Learn about my daily workflow as a teacher and entrepreneur. I detail the strategies I learned to balance both my career aspirations and financial needs while building a successful business through time management for teacherpreneurs.

If you are a teacherpreneur, or and edupreneur, you are a teacher who runs their own business simultaneously. This scenario is quite common too! But why does it come up so often that we have two, equally strange words for it?

Based on my own experience as an educator and business owner, I was drawn into this configuration after teaching piano full time for several years out of college in Atlanta. I loved what I did and having the ability to follow my passion, and yet, the income was very defined and not very upwardly mobile.

There is a deeper level than just the financial prospects, though. As a teacher, you experience a level of repetition and exhaustion that is impossible to understand unless you have worked as an educator for a sustained period of time.

Teaching piano one-on-one is a deep passion of mine, but make no mistake, giving the gift of music is hard-ass work. You are using multiple senses at the highest level for concentrated periods of time, then giving descriptions of what you are hearing that have to reach your student, no matter their age. Not to mention, I was a travelling teacher, so I was also sitting in heavy traffic between clients.

With just these two factors in consideration, it makes sense many educators would be drawn to applying their vast talents into other work that can generate a different income stream…or an entirely different career! Educators are a talented group as a whole, and they often have high-level skills in areas outside of the subject they teach. This was the case for me, and the thought that I could use my musical background and talents to build a successful life seemed like the ultimate dream.

How I Became a Teacherpreneur

How did I become an entrepreneur-piano-teacher? I had an opportunity to launch and run one of the very first franchised locations of the music teaching service I worked for in Atlanta as a piano teacher. I taught locally for four years out of Georgia State University, then in 2010, I moved to Northern Virginia to start the Washington, D.C. branch.

As an idealistic 25 year old, I jumped at the opportunity, and I soon found myself in a new city with not one, not two, but three jobs, to make ends meet. I was 1) teaching a full time group of piano students afterschool, 2) launching and building the new D.C. music school, and 3) working as a web marketing specialist when not doing #1 and #2.

Because this was a totally new program and no income was coming in from this new business, working other positions was a matter of necessity, but they were – at the very least – two jobs I enjoyed and were directly related to my primary, but unpaid, role.

The issue this presented for me and my personal sanity is obvious, though – three jobs is a whole lot of work in order to pay the bills and start a new business! Ultimately, it was very worth this expenditure of effort and why I’m writing about this as a success-story today, but I have to lead with advice for any teacherprenurs out there thinking of starting a new business:

I did not know it was going to work out when I started my business, and that risk was always at the front of my mind. I believed in myself and felt the plan was strong, but I has no delusion about the possibility of failure. Back up plans are essential.

In order to succeed as a teacherpreneur, you have to stay vigilant about your risk exposure. And as an entrepreneur who teaches too, you have a consistent back up plan established.

Why is teaching a good back-up for entrepreneurs?

Teaching is a stable job you can always come back to if you leave, the pay is typically livable, and it has a laundry-list of positives associated. For that reason, it serves as an excellent income base for those branching into other businesses and career endeavors simultaneously.

Another key benefit that cannot be under-stated is the workflow timing that goes with teaching. Typically, you are working either early in the day and ending around mid-afternoon. Or, you are starting your teaching in the afternoon hours and on the weekends when school is out, because you offer enrichment education services – like private tutoring, coaching sports, and teaching piano.

No matter the setting you teach in, chances are you have some amount of open time you can commit to other pursuits. If you are lucky, you even have down-seasons that can be dedicated to another endeavor. Or as a motivator, you may simply have the passion and drive to change your life and use any time you have towards that goal.

Workflow and time management for teacherpreneurs – my daily schedule

From around 2010 through 2014, this is how my daily schedule rhythm went like this…

I would start my day with the marketing position around 9am to 9:30am in the morning and went until around 3pm. This was a normal office role, and I was synced up online from my home office in Northern, VA to our home office in Atlanta.

While I was working and my email / office chat was synced with gmail, I had my music school email also open in outlook. Both could send a notification when something came in. That way, I could monitor both positions, while still focusing in on my marketing work.

This simultaneous working-arrangement allowed me to easily flip into “music lessons” mode for my own business during these key office hours if something came up, while not losing time at my marketing position unless absolutely needed. I was able to maximize my time “on” for the job that was actually bringing in immediate income, but could also be responsive to my business’s needs.

Then, I would have a major break in my day. I would do “the after-school switch” and change into piano-teacher-mode.

I would typically get half-ready in the morning, since I was working from home, and video conferencing was not yet widely used. But I would stay in comfortable clothes and non-teaching attire until I was ready to go.

Then, I would take around 15-30 mins to change, have a snack and freshen up, then hit the road for my afternoon lessons. In this time, I was often in a panic to leave on time, find coins for the Dulles Toll Road, and remember that I needed to swing by the sheet music store before my lessons of the day to prep for students I was about to see. I memorized every gas station and fast food spot around my students’ houses to take bathroom breaks and grab food between students.

Though it was a hectic time in my work life and career where I was go-go-go, everything that needed to happen always got done. Once I stepped into one of my students’ homes and a session, it was quite easy to switch gears because of the sharp environment change. That separation helped me completely focus on my students and the piano lesson I was giving to just them.

Each weekday afternoon, I would typically teach around 3-5 lessons, or households, and I would get back home around 9pm. To make ends meet, I was also teaching a full day on Sundays (10am – 7pm in lessons) and giving make ups on Saturday mornings.

You read that right – I did work seven days a week for a few years in there and way too many hours. As a teacherpreneur, you can rally your efforts to make a dream come to life, but the time-cost varies based on how fast and how fully you want to immerse in a new career channel.

My challenge was balancing incoming funds with growing the business in a very expensive city, so that put me in a hurried category. I wanted to get there as soon as possible to do a full career change. Realistically, it was the balance of income growth and what I needed to pay the bills, versus the small risks needed to build my company that determined my pace.

When “entrepreneur” became greater than “teacher” – my career pivot

What kept me motivated and fervently working the soul-crushing, seven-day-a-week schedule for 4 years was the will to see my business succeed and the belief that the investment would pay off. Surely enough, the amount of teaching did scale back in time. It just took stages.

I believe to this day it was well-worth being a teacherpreneur to launch my business, though the work was dense. An end point to the overwhelm – though far away – was always in sight, and you need that in order to stick with your business goals.

The first stage was getting my new business – the one that wasn’t paying the bills – to a point where the financials from that end and the first foundation of students could be counted upon. My business plus my teaching earnings were not quite enough to cover all ends in my budget when I left the marketing position, but I was close enough to take another small risk. And again, I believed that this move and doubling down on my business was worth it.

From 2015 through 2020, I was down to two jobs: teaching and running the music school. Because of the added time to my office day and ability to concentrate in on business development, amazing things started happening with the program. I was able to start growing exponentially faster, which meant my income was on an extreme incline.

Slowly, my teaching faded out and became less and less a part of my schedule. I had to downsize specific days completely, and by the time the pandemic hit, I was already down from my original 33 students to 11 per week.

My passion for teaching and for the students I worked with kept me in teaching until 2023 when my last students graduated and concluded lessons. By that time, I was working full time on my own business, which was bringing in over $2 million in revenue per year, and I only had the three students remaining.

Teacherpreneur to “business owner who teaches”

Though I had no financial need to continue teaching privately after around 2018 / 2019, I wanted to teach just because I loved doing it, which was a big change from where I started at the beginning of my career. I made time for it in my busy, but less scattered workflow. I no longer needed it to ensure survival and that my business would get off the ground in a new city. I could also teach just a few students, rather than a part, or full time schedule load.

In those final years after the pandemic, it was easy to make time for teaching. Now in 2026, being a teacherpreneur has given me a whole new career path where the two feed each other and have created something unique.

To close, I’d love to share the key tips I learned along the way to help with my workflow as a teacher and business-owner:

My Top Workflow Tips for Teacherpreneurs

Now that you’ve heard my career story, a few take aways to help you on your journey with teaching, managing a hefty workload, and building your own business…

Your schedule should be clearly defined: Make deliberate time for both your teaching and personal business in your work week.
Treat your own business as a real job in order to get results. Even if it is not yet making money, work at it like it is.
Use spare time wisely! Consider if you need to commit it for personal time, or business time, then how to allocate it. Time is your currency when launching a business.
Consider your financial needs first when planning your workflow and time allocation. Take care of your bills first and make sure your earnings cover it! Taking small steps towards laying the foundation for your business with spare time, then making small, calculated risks towards your goals is the way to go. Avoid any temptation to abandon the security of teaching before you are financially ready when starting a business.
At times, you may have to work a punishing schedule in order to reach a goal and make ends meet. This should be for a limited amount of time and only to reach a desired end. If you have no end in sight – even in the future – change something.
When on the job, keep your business and your teaching separate. They are different worlds. Your students deserve your entire focus during a class, or session. Always prioritize high quality teaching as equal to a high-quality business.
Find areas of overlap between business and teaching where possible to maximize the work you do. Can your lesson plan be repurposed into a course for your website? Or is a story from your teaching a good example to share as a case study for your business? Maximize your working-time investment by taking care of multiple initiatives at once.
Have an exit plan, or ultimate goal in mind for both career paths. Are you trying to transition into your personal business full time? If so, that will look much different than creating a business that complements your current teaching so you can do both forever. The latter would have to reach a point of balance where the two can be combined into your lifestyle without a punishing workload, whereas transitioning into your own business requires some calculated risk. No matter the end goal, the amount of work it takes to open a business and generate success is not worth the effort for a hobby-level pursuit, or for the sake of having your own business. There should be a reason you are a teacherpreneur and how both work towards a goal.
Be ready to capture moments of business inspiration at all times, and run with it! This is a big one for me. Sometimes, I’ll get fired up about working on a business project, or a teaching initiative for a student, but the opposite side of my work life demands my attention. These moments are priceless, so be prepared to work at odd times to capture your creativity when it strikes. Those moments are so valuable, and you have to ride the wave towards your goals. You could be teaching a class, then come up with a blog idea for your site. Where are you going to write that down so you don’t lose it…or the momentum? Have a system for jotting that down and recording your notes while it is fresh and while you are in any place. Then, take action quickly.
Lastly, this one is good for all business owners and teachers, alike! Keep a professional to-do list in motion for both your teaching and your business tasks. With two different roles in progress at the same time, there will be times of information overload. At the very least, there is twice as much to keep track of. Keep your running to-do lists to stay organized and in motion towards productive tasks. Anything outside your list could be a distraction.

In Closing – the Successful Teacherpreneur

Working as a teacherpreneur is a demanding professional choice, but it is usually undertaken as a means to an end, or to reach a specific goal. I fully believe in the power of using the stability of teaching income to bolster entrepreneurial pursuits, as this strategy opened new career possibilities for me.

Is it a lot of work? Hell yeah it is. But it’s worth it. With an organized plan and vision, you can truly create the career of your dreams!

Contact us to talk about our one-on-one coaching for small business owners and leaders. We would love to help your business take off and reach for the stars!