Are We at the Whims?

According to SignalFire, the fastest growing type of small business is one that revolves around content creation, also known as the creator economy. In this conversation, Kim Kaupe and I explore favorite tips and tools for designing our calendar to support creative work, strategies for staying consistent, paying for accountability, “fishing where your fish are,” batching to get more done in less time, and how Kim prepared for her successful Shark Tank pitch several years ago. Watch the full conversation via video (YouTube) and our previous conversation on Time Blocking.

🧰 If you want more help getting organized for the year ahead and freeing up dozens of hours each week, get your Free Time Operations Dashboard »

More About Kim: Kim Kaupe is an accidental entrepreneur, who at 24 years old researched how to start a company. Fast-forward ten years later, she’s worked with Oprah and secured 4 out of 5 sharks on Shark Tank. On her Coffee with Kim show, she has meaningful conversations with fascinating, thought-provoking and successful CEOs, celebrities & influential individuals in business. She is an educator, speaker, and chocolate chip cookie aficionado who believes in hard work, short emails, and showing others how to showcase their strengths.

🌟3 Key Takeaways:

• Set up creative blocks on your calendar, and collect inspiration prior to those sessions. Create a cloud-based Collection Bucket if you don’t already have one.
• For high-stakes situations: Find people who have recently done what you’re trying to do and “copy their homework.” How did it go? What surprised you? What helped you most? What were you unprepared for?
• As far as where to publish content, ”You’ve got to fish where your fish are.” What pond are your people swimming in?

📝Permission: Pivot away from projects that are no longer a fit. People do business with people, not any one product.

✅Do (or Delegate) This Next: Open your calendar and block off the time you want to be unavailable before during and after holidays and other annual events. Make those blocks recurring so that your rest and relaxation time will be built in next year.

📘Books Mentioned:

• Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business
• Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One
• Life After College
• How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking by Sönke Ahrens

🔗Resources Mentioned:

• Kim on the web, Bright Ideas Only, IG: @kimkaupe, LinkedIn, Facebook
• Kim’s podcast: Coffee with Kim
• LinkedIn Learning course Creator Mode
• Video: Kim’s Shark Tank pitch for ZinePak
• Newsletters: Kim’s Copy My Notes, Sarah Young’s Friday Favorites, #PivotList, The What
• Article: Paul Graham on Maker's Schedule, Manager's Schedule
• Tools: Captio (iOS), Superhuman, Boomerang, Kajabi, ConvertKit, Notion

🎧Related Podcast Episodes:

• 011: Pitching Shark Tank with Sarah Apgar
• 111: Building a Second Brain with Tiago Forte
• 069: Epic Evergreen Email Sequences with Allan Dib
• Jenny on Coffee with Kim: Time Blocking: Creating More Free Time With Jenny Blake, Freeing Up Time In Your Life & Business with Jenny Blake

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