What's a productive way to spend sporatic blocks of 20-40 minutes each day which can lead to some money over time?

[NoBiscuits]

I have multiple blocks of 20-40 minute downtimes throughout the day that add up to few hours of free time. If I'm called for during these blocks, I HAVE to drop what I'm doing. When exactly the downtime starts and ends is unpredictable and spontaneous day to day. It's also not a focused time and distractions are inevitable. This is all I have to work with, and I can't change this.

What can I do a few times a day during these blocks that can eventually lead to some cashflow? I'm willing to spend a few hundred dollars for some startup equipment or services if I need to.

It doesn't need to make me rich, just looking for a few hundred dollars each month so I can buy equipment and services for better projects later this year. I'm at the beginning of the snowball.

 

[Reincarnated]

Reading. Read articles or journals relevant to your industry. You'll develop competence that may be required to advance your career. Then again if you don't see yourself in the same industry long-term, don't do this.

Not a direct way to increase CF but over time I guarantee it will help.

 

[NoBiscuits]

I'm looking more for direct ways but can't think of anything.

 

[NealIRC]

If you're asking what can I offer to sell to rich people - the answer is there isn't any.

 

[NoBiscuits]

That's not what I was asking. I was asking how to best utilize multiple small blocks of time each day to achieve extra income.

 

[NealIRC]

That's not what I was asking. I was asking how to best utilize multiple small blocks of time each day to achieve extra income.

But the income has to come from somewhere.

 

[taiyuu_otoko]

Start a profitable side hustle.

Look over at fiverr.com and see what others are doing to earn income through side gigs.

Then spend your down time working on your side hustle.

 

[NoBiscuits]

Oh man, I haven't looked at Fiverr since its $5 days.

It looks like most on fiverr are struggling since 2023. Still primarily simple creative work (eg. logo design). Forums have posts about AI taking work away or fiverr suddenly banning their account. One bad review causes business to stop. And they charge 20%... I'm not sure why people use this? Can't they just freelance off of twitter for free?

They sell courses now. That's new. I see a lot of recursive type businesses (eg. a small blog that's about writing successful blogs, etc.). Competition is fierce and a race to the bottom. I can see why fiverr has its reputation. The crowd it attracts is kind of... unskilled. A course on making a wordpress site and consulting for starting a Twitter? Really? Forums also complain about customers being extremely cheap. So cheap buyers trying to haggle down already cheap products. This is a hard demographic to sell to.

Fiverr basically feels like a street full of lemonade stands attracting pedistrians who regularly shop at dollar stores.

Buyers have all leverage, pay no fees, competition is plentiful, and every exchange is in their favor. Buyer is OP. So maybe there's a strategy to be a buyer first and at some point flip the relationship. Like, amas sellers for a specific service over time into a network and then organize it into a niche cartel. Offer paid membership that gives your guys the protections fiverr doesn't give them. Then, everyone who needs that service from fiverr must eventually go through you.

I'll think about it. Maybe I can come up with something. Something that's smarter than just opening yet another lemonade stand next to everyone else's.

 

[NealIRC]

Fiverr basically feels like a street full of lemonade stands attracting pedestrians who regularly shop at dollar stores.

So, this basically goes back to my point, selling to the rich. You can walk around rich neighborhoods, look at houses, and say "what could these people want to buy from me?"

Imagine walking along the beach front, and seeing women laying out in bikinis, on a weekday. What could you offer that they would spend money on?

These questions are essentially what you're asking.

Some ideas:

-Look at their yards and offer to fix things up.
-Tell them which stocks to buy that they can invest in. Selling them information.
-Try to sell them some expensive wine, etc.
-Tutoring them a skill, etc.

 

[NoBiscuits]

-Look at their yards and offer to fix things up.
-Tell them which stocks to buy that they can invest in. Selling them information.
-Try to sell them some expensive wine, etc.
-Tutoring them a skill, etc.

Sure, but I have a restriction in that I only get sporadic moments of 20-40 min intervals to do this and can be pulled away at any time. A freelancer cartel can be achieved 80% of the way by sending messages on a computer.

For other ideas I had, I can do little things throughout the day.
Like 1) choose a VPS provider, 2) create an account for the VPS, 3) set up the VPS security and updates, 4) set up remote access, 5) install base packages, 6) set up the backup system. This can be done in 90 min of focused time and is step 1 for making an online service, but it will take me a whole day. It's slow (and I'd have to make it really sloppy), but I'm still building something I can work with.