How to Make Your Day Job Work For You

It’s a paycheck AND an opportunity to live more intentionally

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Let’s talk about this cultural obsession with “quitting your day job.”

There is an attitude—propagated by those perky millennial solopreneurs who pay to insert themselves into your Instagram and Facebook feeds—that any creative person still working a day job isn’t ambitious or savvy enough to “make it.” This may be true for some folks, but certainly not for all of us. As I wrote in Day Job? I Wish!, I’ve been writing novels and various works of nonfiction for almost half my life now. Hustle? Yup, I’ve spent the past nineteen years hustling. Self promotion? Uh huh, I do that too. Sure, I could take (or create) other opportunities for a more reliable income—I could copy-write, ghostwrite, edit, coach—but all of these career-related work options will siphon my creative energy from the work I actually want to do. For a resolutely-impractical artist like me, a good day job provides the financial security that unlocks the freedom to write those gleefully-uncommercial books-of-the-heart—not to mention a prime chance to level up on my time management skills.

Some day jobs will suck your soul, and there’s no mindset adjustment that will render them much more livable. It may take awhile, but you will eventually find a day job that’s a bridge, not a trap. For the past month and a half I’ve been working as an office assistant for a much-beloved nonprofit (I got this gig too soon after writing that last piece for it not to be a wink from the universe!), and I actually look forward to coming into work every day. Here are some boxes an artist or entrepreneur’s day job should definitely tick.

It pays you enough to live on, and then some.

I once had a job at a vegan cafe, and I loved everything about it but the paycheck: two weeks of pretty much full-time work didn’t even cover my rent. On-shift lunches were included, but I couldn’t take much advantage of free food otherwise because it was all so delicious there was almost never any left over except for a few bagels. I still had to worry about money, which did no favors for my creativity. Though I learned a lot from that job and I adored my co-workers, it made no sense for me to keep it.