Take on multiple projects?

During the pandemic, there was an interesting phenomenon where people were taking on multiple jobs at once, due to being able to work remotely.

Business Insider wrote an article about Joseph who had three full time jobs.

A Gen Xer making $344,000 secretly working 3 jobs got laid off from 2 of them. He says that's exactly why he was overemployed.

"In early 2020, when Joseph had one job that paid $117,500 a year, he accepted a new remote role in the IT field with a $120,000 salary. But before he quit his first job for the new position, he said, a colleague convinced him to stay and try to work both jobs simultaneously. Last year, he accepted a third role because he anticipated the downsizing that ultimately impacted his second job.

Joseph said he managed to juggle three jobs for more than a year by blocking off his work calendars to prevent meeting overlaps. He also said he was lucky to be in the IT field: "We never really work a full 40 hours a week."

While he'll have less income coming in, Joseph's remaining job pays over six figures annually. He also said all the money he'd earned over the past few years had provided him with a financial cushion."

A few interesting lessons here:

• W2 jobs are often more risky than you think, and are subject to broader economic or industry trends
• There are jobs that have a lot of slack in them, meaning you can easily add more work
• Temporarily working harder can give you a nice financial cushion, taking a lot of stress away

Some thoughts on how this translates to 1099 life:

• Taking on multiple projects at once can de-risk things a bit. Two half time projects might be superior to one full time project from that perspective
• If your gig is easy and doesn't require a full week of hard work, you can use that extra time and energy to do higher quality work or improve a skill
• Use the extra income from your 1099 gig to pad your financial cushion to give you peace of mind

I had two projects going at once for about a year. One was fixed priced and the other was half time. I made a lot of money in that time period. When the fixed price project ended, I was able to ramp up the other one.

It was a bit of a unique situation that only worked because it was at the same agency and had different contract structures.

This likely won't be possible for you but if that situation ever comes up, I recommend doing it. Not every opportunity has to last forever, but sometimes a one off boost to your income can make a big difference.

Want the full playbook? Check out Going 1099.