Free Time with Jenny Blake

What's the difference between a lifestyle boutique and one that is built to scale and sell? Between a commoditized "body shop" and a unique boutique? There are approximately 1.47 million firms in professional services (industry code NAICS 54). Four thousand have reached scale, with more than 250 employees. This is one-quarter of one percent—these are the market leaders. The other 99.75% have betwe...

As my dad (an architect) always reminded me when I was growing up, clients often want it all — quality, speed, and the best prices. The reality? Pick two. It's nearly impossible to optimize for all at once, so what do you want to be known for as a business? 📘 Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One The Road Less Stupid b...

What is the difference between uniqueness, talent, and onlyness? Nilofer Merchant is here to help us figure out how the room changes when we walk in, how to turn feeling othered or overworked into opportunities to help ourselves and everyone around us shine, and the powerful question that shifted how she leads others. More About Nilofer: Nilofer Merchant is ranked by Thinkers50 as one of the world...

Today's episode builds on 56: Systems vs. Goals. Now let's talk about how to build smarter systems by looking for measurable loops in your business, then split testing with small experiments. For some of you, this is automatic, especially if you're familiar with growth hacking principles. For others, it will be a helpful reminder for you and your team about how to simplify and systematize making i...

If it weren't for my longtime mentor MBS and our tiny sprints, sending each other daily check marks via Marco Polo to clock in our (minimum) 100 words of writing, the new Free Time book would not exist. In keeping with his new podcast format, in honor of his book launch (today!!) he gave me permission to replay a recent episode from his show. In it, MBS reads two pages of his new book, How to Begi...

Welcome Deep Questions with Cal Newport listeners! I had so much fun recording the "Help me do less!" episode — check it out here if you haven't already :) [ 01:49 ] 🚀 I'd love to invite you to the Free Time book launch team! Learn more and join us for a pop-up private community and 5 bonus AMA behind-the-book calls at http://itsfreetime.com/launch-team [ 04:12 ]🎙I'm starting a new featurette for...

Today I'm sharing an easy technique (and some of my favorite tools) for claiming your free time now for the year ahead, before everyone else haphazardly (even if unintentionally) fills in the cracks with scattershot scheduling. In taking my own advice, this will also be the last episode of 2021! My email autoresponder is live and my bags are packed—I'm heading to California to spend some quality t...

Early reviews are in! Kirkus calls Free Time, "An entertaining, instructive reading experience . . . an invigorating and informative time-management manual." In perfect timing, I read this just before recording today's episode: "All three parts of the book are well written, applicable, and actionable. Stylistically, Blake is a master of alliteration and rhyming; she’s also adept at employing numbe...

🎉 Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business launches on 3/22/22!  Give the gift of free time to yourself and others in the new year by participating in our Buy One, Get One, Give One bonus. Here's how it works: Buy One: Preorder the hardcover edition and submit proof of purchase at http://itsfreetime.com/bogogo Get One: Within one business day, you'll get early access to the audiobook and...

What gets in the way of deep, intentional focus? Hint: the phone sitting right at your desk. Even though we know the apps blinking on screen are designed for distraction and shallow work—we don't always know how to best facilitate our own focus. Jake and cofounders at Caveday are taking a stand for social connection while carving out and facilitating group sessions dedicated to deep work. More Abo...

Jon Kabat Zinn says, "Overwhelm means life is unfolding at a rate that neither my psyche or my nervous system can handle.” Sometimes life (and work) is like a yummy buffet: it all looks delicious, but our eyes are bigger than our stomach. Today I'm sharing a few reasons our perceived capacity can be misaligned with our actual capacity: invisible roles, poor role fit, taking on new exciting project...

After building Box of Crayons for nearly twenty years, Michael Bungay Stanier hit a fork-in-the-road: he knew that for his business to continue growing, it would be wisest for him (and more energizing) to step aside. For two years he trained his successor, Shannon Minifie, then navigated the identity void of "standing in the valley of Box of Crayons" before launching into his new direction, includ...

Metaphors are powerful drivers for our mind—they allow us to quickly convey complex information to better understand abstract ideas. How do you think about business-building? Are you building a machine, managing a house, running a restaurant, or something else altogether? In this episode, we are discussing helpful aspects of all three analogies, and countering the role of entropy in any organic sy...

"We don't write books, we craft spreads." Dr. Alex Osterwalder and his book co-authors pioneered the landscape, full-color, creative visuals format for simplifying complex business ideas. They consider every page of their books as a user interface, optimizing for simplicity, clarity, and fun. "Visuals don't become lipstick on a pig, they become an essential part of the reader's experience." There'...

After reflecting on last week’s episode, here’s how I’m reducing friction and designing smarter systems for ongoing content creation.  📘 Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business — If you want to join the book launch team to get insider access and community leading up to the launch, sign-up at itsfreetime.com/join and you’ll be the first to know when that kicks off! Pivot:...

Steven Morris's new book, The Beautiful Business, is an actionable manifesto to help business leaders and entrepreneurs work and live as human artists. Join us for a conversation on beekeeping, reclaiming beauty, and business building beyond money and metrics. More About Steven: Steven Morris helps business leaders build unignorable brands, cultures, and businesses through his work as an advisor,...

Are you what author Bridget Schulte calls OBL, Overwhelmed By Life? I am this week . . . maybe you can relate. This week I'm putting words to crunched time margin. In a future episode, I'll share what I'm experimenting with to transform to-do list drowning into gliding. 📘 Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business — If you want to join the book launch team to get insider ac...

What do a flying money emoji, a stray takeaway coffee cup, and a heart have in common? Those were the starting clues I brought to Adam Chaloeicheep and his cofounder Marisol at Together Agency before starting work on the Free Time brand—as now expressed in the podcast, website, and book. Adam is one of my closest friends, and a creative business leader with over a decade of experience in product a...

This is a special preview from my forthcoming book: Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business (launches March 22, 2022). I talk in Pivot about pivoters being high net growth; Free Timers optimize for another central value: high net freedom. If you want to join the book launch team to get insider access and community leading up to the launch, sign-up at itsfreetime.com/join and you’ll be the...

Alisa Cohn has been coaching startup founders to grow into world-class CEOs for nearly 20 years. Today's we're discussing what she calls the "unnatural act of leading other adults" from her new book, From Start-Up to Grown-Up. We also discuss her own journey to becoming a published author, and the resistance roadblocks she had to move past along the way. ❤️ Enjoying the show? The best way to thank...

If social media drains you, yet continues to dangle itself as a shiny should, this episode is for you. It's a crossover replay from one of the episodes that listeners share most often from the Pivot podcast, so I'm replaying it here for you. I share my own process—mindset shifts and business focuses—that allow me to keep moving, even without platform-building or posting on Facebook, Instagram, Lin...

Heart of Business founder Mark Silver shares his "pay from the heart" pricing approach, a step beyond "pay what you want" or sliding scale. In working with thousands of heart-centered business owners, he finds that the latter are often done from a place of unconscious money issues, and can lack acknowledgment of the business owner's needs. This method isn't for everyone, but it might be worth expe...

"Don't write a check your body can't cash." This is a phrase I remind myself when my to-do list eyes are bigger than my available energy, something that has been happening a lot lately (and I know I'm not alone in this). As Anne Helen Petersen captures so perfectly in her recent newsletter, there are many reasons (we're or) You're Still Exhausted. Today I'm sharing a quick solo riff from the park:...

“Glowing in the dark is the work of being a patient warrior for our gifts. Our light is the medicine our aching planet needs.” KC flips the traditional leadership script, giving us permission to pause, chill, breathe, and shine. We discuss unicorn symbology, vulnerability in launching big creative projects, identifying work that aligns with your soul, and what we can all learn from the art of maki...

This is the third and final (for now!) walkthrough of how I take big ideas from the organizing research stage toward tracking progress toward a final draft of the book. I call this board my Essay Tracker. Be sure to start with the first two episodes in the Notion walkthrough series: 034: Organizing Research and Ideas and 036: Shaping Big Ideas. 📘 Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Lov...