The typical backroom accountant probably wouldn’t do well as a fundraiser, and vice versa. Our personalities and proclivities lend themselves to different professional roles, and knowing your strengths and limitations can be the first step in finding a fruitful career—or side hustle.
Do you have a distaste for dinner parties? A shortcoming for socializing? An instinct towards introversion? These 15 side hustles might increase your financial standing without depleting your energy.
1. Editing Video
The written word will always have a place in the media landscape. Podcasts have proven to be a revelation. However, everyone knows that videos have the most significant capacity to entertain, sway popular opinion, and lure audiences.
Those who master video-editing programs like Descript, Final Cut Pro, and Lightworks, therefore, have the fate of humanity at their fingertips. Ok, maybe that’s an exaggeration. But they certainly have the power to generate a second revenue stream in the low-stress confines of their home office.
2. Designing Websites
Website design takes many forms. From writing the code yourself to cleverly leveraging sites like Squarespace and Wix, there are rungs of web design for those with varying skill levels.
Many people want to market their services, products, and causes but don’t know the first thing about what makes a web page appealing or intuitive for the user. If you are willing to dive into web design theory and tools like Webflow, you can get paid to turn others’ visions into tangible, aesthetically pleasing websites.
3. Reviewing Books
Are you still reading for fun? What kind of sucker does that?
Joking aside, you may earn a healthy side income (and some free books) by providing your post-reading thoughts to publishers and publications. While sites like Kirkus Media and Booklist Online aren’t promising riches, they offer a reasonable sum for competent reviewers’ two cents.
4. House Sitting
Some homeowners aren’t comfortable with their house being unattended for long periods, and they’re even willing to pay trustworthy strangers to keep the couch warm while they travel through Europe. Sites like MindMyHouse and Housesitter.com have made the dream of part-time (or even full-time) house-sitting a reasonably-paid reality.
If you’re diligent in lining up gigs, you might even be able to avoid paying rent altogether. You might have to spend a few nights in your Honda Civic when the gigs aren’t there, but that doesn’t sound so bad compared to the outrageous lease terms on a two-bedroom apartment.
5. Writing
You might ask: “Write about what?” For one, you might write about side hustles for introverts. Or sports. Or music. Or your struggles with raising a difficult child.
If there is a topic you’re passionate about, an experience you’ve had that others could learn from, or a piece of advice you believe would bring value to others, there is a place for you to write about it online (and get paid for it). So, as long as you can communicate your thoughts in a compelling, grammatically sound manner, copywriting could be your ideal introverted side hustle.
6. Pet Sitting
Sites like Rover have gig-ified pet sitting. Rather than having an owner leave Fido locked in the local kennel, pet sitters are now offering to stay at the owner’s house, take the dog to their own home, or drop in regularly to ensure the pet is fed, walked, and not hosting any raves while the owner is away.
If you’re an animal person with a flexible schedule, posting your credentials on pet-sitting apps might be a logical way to earn some extra scratch.
7. Starting a YouTube Channel
While this aligns with video editing, starting a YouTube channel (or Rumble channel) may require more than just video-editing prowess. In fact, you might even have someone else do the editing if you are more of the visionary, hands-off type.
If you can identify an underserved niche in the digital media landscape and routinely produce content that fills the void, you might make a nice chunk of advertising revenues. Eight YouTubers who shared their earnings figures made between $1.61 and $29.30 per 1,000 views, depending on the popularity of their channels and content categories. You’ll have to decide if these figures are worthwhile.
8. Being a Virtual Assistant
The phrase “virtual” is music to introverts’ ears. Rather than running to Starbucks for your boss’ daily coffee, a virtual assistant fulfills duties that don’t require them to venture out of their shoebox apartment.
You might prove a wiz when it comes to managing a high-achieving individual's appointments, emails, and other administrative duties with little time to spare. There’s no shame in being someone else’s helping hand (or even their grunt)—the grunt work might fund your retirement.
9. Managing Digital Marketing Campaigns
Companies like Teremarkets allow you to learn the ropes of online marketing campaigns, earning a split of revenues for the campaigns you manage. Many of these companies require no experience or prerequisites other than a decent work ethic and coachability.
As an introvert, you can let your marketing campaigns be your outward-facing representation, allowing you to keep your face well hidden in your laptop (just where you like it).
10. Testing Video Games
Testing video games is one of those gigs that is not nearly as glamorous as it sounds. Rather than being the first person to play the next Madden or Call of Duty game, odds are you’ll be wandering around an obscure digital world looking for glitches.
Yet, as far as low-stress jobs you can get paid a solid salary for, you could do far worse than video game testing.
11. Delivering Food
There are undeniable signs that food delivery, particularly for services like DoorDash and Uber Eats, is headed downhill.Talk to drivers and you’ll find that, between head-scratchingly low base pay and the cost of gas and wear and tear, dropping off pizzas and burritos is no career to stake your financial future on.
However, DoorDash offers Earn by Time mode in select locales, which allows Dashers to earn a more consistent rate (if not a great one). Even if you’re earning by the order, delivering other people’s food may be one of the quickest ways to earn extra income.
12. Reading Emails
Many professionals decry the Tyranny of the Inbox. Yet, the inbox could be your ticket to padding your bank account.
Paying people like you to read emails has become a form of marketing. Because eyeballs are among the most valuable currencies in today’s world, some companies are willing to pay just to have people read their marketing content. Pay-to-Read companies may break you off a little something just to read emails, which may be an ideal arrangement for your introverted self.
13. Creating Online Courses
The “creator economy” has allowed smart people to monetize knowledge they once thought was largely useless or at least limited in utility. Now, sites like Wix and Teachable have built-in pathways for intelligent people to create courses and get paid to share what they know.
If you’re the creative type with a vivid vision for a course you might be able to teach (or help others teach), online course design could be a fulfilling, possibly lucrative side hustle with the capacity to transform into your main hustle.
14. Editing
Those who can’t write, edit. That’s not entirely true, but you don’t have to be a talented writer to be a rock-solid editor—though you certainly can be.
With AI alternatives still far from perfect, there remains a robust market for proofreaders and editors to put the final shine on writers’ works.
15. Taking Surveys
Survey-taking has shallow barriers to entry. If you can read and click buttons, you may be qualified. For this reason, you shouldn’t expect that completing surveys will lead to that six-figure income you’ve been striving towards.
If you want a gig that you can do while watching The Sopranos and avoiding the crowds you’re so phobic of, taking surveys is a course that may be worth charting.
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