The Side-Hustle Dad

Ep03
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Why Friday Releases
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bryan-steele_2_03-03-2026_162548: Welcome back to the podcast. I am glad you are joining me here today. One of the things I wanted to touch on is the release day of this podcast. I mean, you've already listened to episode one and two, and it might seem a little odd that my podcast is coming out on a Friday, but. It actually makes sense if you think about it, because what is the one time of the week where a dad is most likely to have some agency over his schedule?

It's going to be most likely by and large the weekend you're moving away from the 40 hour work week, and I know schedules are [00:01:00] different for different people, so it's, it's not universal of course, but, but by and large there's, there's more opportunity there. To have some space, have some pockets of time where you're going to be thinking about your pod, your have some pockets of time where you're thinking about your side hustle.

And so even though most podcasts come out on a Tuesday or a Wednesday or Thursday, I said, you know what? I'm gonna go for a Friday. It might be a little weird, might throw things off when there's a three day weekend, but I think that this is gonna be the part that is most beneficial long term. I, you know, I kind of joke those first couple episodes, like, I'm, I'm evolving as I go.

I'm cleaning up the lighting a little bit in here to look a little differently. So if you're seeing me on YouTube, thank you for watching hit the Bell and all of those things when you subscribe.

Finding Time Margins
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bryan-steele_2_03-03-2026_162548: But today is going to be about finding time, the margins, right? If you want to have a side hustle, which doesn't negatively impact your [00:02:00] family, it's got to fit into some spaces And that can be difficult. And so today we're really going to get tactical and help you find that space to be able to think about your business and conceptualize it. So first, you should have listened to episode one. You understand clearly why you were doing a podcast for your conversation with your spouse or partner from episode two.

You've clearly communicated the purpose. And you now have a champion who's like, you know what? Yeah, I think this is something we could support. And she can come alongside you and help you as a dad with that process. So we're gonna reclaim the hamster wheel a bit. And that's why I think it comes down to Friday being really valuable to do some reflection, have some space to think about things.

So the goal, consume this, listen to this podcast, and then you've got a little space on the weekend. To maybe apply some of the [00:03:00] things in which we'll talk about. So come back for each and every episode and we will continue to build on what we're talking about.

Time Study Spreadsheet
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bryan-steele_2_03-03-2026_162548: So today, time study. You may have tried to do these in the past, but the idea is very simple.

You're taking a mirror to what you actually do, not what's on your calendar, what you actually do. And so what I've put together is a Google Sheet, very straightforward, very simple. I'm gonna send you a link, but it's broken down into 15 minute blocks for a given week. This is your tool. I know that we're bringing a spouse on board, but we have to be realistic about what is actually happening with our time.

We can't be trying to make it look better than it really is. So this is for your eyes [00:04:00] only. This is not your wife. This is not your boss. I don't look at this, I don't care to look at this. This is your tool to really carefully examine your given week and, and know what you're doing.

Be Honest No Guilt
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bryan-steele_2_03-03-2026_162548: So we've got to be honest, and part of that is being a hundred percent honest about your phone.

And part of that is being a hundred percent honest about your phone usage, your doom scrolling, your social media zoning out after work, right? Those things happen, right? We have the nothing box, right? Men have the nothing box. What are you thinking about? Nothing. We really aren't thinking about anything.

It is a nothing box, and we want to capture as much of that as possible, as realistically as possible. So be honest. That's what we're wanting to get. Okay? No guilt. This isn't about feeling bad, like because you used your phone X [00:05:00] hours of the week or X hours of the day. I want you to let that go. That guilt serves us.

No purpose doesn't help us at all. And so we're gonna push past that, okay? This is a tool to help us take action, so we're gonna treat it honestly. And this is a breakout, right? We're breaking out of our perceived safety and comfort of just doing things the way we've always done them because it was good enough.

Good enough is not cutting it anymore, and we're moving forward. Okay? You've got way more potential. Way more potential than to just sit on the couch and doom scroll.

How to Log Two Weeks
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bryan-steele_2_03-03-2026_162548: Okay, so the first step. In the show notes, there's a link to this spreadsheet. It's one that is just viewable to anyone who has the link, so you'll want to [00:06:00] make a copy of it.

Okay? So you're not gonna be able to edit it, you're gonna make a copy of it, and then how you're going to use this as you are going to look at it throughout the day. I would recommend pulling it up at lunch. And at the end of the day, and filling it out, maybe filling it out as you go. Like if you recognize or pay attention to, oh, hey, I'm doing this now.

Like use it. Have it open throughout the day. Maybe you're using it on your phone, maybe you've got it. Just open on a tab so that you can just jump back to it really quickly. But your goal is to log 15 minute blocks of activity for a two week period. Now, why do I want to do two weeks? Because every week is different.

Your daughter has a music program. I say that because my daughter literally has a music program tonight that I'm gonna be going to, and I'm sure my wife is gonna come down and tell me it's time for dinner at some point soon. But when weeks are never the same, weeks change, there's little shifts. [00:07:00] And so the idea of two weeks is to really maybe have something to normalize, right?

There's a little bit of balancing it, but we want to, as much as possible, try to get. Atypical week. Avoid a week that has a holiday in the middle of it, A 4th of July if you're taking a vacation. Obviously tracking what you do during that trip is completely abnormal and random. Doesn't really give us something repeatable to base things on.

Okay, so the first step, we're gonna log everything specifically in 15 minute blocks. Now, if you work on something for two hours, yeah, log it and when you start it and then log it at the time you finish. Right. We don't need to. Every 15 minutes, go back in and type the same thing you. You should be able to, to figure it out from that.

And then use specific categories. So there's fixed things, things you cannot change completely. Things like job that you go to during the week, your sleep, which you should still get your family time. So reading the kids' [00:08:00] bedtime stories, giving 'em a bath, going to soccer games, all that stuff is there, but that's family time.

Note that, and then there's your fluid time. How much Netflix binging are you doing? How much time on your phone, your hobbies that you work on? Now we're just logging it. I'm not saying we're gonna change anything based on this spreadsheet yet. Your goal is just to log it. Okay. Capture it.

Spot Hidden Gaps
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bryan-steele_2_03-03-2026_162548: And then as you look at it.

As the week progresses, you're going to start noticing, even as you fill it out, you're gonna start identifying these little margins, this gap between the bedtime, chaos, and when you go to bed. Okay? You're going to track things like your lunch breaks. How long are you spending it on? On lunch every day.

Okay? What might be able to be repurposed there when you're commuting? What's going on there? Is that a time where you could make phone [00:09:00] calls? Okay, so there's gonna be some things that start to emerge as you go through this, as you fill it out. And we also wanna make sure we capture the weekend. So this is not just Monday through Friday, we want to get to the weekend.

Are you capturing things that are the best use of your time? Mowing the grass. Fixing things around the house. Now those things likely have to happen, but we wanna capture those periods as well. 'cause oftentimes we get into some routines around that. Okay, so that's goal number one. Two weeks, capture each activity down to a 15 minute block of time.

Okay?

Find Your First Five
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bryan-steele_2_03-03-2026_162548: The goal at the end of this. It's just to look around and go, where are my first five? And the first five are this, the five hours a week that you could carve out to work on your business the [00:10:00] five hours a week to work on your side hustle. It's enough. It's a significant portion of time, but it's not so much that it's all encompassing, right?

Every waking hour. So you might be looking at. What happens if I get up 30 minutes early? Am I already sleeping in long on the weekend? Do I start slow on the weekend? 'cause I'm trying to catch up on my sleep. Start to notice those patterns. You know what's happening in the space between when the time the kids go to bed and when I go to bed, how long does it take me to go to bed?

How long am I getting ready? So just notice those things. Where are you spending those times? What opportunities do you have? And you want to identify those first five. Okay?

Communicate With Spouse
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bryan-steele_2_03-03-2026_162548: And you want to communicate that to [00:11:00] your spouse, right? We talked earlier, you've got a partner, you say, Hey.

I did this study, I spent some time looking through the schedule, just trying to figure out where I've got a little margin to start working on this business and then communicate that. When I first started doing my recording studio business, I was doing music production and so I said, okay, well where's, where's my space?

So the first thing I committed to was I'm gonna get up an hour earlier each day. That's gonna give me some time in the studio. No one else is up, no one else is getting ready for school. It's my space. So I could do a little work in the mornings and then I communicated I would like two evenings a week after the kids go to bed to work in the studio on music.

And so that, as I recall, I think that was Mondays and Thursdays, I didn't want to give up Friday night. Mondays were, you know, it felt like a, a good day anyways to do so. It was Monday and Friday, sorry. It was Monday and [00:12:00] Thursday evening, two hours. There were about two hours at the time between when the kids went to bed and when I was going to bed.

So that gave me really a good chunk of time. I was able to carve out nearly eight or nine hours a week just doing that. So look for those opportunities. Look for those little spaces. Communicate what you're wanting to do there so that it's understood. Okay. And then you're able to move forward, that now is going to become your time take action.

Okay.

Turn Time Into Action
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bryan-steele_2_03-03-2026_162548: Now that you've identified those spots in your schedule, you can say, okay, here's where I want to do this. I want to do a business plan. I want to do some research into different industries. I could go to. Listen to this podcast. Maybe, maybe you want to go back and listen to one of the episodes of this podcast or something that we'll be talking about in the future, and you want to, instead of just listening to it [00:13:00] in your car, you go, I want to take some notes on that.

I wanna write as I reflect on that. So maybe you take your business time, you say, okay, I'm gonna listen to this podcast. I'm gonna take some notes, and then maybe spend 20, 30 minutes writing my own thoughts, coming up with a plan, coming up with the next step. That's where we're gonna use the space for building this business, for understanding the next step and the next step after that.

And now you're not just thinking, it's not just an idea. You now have the space to do something. I think that's what's so important is making sure you're not just listening, right? You're taking action. You're taking small steps. We're not trying to get there all the way at the end, right away. Full stop.

We're gonna take small steps to build something that is sustainable. So take those steps.

Challenge And Wrap Up
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bryan-steele_2_03-03-2026_162548: So your challenge, start by downloading this spreadsheet and fill out two weeks worth [00:14:00] of what you spend your time doing. That's the goal. And then you're gonna be able to analyze that and come up with, with a plan around where your margin is, where you can create margin to work on this business.

This is what I did. This is literally what I did when I was starting my side hustle. And over that time period made $200,000. We're not, and it was not big at first, right? It was a couple hundred dollars a month. It started small. Boy. What would it be like if you had just a couple hundred extra dollars to put into a college fund or to go towards a vacation or to pay off some debt?

It doesn't take a lot. To start building some momentum towards this. So think about that carefully. Take this step, move forward. I'm excited for you. This is really the first specific tactical thing that you're gonna start seeing the opportunity. And so as you do, make sure you [00:15:00] just find that sustainable model that you can follow.

So thanks so much. As always, be sure to help us out, tell others about this podcast. We're brand new, leave a review, all of those good things. And I'll see you very soon.

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