Everyone has a hobby or at least something they enjoy working on regularly. It’s a common principle that if you do what you love, you’ll never work a day in your life. What’s not so common is how you transition from working to doing what you love. For many people, going straight into a job that you love isn’t always an option. You might have financial obligations that require you to work a job that you don’t love just to pay the bills. You might also be a full-time student with a limited amount of time to work on projects that aren’t directly related to school. I’ve personally been in both of these situations. It can be tough finding the time to work towards getting the job you love when you’re swamped with work and school obligations, but have no fear! I’m going to give you the strategies that worked for me. These tips are geared towards graphic designers because that’s my passion, but you can apply these strategies to your career of choice.

Analyze Your Schedule

The first step in my transition from poorly paid cashier to graphic designer was to take a look at my schedule and identify where I was spending all of my time. During this time in my life, I was attending school full time and working about 30 hours a week. I felt busy and really overwhelmed, but I was determined to figure out where I could squeeze in some time to work on my graphic design skills. Initially, I couldn’t find any free time. It was the middle of the semester and I wouldn’t have a break from school until at least December, and I’d planned on taking a class during winter break so that I could graduate more quickly.

After a few hours of racking my brain trying to come up with a plan, I found a solution. I would spend 15 minutes every night before bed watching a tutorial on graphic design. I was also exhausted, but I felt that I could commit to 15 minutes. I decided to watch tutorials before bed because one of my professors told me that you learn and process information during your sleep. I figured that I could at least pick up some quick information to help me get more familiar with graphic design while I was getting ready for bed. This was a small commitment, but it went a really long way. I promised myself that I would spend a minimum of 15 minutes a night, but I also spent way more than 15 minutes. There were many nights where I would get so excited about graphic design that I would pull out my laptop and start working on a few things that I was learning.

By the time I took finals in December, I had learned several new skills. I still enrolled in classes for the winter break, but I used my week off during Christmas and New Years to really focus on graphic design. I set up a basic website to display my portfolio projects and I continued to work on learning as much as I could about graphic design.

The next part of working with my schedule came after the spring semester had ended. I had studied enough about graphic design to start working on some paid projects. I found some local organizing who needed graphic design work for their upcoming events. I sent them a copy of my portfolio and asked if they would contact me for their graphic design needs. A few organizations agreed and offered me my first paying jobs. Instead of working my usual 30 hours a week at the grocery store, I cut back to 20 hours a week and spent 10 hours a week on graphic design.

Doing graphic design for 10 hours a week allowed me to improve my skills while making money. Since the grocery store I worked at only paid the minimum wage, I actually made more money by cutting back my hours. I kept my prices reasonable, working towards building relationships with my clients. While many of my earliest projects were one-off projects, many of my clients have stuck with me over these past few years.

In the next article, we’ll discuss how to create an actionable plan for incorporating more time for graphic design in your busy schedule.