How to Grow Your Side Business in Just 5 Hours a Week (Without Burning Out)

If you’ve got a side business and a day job, there’s a phrase you probably find yourself thinking or saying a lot:

“I just need more time.”

On the surface, it sounds reasonable. 

You’re working, you’ve got family or caring responsibilities, your brain is already full. 

Of course you don’t have endless free hours to work on your business.

But if you’re ready for some tough love, here’s what I’ve come to believe after coaching hundreds of women 40+ with service-based side businesses:

If your business never gets any of your time, it never gets to become anything more than a dream.

And quite often, “I don’t have time” is a socially acceptable, low-risk way to stay stuck.

As long as you don’t make time, you don’t have to take the risk of:

• Taking action and it not working
• Being visible and vulnerable
• Admitting to yourself (and others) that you really do want this business to be your future

Ouchy.

I don’t say that to judge you. I say it because I’ve seen how powerful it is when women gently tell themselves the truth about their time and their business.

Time isn’t separate from your life

One of the most impactful things a mentor ever said to me in a training was:

“How you spend your time is your life.”

Not preparing for life. Not warming up for some future day when you’ll “really start” your business. Your life is happening and your future life is being created in the way you use your hours and attention right now.

We all have the same 168 hours in a week. We slice and dice them differently based on our season of life, our responsibilities and our values. But your time right now is the raw material your next chapter gets built with.

For most women I work with, time is tight and can feel like there is none, but we make time for the things that are most important to us. 

When people say “I don’t have time for my business”, what they’re really saying is I’m choosing not to prioritise my business.

Which means it won’t grow from wherever it is right now to where you want it to be.

And that’s confronting… but it’s also where your greatest potential is.

Because if you can consciously claim even 5 hours a week for your business, things start to shift, faster than you might think.

Why 5 focused hours beat “I’ll squeeze it in”

Last year I travelled a lot for work, delivering full-day workshops for a couple of organisations. It was great and fulfilling… and it also meant I was spending most of my week “in” the business, not “on” the business.

It felt very similar to what many of my clients experience with their jobs: by the time I’d delivered a full day, answered emails, travelled, and done life admin, there wasn’t much brain space left.

In that season, I had to get really honest with myself:

“If I only have a few small pockets of time this week, what actually needs to happen in my business?”

I remember sitting in a hotel room with a long list of “shoulds” – website tweaks, content ideas, internal projects, admin… and forcing myself to ask:

• Which one or two things on this list would move me closer to:
  • connecting with a potential new client
  • creating income
  • or creating something that would open the potential for a new client conversation?

Everything else had to wait.

And here’s what I noticed – something you might recognise too:

Work expands to fill the time available.

When you have eight hours, the same task takes eight hours.
When you have 45 minutes before you have to leave to pick up a child from daycare, you suddenly become very focused.

A friend of mine, a high-achieving executive, told me after her first baby was born that her productivity skyrocketed. Not because she worked more, but because:

• Before: “I’ve only got half an hour, I may as well faff about.”
• After: “I’ve got half an hour before daycare pick-up. What can I smash out in that time?”

A hard boundary made her sharper.

The same is true in your side business. When you decide in advance: “These are my 5 business hours this week. ”you stop waiting for a magical free day that never comes, and start making the most of the pockets of time you actually have.

The 3 x 90 Weekly Rhythm

So, why do I talk about three 90-minute blocks as a foundation for side-business growth?

It comes from two places: identity and flow.

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, talks about how change is more likely to happen and stick when it’s attached to identity.

You’re not just doing the habits; you’re becoming the kind of person who does those things. You’re giving yourself evidence that you are that type of person.

Time and productivity expert Laura Vanderkam says that anything you do at least three times a week starts to become a habit and part of how you see yourself. If you see yourself as a healthy person, you’re more likely to do things a healthy person would do.

In a side business context:

If you actively work on your business three times a week, you start to genuinely see yourself as a business owner, not someone with a hobby you dabble in or feel guilty about.

You’re sending a signal to your brain: “This matters. This is who I am now. This is who I am becoming.”

Why 90 minutes?

Because for most women I work with:

• It takes 15–20 minutes just to get into “business mode” – to open the right tabs, remember where you’re up to, get your head out of work or family.
• If you only ever give yourself 30 minutes, unless it’s to do one specific task, you’re constantly warming up and never really getting into the work.

A 90-minute Business Time block gives you time to:

• Warm up
• Do a solid hour of focused work (in one chunk or a couple of Pomodoro-style sprints)
• Close out properly (more on that in a moment)

Could you do smaller blocks? Or more days? Absolutely. You can tailor the length to your working style and life.

But as a base rhythm, three 90-minute sessions a week is enough to:

• Build identity (“I am a woman who prioritises and shows up for her business”), and
• Generate visible progress, rather than demotivating “I did a bit here and there but feel like I got nothing important done”.

Anything less than that, and it’s very easy to feel like you’re forever starting, never finishing. Not seeing progress can be incredibly demotivating. If you’ve ever felt like you’re always starting again on Monday and never really getting anywhere, that’s probably why.

A real client example: from scattergun to “book-ended” focus

Let me tell you about a former client, we’ll call her Narelle.

She had a consulting business with a few moving parts:

• B2B work with organisations, and
• B2C workshops she ran directly with the public.

Her weeks were a patchwork of different projects and responsibilities. She cared deeply about all of them – but her way of working was:

“Open the laptop and jump to whatever my brain lands on first.”

On any given day she might:

• Start a slide deck
• Switch to writing social posts
• Half-draft a proposal
• Spend ages in her inbox
• Then wonder why nothing important was actually finished

She hit a point where she realised: “This is crazy-making, and it’s not creating enough progress.”

Here are two simple changes we made that you can borrow:

1. Start- and end-of-session “bookends”

When she had allocated time ‘Business Time’, instead of drifting into it, she began:

• At the start: choosing her top three tasks for that block – specifically the ones most likely to move the needle (client work, proposals, follow-ups, workshop promotion, content creation etc).
• At the end: reviewing what she’d completed and writing down the top three tasks for the next session.

Because she wasn’t working on her business every day, this was crucial.

It meant that:

• When she sat down again – whether it was tomorrow or in a few days – she didn’t spend half her time trying to remember what she was doing.
• She could quickly sense-check: are these still the right three? Has anything changed?

Her 90-minute blocks became business progress loops, not isolated, scattergun bursts of action.

2. Batching similar tasks

She also started batching:

• Content creation together
• Admin & invoicing together
• Client outreach & follow-up together

This created a rhythm and stopped her brain jumping between “deep thinking” and “tiny admin tasks” in the same short block.

The result?

• She felt calmer and more in control.
• She secured a great new project.
• And importantly: when that new project came in, she was clear on her boundaries, because she wanted to protect her business time blocks rather than letting client work swallow everything.

You can do the same with your 3 x 90: give each block a theme or a short list of income-first tasks, not a random to-do list.

What to actually do in your 5 hours

Here’s how to make your 5 hours count.

In each 90-minute block, you want at least some time spent on income-first activities – the things that:

• Put you in front of the right people
• Make it easy for them to understand how you can help
• Invite them to take a next step with you

For most service-based side businesses, income-first tasks are things like:

• Talking to humans (follow-ups, check-ins, invitations to a call)
• Making clear offers (emails, posts or conversations that say “here’s how you can work with me”)
• Nurturing your warmest connections (past clients, colleagues, referrers)
• Doing the key bits of content that directly support those actions (not getting lost tinkering in Canva for hours)

Your 3 x 90 might look like:

• Block 1 – CEO / Planning: review current clients, income, projects and priorities; identify growth opportunities; choose your top three income-first tasks for the week.
• Block 2 – Visibility & Outreach: write one helpful post or email with a clear invitation; message 2–3 warm contacts; follow up any open leads.
• Block 3 – Delivery & Development: create or refine something that makes selling/delivering easier (a one-page offer, a simple welcome email, a workshop outline).

The exact mix will depend on your stage, but the principle is the same:

In each block, ask: “What is the one thing I can do here that brings a client conversation or future income closer, or more likely?”

Why this is not about hustle

Let’s be clear here: I am not going to tell you to “just get up at 5am and hustle your face off”.

In 2014 I was diagnosed with severe adrenal fatigue.

At the time, I didn’t recognise it as burnout. I just thought I was “a bit tired”. I kept telling myself:

• “I’ll look after myself once this project is finished.”
• “I’ll take a day off when my colleague comes back from leave.”
• “It’ll slow down after this next big thing.”

The problem was: there was always another project, another deadline, another reason to keep pushing through.

Looking back, there were obvious signs: 

I was more emotional than usual, often on the edge of tears; I was snappy and short with people I cared about; my tolerance for drama or problems dropped right down. 

I simply didn’t have anything left in the tank.

And yes, for some crazy reason, in the middle of that, I tried things like the 5am club. With the exhaustion I was already carrying, it was like:

Burning the candle at both ends… and maybe in the middle as well.

That experience is a big part of why I’m so passionate about business growth without burnout.

I will absolutely encourage you to be productive with the time you’ve chosen to allocate to your business. But I will not ask you to be “on” every minute you’re not at your day job.

You still need time that nurtures you:

• Sleep
• Good food
• Relationships
• Doing things that feel good and give you fresh ideas

Years ago, a woman I interviewed on my podcast said the two most dominant emotions she felt as a side-business owner were overwhelm and guilt:

• Overwhelm at the endless list of ideas and things she “should” do
• Guilt at work because she wanted to be working on her business
• Guilt at home because she was working on her business and not fully present with her partner
• Guilt for sitting on the couch instead of working on the endless list of things to do for her business

It’s very easy to fall into a trap where, even when we’re not at a desk, our brain is always “on” and we never truly rest.

But just like at the gym, your muscles don’t grow during the workout. They grow in the rest and recovery between sessions.

Your business is similar.

The growth doesn’t only come from the ‘doing’. It also comes from the time away, the ‘being’ – the reflection, the ideas that land when you’re out living your life.

That’s why I care so much about a contained, realistic rhythm like 3 x 90, instead of 24/7 hustle.

I am FAR from perfect at this, but I know how important it is.

Your next step

If this is resonating with you, your simple homework from this article is:

1. Look at your calendar for the next week.
2. Choose three 90-minute windows you can realistically claim for your Business Time for just this week, not forever.
3. For each one, write down three income-first tasks you’ll focus on in that block.
4. Decide what your non-negotiable nurture/rest/joy time is this week – something that is just for you, not for work or business.

Notice how it feels to give your business a real place in your week, rather than squeezing it into the scraps – and to give yourself real rest, not just collapse.

If you’d like help designing a 5-hour week that actually fits your life – with a clear rhythm, income-first focus and a simple 90-day direction – I’m running a 3-day WhatsApp Side Business Sprint where we’ll do exactly this together.

It’s specifically for women 40+ with service-based side businesses who are passionate and capable but time-poor – and who are ready to stop saying “I just need more time” and start using the time they do have in a way that moves their business forward, without burning out.

Stay tuned for all the details coming soon!

Here’s to being your own boss,

Shandra