How to grow as a creator with a full-time job

This is maybe cringey to say, but my proudest accomplishment is that I am a full-time content creator. This honestly was always my dream job. I was an awkward 12-year-old when I first started my YouTube channel, and of course, it’s grown and changed a lot over the years, but one thing never changed: I was determined to do whatever it takes to make this work for me.

Now, I know a lot of y’all are working towards being a full-time creator as well - but at the moment, you’re most likely a full-time something else. And unfortunately, it’s not viable for most people to up and leave their job to focus on making content full-time. And look, I would not advise that, actually. It’s probably not going to be the most responsible move. So instead, you need to find ways to balance being a full-time whatever AND creating content, and creating enough content, consistently enough, that you grow an audience that can support you as a full-time creator.

I’ll be honest; I’ve never actually worked a “corporate job,” as an adult - but I do know what it’s like to balance content creation with other work. I started really focusing on creating content when I was a full-time student - I was doing a more-than-full course load, working a part-time job, doing extracurriculars, and making multiple YouTube videos per week. (They weren’t necessarily good videos, but hey - I was trying)

When coming out of university, I worked as a freelancer doing videography for weddings and even real estate. No matter what I was doing, in my spare time, I was working on building my own content creation business. Eventually, I grew my freelance work into an agency, Creatorly Media - with a team that works with our clients. So even now - I’m a small business owner, and a content creator - and now, I’ve started another brand on the side (my van life vlog channel) in addition to my YouTube channel, podcast, and Instagram.

All of this is to say - while I’ve technically never balanced an “adult full-time job” with being a content creator - I’ve certainly had times in my life where I have a lot of different things going on, and I’ve learned ways to prioritize content creation in the midst of all that.

Over the years, while working on this, I developed a few strategies that I think will help you grow as a content creator while balancing a full-time job. So let’s get into it!

Going beyond the “finding your why” cliché.

There are really two sides to the coin when building a content creation business. You have to ask yourself what you want to accomplish with your content creation, both for yourself and for your future audience.

For yourself: We all have different reasons. It might be the freedom of working for yourself, maybe it’s for financial reasons, or perhaps it’s even deeper goals like generational wealth or helping retire yourself or a loved one. Whatever is inspiring you to take on this “part-time job” on top of your current full-time job, make sure to really hold onto that. Keeping this at the forefront of your mind is going to be your biggest motivator when things get busy and you want to give up.

For your audience: Now you might want to consider what you want your content to do for others. What do you want them to get out of it? For me, obviously, I want to help my audience grow a content creation business so that they have the freedom to work for themselves anywhere they want. I think commonly people focus on their wants and needs, but you can’t forget the most important part of your content creation business: your audience. Without them, you have nothing.

I know this is kind of a general tip, but as you are balancing your content creation with a full-time job, trust me, you are going to need to remind yourself why you’re doing this in the first place. Otherwise, it’s going to be very easy to give it up.

Get real with yourself!

Now it’s time to be really, really honest with yourself and start tracking your every move throughout the day. If you have a pretty routine schedule and repeat the same thing every single day, you really only need to do this one day. If things change for you day by day, then track your every movement for a week. It’s important that you track everything from work, cooking, dinner time, lounging, sleeping—everything you do throughout the day. You could even use a Google Calendar and add a time blocks for each thing you do each day, so then you can look back at it when the week is over.

Here’s why:

The only way you’re going to find time for content creation is by somehow fitting it into your already existing schedule. By paying attention to each and every step you make throughout the day, you'll find those areas that could be removed and dedicated to content creation.

Once you have laid out your current routine, it’s time to make note of those non-negotiable priorities that you have to do—work, taking care of your children, eating dinner, etc. But I’m sure you’ll find that there are some things that aren’t a requirement in your day, like binge-watching three episodes of your favorite show on Netflix. For now, you can just make a star or highlight the things that could be replaced with your content creation tasks and calculate how much time that adds up too!

Keep this information to the side; we will come back to this later.

Develop a sustainable and realistic content creation strategy.

In the previous section, you came up with a time budget for content creation. Now, I wouldn’t fill up every minute at that time because this is also going to be your free time as well. Obviously, if you took out everything that’s not a requirement or priority in your day, you’re going to need to use some of that time for yourself.

The goal here is to create a sustainable strategy that will be realistic for you to continue now and going forward. If we take away all of your fun, free time, trust me – you will not be able to keep up with it.

So here’s what you’re going to do:

Say that you found you spend approximately 15 hours each week on low-priority tasks. Let’s say you keep 10 of those hours for yourself and 5 hours each week for content creation.

So you have five hours to spend on planning, creating, posting, and engaging on social media.

There are two things you need to do:

Decide what type of content you are wanting to create.
Determine how long it will take you to create it.

For example, if you wanted to create three reels a week, be active in your stories Monday through Friday, and post a podcast each week - how long would it take you to accomplish all of these things?

Here is an example breakdown of how long this might take you each week:

Reel creation: 3 hours
Stories: 1 hour
Podcast: 3 hours

Obviously, this is an example and is totally dependent on your skill level and also what type of content you’re creating. If you’re doing talking-head style reels, those obviously take longer. Whereas a quick and trendy reel doesn’t need to take more than a few minutes. The same goes for the podcast—whether you're recording a 20-minute podcast or a 45-minute long podcast. Are you familiar with editing, or is it all new to you? It's important to do each of these tasks to figure out how long it’s going to take you, and of course, over time, you’ll get quicker and more efficient as well.

Going back to the example, it equaled seven hours, but we only had five hours allotted for content creation each week. Instead of taking time away from yourself, how can we slot some of these tasks into some of your other weekly to-dos that were deemed non-negotiable?

Here’s what I mean: Say with your full-time job, you have two 15-minute breaks and a 30-minute lunch. How can you use these for your content creation?

Say you dedicate one 15-minute break each day to content creation. That’s an hour and 15 minutes each week that you can use for filming or editing reels, posting your stories, or planning out scripts for your content.

And obviously, having lunch is super important and nothing you should skip. But maybe make yourself a lunch and sit in your car during one lunch a week to record your podcast. Another 30 minutes shaved off your creation time.

That’s already an hour and 45 minutes that you used for content creation on top of an already existing task. What about that last 15 minutes? Maybe you have to pick up your child from school and you have to wait for 15 minutes in the pick-up line. Use that time to record a reel in the car or maybe just continue editing the reels for next week.

Sometimes there is “downtime“ in some of our existing tasks and to-dos, so just figure out ways that you can use that downtime towards your content creation, and then the other five hours of work can be scheduled in those low-priority spaces you discovered, and then you still have 10 hours for yourself each week to binge-watch your favorite shows or take a bubble bath or whatever else you need.

You can discover these spaces in your calendar when you really break down the tasks you’re looking to accomplish into a granular level - and see where you can slot things in, and where you need dedicated, focus-time to work on something. If you’re intentional and creative, chances are you’ll be able to fit more content creation time into your schedule than you might think.

Just a few tips to make this easier!

Now that you have a game plan, I want to give you a few tips on how to make this as easy as possible for you, so that it’s something you can continue maintaining over time.

Make sure your niche relates back to your life. Practice what you preach, as the saying goes. It’s going to be a lot easier to create content if it’s something that is already part of your existing routine. For example, if you want to educate people on fitness, I would assume that you are incorporating fitness into your daily or weekly routine. During your workouts, these are perfect times to capture or post a quick story. This stacks on top of something you’re already doing, immediately saving you time, and ensures that your content is relatable to your audience. If you are just now developing your social media from scratch, consider this when determining the topic you want to talk about.

Make every post count. Obviously, your time is limited, so it’s crucial to make every post count. Reels provide the most reach, so incorporate them into your Instagram strategy. The time spent on a reel is more valuable in the beginning stages while you’re growing, than say, time spent on a carousel post. Beyond that, ensure you're creating valuable and quality content. Don’t get stuck in the trap of wanting to churn out content; make sure the content itself makes people want to stick around. Because otherwise, what’s the point? Knowing that you have a limited time budget means you’ll be selective about what content you decide to make, meaning if anything, you’ll only make the best ideas you have, with the most value. This is also really beneficial for growth.

Don’t give up! Just keep at it! The worst thing you can do is give up. I know it’s hard, especially when you can’t create as much content as you would like because your day is already filled with other things, some of which you don’t really like. But trust me, it can take time. It took me over 10 years to finally “pop off” on social media. That’s a lot of time, and there were many moments where I wanted to give it all up, and I’m so glad I didn’t. Sticking with it was the best decision I ever made.

The hard part - knowing when to go full-time

Now that you have a solid routine in place to grow while you have a full-time job, chances are eventually, you’ll get to a point in your creator journey where you start actually making money doing this, and you wonder: can I make this my full-time thing? Here are a few things to consider to help you make the decision of going from part-time to full-time creator:

Determine Your Target Income

Now, it's always good to dream big; I'd never want to discourage you from that. But when you're first getting started with something, I find it helpful to be very realistic and determine what your "minimum viable income" would be. As creators start to make money, it can be hard to know when "you're ready" to go full-time and leave behind that stable income. So, my recommendation is to make your target income your current salary. Separate your creator finances from your personal, and don't spend any of the money you're making as a creator just yet (we'll talk more about savings later).

Just make sure you don't get used to a higher income, thereby increasing your minimum viable income. This way, you have a true cut-off point of "when I'm reliably generating my current salary for 3 months in a row" - or whatever your tolerance is, maybe that's 6 months, whatever. "Then I can go full-time."

Develop Income Streams

Now that you have a clear income goal in mind, you need to start thinking about what your income streams might be. These should align with what you enjoy doing and what your audience will be willing to buy. This is a very important overlap to lean into.

If you only focus on what you want to offer, you may not have customers for it.
If you only focus on what your audience wants to buy, you may burn out if you don't enjoy doing it.

Potential income streams to consider:

Digital products (presets, templates, e-books)
Physical merch (only recommended if it's your complete passion)
Affiliate commission (easy to start, takes a while to build up)
Brand deals (pitching and optimizing your profiles for discovery)
Services (coaching, etc. - don't sleep on this one!)
Memberships! Memberships are an underrated way for creators to earn an income.

Reverse Engineer Revenue

It's time to reverse engineer your revenue. What I mean by that is a lot of people just set somewhat arbitrary prices and offerings and hope that it will all add up to earn them what they want. You're going to ensure that your work earns you what you want by working backward. Start with your target income: $2500/month as an example. Then take the income streams you decided on, let’s use Brand deals, Coaching calls, and a Membership as our examples.

Now, you can divide up that $2500 across those three in many different ways. Try experimenting with a few options to see which feels like the most reasonable for you to actually achieve:

Brand deals - 1x $1000 YouTube integration
Coaching calls - 4x $250 sessions
Membership - $500 (10 members at $50/month)

Hopefully, you can see what I'm getting at here. You can start doing the math now to figure out how you might be able to add up all these income streams to reach $2500/month in revenue.

Speaking of revenue, it's important to remember your expenses and that your income needs to cover them. Taking this approach allows you to have crystal clear goals on exactly what you need to do to make this money. Once you have that, you can actively work towards finding that one brand deal, those 4 coaching clients, and those 10 membership members.

And it doesn't feel like this big, nebulous goal of "make money." It's like, "This month I need to find 4 people who want to take my coaching session." Now you can work towards that.

Save an Emergency Fund

As we're talking about how you're going to earn your money, it's important to recognize that you might not always be able to hit your goal every month - especially at the beginning. Of course, the goal is that you will exceed that eventually (and tbh I think you will; I'm making way more money than if I would have done a corporate job in marketing, for example).

But in the meantime, you want to be prepared. The amount you save in an emergency fund is going to be so individual and based on your own unique situation. However, it's generally recommended that you save 6 months' worth of expenses before you step away from a consistent income stream like a job.

Figure out how much it costs you to live your regular life for one month (rent, utilities, groceries, etc.) and save that x6.

Create Consistently and Focus on Growth

When you have all the plans in place - your target income, your ideal income streams, your reverse-engineered revenue plan, and your savings, it's basically just time to execute on all of it. If you want to make this into a business, you need to treat it like one. It's so cliche at this point, but consistency is HUGE; you need to post frequently, and it needs to be good content. If you struggle with consistency, you may want to check out my free content calendar template linked below. If it weren't for my content calendar, I would not be able to post as consistently as I do.

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This is probably the most challenging stage you will go through during your content creation business. But if you can keep it up and have some patience, it will be worth it in the end. I know from experience.