Free Time with Jenny Blake

What would it be like if you became the only business that mattered to your customers? How can you get 100 percent of the people who eventually buy your products or services to tell their friends? These are some of the powerful questions John Jantsch poses in his latest book, The Ultimate Marketing Engine: 5 Steps to Ridiculously Consistent Growth. He walks us through how to scale by ensuring tran...

Building on the first episode in the Notion walkthrough series, 034: Organizing Research and Ideas, in this session I'm sharing the next step: starting to shape big ideas. I share categories for notes that you can move across a nonlinear board as you map desired transformation for your future audience, when to map those to paper index cards, and why I don't recommend writing with long audio transc...

“Whenever you have a choice of what to do, choose the more interesting path." (Credit to Dorie's friend Marion's mom) In this conversation with DC, one of my closest friends, we discuss how she "optimizes for interesting," says no to good opportunities, builds relationships by following her "no asks for a year" rule, and when to call on trusted advisors to ensure you don't quit something too soon....

Today I'm walking you through my systems for capturing ideas and organizing them, as part of a multi-part series on my favorite tool for organizing life and work: Notion. 📘 Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business, Pivot, Storyworthy (Matthew Dicks), Perennial Seller (Ryan Holiday), The Signature of All Things and Big Magic (Liz Gilbert), How to Take Smart Notes (Sönke Ah...

What makes you come alive? More specifically, how do you uniquely exert effort—for no other reason than the way it makes you feel? as Jonathan shares in his new book, Sparked, we’re all born with a certain “imprint” for work that makes us come alive. This is your "Sparketype®," your DNA-level driver of work that lets you know, deep down, you’re doing what you’re here to do. More About Jonathan Fie...

Why are we so afraid of standing out? Being disliked? ****Trying business or marketing experiments that might fail? Jenny's longtime friendtor Mike Michalowicz is back sharing strategies behind his latest book, Get Different: Marketing That Can't Be Ignored! More about Mike: Mike Michalowicz ****(pronounced mi-‘kal-o-wits) is a business author with a clear mission: Eradicate entrepreneurial povert...

On navigating the creative gremlins that rushed in at the eleventh hour of finishing the Free Time manuscript editing marathon. Next up: getting ready to send to print! 😵‍💫 ❤️ Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review. Free Time is listener-supported—consider donating to become a podcast BFF Insider and you’ll get access to a monthly Q&A call with Jenny and pri...

Revealing the formula behind Free Time . . . with special guest host Michael Karsouny :) ❤️ Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review. Free Time is listener-supported—consider donating to become a podcast BFF Insider and you’ll get access to a monthly Q&A call with Jenny and private podcast feed with bonus episodes. 📘 Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose the Busywor...

What would your experience of business-building be if you knew you were "funded by source"? Ksenia shares where she heard this powerful phrase, and how it guides every aspect of her life and work, from ceremonial cacao to conscious social media. More About Ksenia: Ksenia Avdulova is the founder of the award-nominated digital platform Breakfast Criminals and the host of Funded by Source podcast, fo...

Quick Favor! Would you cast a vote for a Free Time book signing at SXSW? Click here or visit https://bit.ly/freetimepanelpicker. You will have to sign-in to vote, but you don't have to be attending in order to give your vote of confidence for my talk to make the schedule. Thank you in advance!! ❤️ Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review. Free Time is listener-s...

Four Thousand Weeks. Author Oliver Burkeman is asking us to reconsider what it means to “manage time." The conveyor belt of tasks is infinite, but our time most certainly is not. Instead, Burkeman says the most fundamental question is: “What would it mean to spend the only time you ever get in a way that truly feels as though you are making it count? And equally powerful: “In what ways have you ye...

How long does it take to write a book? That depends: how much else are you juggling? Today I'm sharing five major trade-offs from dedicating my time almost exclusively to writing for these first seven months of 2021. I wrapped final edits just yesterday, and the book goes into typesetting (page layout) next! Singular focus is "the ability to concentrate exclusively on a single task without distrac...

Are you a precrastinator or procrastinator? In today's solo episode, Jenny riffs on the pros and cons of completing everything you possibly can far in advance of big deadlines, with spacious margin around mid-project benchmarks. This requires a healthy dose of systems, structure, and room for emotional rollercoasters. ❤️ Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review....

What do you do when your mojo is missing from a creative project you care about? In this solo episode, Jenny riffs on the Free Time gauge: friction versus flow, and her mantra "let it be easy, let it be fun." She shares book updates and an aha! moment about the courage to go all-in. ❤️ Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review. Free Time is listener-supported—con...

How do you determine your true capacity, one that takes your whole life and family into consideration, and then build a streamlined business model to support it? That's the focus of this conversation with Ashley Gartland, who helps service-based business owners scale sustainably. More About Ashley: Ashley is the host of the Better Than Big podcast, where she shares stories, strategies and solution...

What are you wildly curious about? What types of learning and curating are you doing, even if you have no clue where it's taking you (yet)? In this solo episode, I'm taking the pressure off of becoming an overnight self-declared expert. Instead, I'll share six lenses to help you become a better thought-listener first. ❤️ Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review....

Jo-Ná’s aha-moment came five years into running her law practice, at a time when in theory she was thriving, with 11 employees and more work than they could handle. And yet, that crush of exciting work was also leading to burnout. Unsure how to step out of the operations to take a break, Jo-Ná started subconsciously sabotaging her business—just so she could feel free again. Now, five years later,...

What is your relationship to your business? If you look at it as a partnership, how well is it serving you and vice versa? What are the patterns? What are you missing? How much of pricing is math and how much is mindset? That's what we're digging into in this juicy conversation with financial behaviorist Jacquette M. Timmons. Jacquette focuses on the human side of money — to help you see that you...

The poetic justice of Dave’s mission to help others focus is that it started as a clinical diagnosis of “off-the-charts” ADHD. He took that as a personal challenge and developed simple systems to help us all be more productive. You’re going to love his thoughts on reducing team interruptions, making room for your Most Valuable Activities (and why the business depends on you doing that to grow), an...

How can you justify a luxurious hotel stay in your own city? If you enter it with intention and clear outcomes, the real question becomes how can you not? Even if all you did was rest and recharge, that would be a priceless "win" enough. But workcations can also be powerful for shifting your energy, harnessing focus and flow, and generating your best work. In this solo episode—recorded in a hotel...

Leanne Hughes is a brilliant, bright light in the world based in Brisbane, Australia. Along with her smarts and expertise, she truly embodies putting serendipity to work as a business strategy. You are going to love the origin story that launched her podcast, and how she has connected with some of the most well-known people in the speaking and consulting industries to accelerate her business and p...

"Time is the new wealth." Hallelujah, I couldn't agree more! Lee LeFever is a powerful voice of reason for business owners who want to stay agile and delightfully tiny in terms of overhead, but still lean on smart, scalable streams of revenue to free up time. Listen in for his approach to licensing IP, navigating platform risk, and saying no to services so he and his wife could pursue their long-t...

After four years of writing to the White House during Liz Brunner's news anchor days, they finally said yes: to a three minute interview with President Obama. Although she spent her entire career building toward such a moment, you will hear how Liz tackled the opportunity with humor and grace. As she reminds us during this conversation, "Our voices are the one instrument we all play. Each of our v...

Don't make the same mistake I did for a big launch day on a creative project: nothing! Why we should take a page from Oprah who says, "Celebrate what you want to see more of."  📘 Books Mentioned: Pivot, The Bliss Engine 🎙 Related Episodes: 135: The Bliss Engine with Jim Blake (aka Daddy-O!), 196: Agile Public Original Thinking 💌 Subscribe to the Time Well Spent newsletter: http://itsfreetime.com...

How many people can say they’ve never worked for anyone else? Selling eggs door-to-door at 14 years old began a lifetime of self-employment. Jeffrey Shaw is a TEDx speaker, host of The Self Employed Life Podcast with over a million downloads, author of LINGO: Discover Your Ideal Customer’s Secret Language and Make Your Business Irresistible and his latest book*, The Self-Employed Life: Business an...