workspace. Something that signals: ‘I’m switching modes now’. I’ve also got a picture of my ideal client on the board on the wall in front of my desk. When I feel myself hesitating to decide, I speak to it. Obviously, it doesn’t speak back, but the act of speaking out loud to an imagined someone gives me the external validation I need.
3. Fighting your natural energy patterns
The drain: You force yourself to work at times when your energy is naturally low. You push through when your body is saying no.
What happens: You sit at your desk at 8pm because ‘evening is side hustle time’ even though you’re exhausted. Ignoring high-energy windows because they’re not ‘convenient’ or you use them to get other ‘important’ things done.
The fix: Track your energy for one week. Note when you feel sharp and when you feel drained. Then schedule your side hustle work for your high-energy windows – even if it’s 6am or Saturday morning. I get my best work done very early and then late afternoon into early evening. So, every day looks a little different for me. I find this challenging, so I sit down on a Sunday and plan my focused work blocks and runs around my calendar. I find that knowing in advance what I’m going to do helps my brain settle and focus.
4. No external accountability
The drain: You’re the only one who knows what you’re working on. The only one who cares if you do it. Disappointing yourself doesn’t create enough pressure to act.
What happens: You keep setting goals you don’t hit. Making plans you don’t follow. Feeling like you’re constantly starting over.
The fix: Create external accountability. Tell someone your weekly goal. Join a group. Tie your deadline to something that matters (if I don’t finish X by Friday, I can’t do Y that I care about). This is the point I find most challenging, I’m not sure I’ve even cracked it yet. For now, I’m having some success with smaller goals, shorter deadlines and making them visible by putting them somewhere in my work environment I can see them.
5. Treating your side hustle like a hobby
The drain: You only work on it when you ‘feel like it’. It gets the leftover time. It’s what you do if everything else is done first.
What happens: Weeks go by with no progress. You’re always ‘too busy’. Work and life take priority.
The fix: Schedule it like work meetings. Put it in your calendar. Protect that time. It isn’t ‘if I have time’, it’s ‘this is when it happens’. I avoided time blocking for months, it didn’t work for me. Only, it does work. Now I understand my energy patterns and know how much is too much; I can schedule blocks in my day that are realistic. I don’t overload myself. I don’t schedule every minute of my day. Less is more but time blocks work.
6. Using willpower instead of systems
The drain: Every day you’re fighting yourself. Forcing yourself to sit down. Convincing yourself to start. Using willpower to override your resistance.
What happens: Exhausted before you even begin. Feeling like you’re pushing a boulder uphill. Wondering why it has to be this hard.
The fix: Build systems that remove the decision. Same time, same place, same first action. When X happens, I do Y. No thinking required. This took me a while to figure out, but when I did it created the biggest shift in how I work and what I get done. I knew there was a learning in my running. My run streak means I ask myself, ‘when will I run today’ instead of ‘will I run today’. Now, in my work, the time on the clock triggers a specific type of task. Same principle executed differently.
Stop fighting
Your side hustle doesn’t have to drain you. It shouldn’t drain you. That’s not why you started it. When you had the idea, it energised you. You were excited about it. That doesn’t mean it was going to be easy. There will always be hard stages. It will feel tiring. But, it shouldn’t feel draining.
Most of the exhaustion isn’t from the work itself. It’s from fighting energy drains every single day.
I’ve shared the six drains I’ve found to be most common and which I have also experienced. Pick one fix. Try it for a week. See what changes.
Then pick another.
These are quick fixes for common energy drains. For a complete system that addresses the drains that are holding you back, download my Find your Energy Draining Pattern worksheet.
