A couple weeks ago, I made the difficult decision to slow down my work on a YouTube channel I was working on. I recorded backing track videos for guitarists. Each week, I’d write a track, record all the individual parts (using a mix of real guitars and midi instruments for drum parts and the like), put together the video with all the chord changes and scale sheets, and put it in the YouTube machine.

The process took 8 – 12 hours per week. I spent one business day every week recording the audio and making the video. 

It was too much because it was no longer a hobby for me. It had turned into a side hustle.

Here’s what I think the difference is: a creative hobby is something that you do exclusively for you. It won’t make you money. It doesn’t inherently earn you an audience. It’s for fun. To make this as simple as possible, maybe you play an instrument. Maybe you draw.

On the other hand, a side hustle is something you make for other people. It can bring you the same amount of joy as a hobby, but the primary goal is providing a service or product for other people. My backing tracks became a side hustle. I made them for other people and hoped to grow an audience. If you play an instrument and you start releasing music, the minute that stops being about self-satisfaction and becomes something you do for the pursuit of an audience, it’s a side hustle.

The shift from a creative pursuit to a side hustle is a shift in focus.

Side hustles don’t have to make you money. You can do something creative for the benefit of others without earning an income. But if they do make you money, it becomes harder for that project to creatively nourish you. The pressure of the dollar is real. 

I decided to slow down on the YouTube output, though, because the calculus on my time compared to the potential financial reward (many years from now) didn’t make much sense to me. It made more sense to double down on my design business — a creative outlet people are happy to pay me for — than it did for me to focus on my side hustle.

My guitar playing is currently back to being merely a hobby. I loved making backing tracks, and I’m always making music, and it was hard to say goodbye. But one must say no to one thing to say yes to another.