How to Start a Side Hustle While Still Working Full-Time (as a Healthcare Professional)

How to Start a Side Hustle

How do you start a side hustle when you’re already working flat out in healthcare?

If that sounds like a question you’ve asked yourself, you’re not alone. We’ve done it too. Between full-time clinical work, family life, and a million other demands, we’ve both launched side hustles, property investing, a YouTube channel, digital courses, and helped others do the same.

This isn’t about building some flashy “business empire.” It’s about using the skills and time you already have, in a smart way, to build something sustainable on the side.

Here’s what worked for us.

1. Why Start a Side Hustle?

For us, it’s simple: family. Everything we do outside of the day job is about giving ourselves more flexibility, more choices, and being around for the people that matter.

For you, it might be:

• Having extra income so you can cut back NHS sessions

• Testing an idea you’ve always had

• Building a fallback plan or long-term exit
  

Plenty of healthcare professionals have side business ideas, such as property investing, online courses, health consulting and freelance medical writing.

2. Finding the Time

Often, when we speak to people about launching a side business, the first thing they say is: I don’t have time. And honestly? We didn’t either.

Neither of us has ever had big blocks of time to sit and work on side projects. What we learned early on is that it’s about using the little bits of time you do have and using them well.

Matthew often listens to audiobooks during his commute, getting through more than an hour a day by speeding them up. Dave edits videos poolside while the kids are in swimming lessons, or records content while walking the dog.

It’s about finding 15 minutes here and there and realising that those chunks of time build up. You don’t need hours free, you need to spot opportunities and make them count.

3. Launch Before You’re Ready

One of the best bits of advice we’ve had, from Abdul at Peerr, is this: If you’re not a little bit embarrassed by your product, it’s probably overdeveloped.

Dave took that to heart when launching our AKT Stats & Admin course. There were modules he hadn’t finished. Questions we wanted to add. Ideas we hadn’t had time to implement. But if we’d waited to make it perfect, it would still be sitting unfinished.

Sometimes you have to be a bit brutal and ask: is this good enough to help people right now? If so, get it out there. Just remember, you can always improve it later.

4. Don’t Do It All Yourself

When you start, it’s tempting to do everything yourself. But you quickly learn that you can’t, and shouldn’t.

Matthew tells the story of plumbing a toilet in one of his first rental flats. It took two full days. If he’d worked those two days as a doctor, he could have paid someone else to do the job in a couple of hours and had time left over.

It’s the same with running a side business. Learn the process at first, so you know what good looks like. But after that, outsource what you can. Agents, social media marketers, editors, accountants, and virtual assistants use them. You know how to refer patients when needed.

Apply that same mindset here.

5. Use Your Strengths

Being a doctor gives you a real advantage. You might not realise it, but the skills you use every day in the clinic, such as communication, building trust, and problem-solving, translate directly into running a side business.

In property investing, Matthew found that building relationships was more important than anything else. People trusted him. They knew he was credible and reliable.

It’s the same in any business. People buy from people they trust. And as a healthcare professional, you already have that trust. That’s your advantage, use it.

6. Start Small, And Iterate

When we launched our side projects, we didn’t try to build a polished, finished product from day one. We started small, learned from feedback, and kept improving.

As Matthew says: "You don’t know everything, and some things you think will land, won’t." Some videos flop. Some modules need improving. That’s fine. The key is to treat your side hustle like an ongoing learning process, not a project that has to be perfect first time.

The sooner you start, the sooner you’ll learn what really works, so:

• Launch that first video, even if it’s rough.

• Offer that first mini version of your course.

• Test that first property deal.

7. Be Clear on Boundaries

It’s easy to let a side hustle creep into every spare moment. We’ve both found it helpful to set clear boundaries.

For Matthew, that means using small chunks of time around family life, not sacrificing it. For Dave, it’s about making sure side projects don’t displace the “why” they’re doing it for. As with anything, balance matters. Build something that supports your life, not something that starts to compete with it.

So as you build your project, keep that balance in mind:

• Protect the family time that matters to you.

• Don’t sacrifice your clinical work or wellbeing.

• Build something that works alongside your life, not something that starts competing with it.

Final Thoughts

If you take one thing from this, it’s that if you’re finding yourself wondering “how to start a side hustle,” now is the time to start. You’ll never feel ready. You’ll never have the perfect amount of time. But if you take small steps, use your time well, and don’t try to do it all yourself,  you’ll be surprised how far you can get.

We’ve both done it and we’ve both learned a lot along the way. If you’re thinking about starting your own side hustle, our honest advice, go for it!

Want more support for starting your side business?

DocSupport helps healthcare professionals like you turn ideas into income. Explore our guides, join our next webinar, or book a 1:1 call to map your next move