180: 📉 Diminishing Returns and the True Costs of Shiny Shoulds

📣 The Free Time podcast is nominated for a Webby Award, the "Oscars of the Internet!" Please visit http://itsfreetime.com/webby to cast your vote for Free Time between now and Thursday, April 20! This nomination alone is a major achievement, putting us in the top 12% of nearly 14,000 projects entered—thank you so much for being here and for your support!

What business best practices drive you nuts? What are the best practices you wish people would follow, but they don't? These are clues to things you can be doing differently or stop doing altogether in your business.

Today’s episode starts with a few of my pet rants—err, peeves—followed by six specific examples of activities with diminishing returns in my business, ending with one big question antidote for when you, too, find yourself Sailing the Sea of Shiny Shoulds.

🌟 3 Key Takeaways

• Shiny Shoulds and diminishing returns obscure the true opportunity cost of what’s really at stake, and they can quickly lead to finishing returns in terms of focus, energy, and output.
• Consider the data and your intuition: Sometimes it’s hard to go a different way than “what everyone else is doing”, even when you know it’s what’s best for you. Only you know what’s at stake if you continue down a path that doesn’t resonate or produce the ROI you need.
• Look for asymmetric upside when considering what’s possible when creating space: What if I stopped this altogether? What’s the worst that could happen? What’s the best? What else?

📝 Permission: Stop working on projects and with clients who are no longer serving you, that don’t meaningfully contribute to your revenue and joy.

✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Audit your business; what areas are past their prime or no longer aligned? If you’re being truly honest, which ones never were?

🔗 Resources

• Courses: Dorie Clark’s Rapid Content Creation, Jenny’s LinkedIn Learning courses
• Articles: Investopedia on Diminishing Returns, Investopedia on Sunk Cost Fallacy, 10 Things I learned from Peter Drucker

📚 Books Mentioned

• Nassim Taleb’s 5-book Incerto series: Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets, The Black Swan: Second Edition: The Impact of the Highly Improbable, Antifragile: Things That Gain from Disorder, The Bed of Procrustes: Philosophical and Practical Aphorisms, and Skin in the Game: Hidden Asymmetries in Daily Life
• Jenny’s books: Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business, Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One, Life After College

🎧 Related Episodes

• Free Time:
• 138: ⛵️ Stop Sailing the Sea of Shiny Shoulds
• 173: Cut Your Losses—Even While Pivoting in Public—with Khe Hy
• 042: How I Run My Business Without Social Media (Pivot Replay)
• Pivot:
• 148: Penney & Jenny Show—Pivoting From Toxic Situations Toward Self-Entertainment,
• 305: Is What You Are Wanting Actually What’s Best For You? With Luke Burgis
• 304: Through the Crux—Pivoting from Acting to Entrepreneurship with Ryan Devlin

💻 Access Free Time episode transcripts on Podscribe »

🌟Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review

❤️ Join our BFF community for access to a monthly Q&A call, a private podcast feed with bonus content, and a forum to exchange ideas and feedback with fellow Heart-Based Business owners.

💌 Subscribe to the Time Well Spent newsletter: http://itsfreetime.com/join

🛠 Get instant access to the Free Time Toolkit: http://itsfreetime.com/toolkit

💬 I’d love to hear what’s on your mind! Take the Free Time listener survey

☎️ Submit a voice question or comment for future episodes: http://itsfreetime.com/ask

🎧 Make sure you’re subscribed wherever you listen to podcasts

📝 Check out show notes from this episode and share it with a friend: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/180

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices