Free Time with Jenny Blake

How do we use technology to facilitate real relationships? That’s the big question driving Gina Bianchini’s epic entrepreneurial quest. Today we’re talking about the magic phrase that will transform what you’re building, the difference between social networks versus social media, why a course is not a community, how to avoid working too hard as the host, and why you might benefit from building a small, tight-knit group before trying to grow a bigger audience.More About Gina: Gina Bianchini is the CEO and Founder of Mighty Networks, where creators, entrepreneurs, and brands use cultural software to build digital communities. She’s also the creator of Community Design™, a proven strategy framework for understanding and growing communities online and in the real world. Today we’re talking about her new book, Purpose: Design a Community and Change Your Life.🌟3 Key Takeaways: Fall in love with the expression, “So that we can . . .” This will help you more clearly communicate the transformation you are working toward while building new features and services in your business and/or community. One of the worst things you can do is make membership about fandom, where members are active only in relationship with you as the host. A much more powerful value journey is facilitating connections with and for other members. Community questions evoke meaningful responses and spark a connection between people. Try Gina’s “question generator” formula with two key elements: an unlocking phrase (e.g. name one thing, how do you know when, what was an unusual, what do you value most in a…, etc.) and a topic tied to the purpose of your community. For example: What’s your favorite book about meditation? What’s the first time you remember hearing the phrase generational wealth? 📝Permission: You do not have to produce a lot of content! Flip the script from producing content to convening human beings towards a common goal. This is one of the most profound shifts any of us can make, not just in building communities but how we approach life.✅Do (or Delegate) This Next: Gina defines your Ideal Member as the person who needs your community right now. “Remember, you’re not building a generic community. Everyone is not welcome. By definition, your Ideal Members already have a lot in common.” Jot down the qualities of your ideal member (how they think, what stage of life/business they’re at, core challenges, what they’ve already tried) and write about the transition they are currently experiencing. 📘Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Purpose: Design a Community and Change Your Life—A Step-by-Step Guide to Finding Your Purpose and Making It Matter 🔗Resources Mentioned:  Gina on the web, Instagram: @mightynetworks, Twitter: @MightyNetworks and @GiNab, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube What Works with Tara McMullin: What is the creator economy? with Gina Bianchini 🎧Related Podcast Episodes: 125: How to Create Your Own CRM with Alex Sherwood 078: Creating Transformational Mastermind Groups 💻 Access Free Time episode transcripts on Podscribe »🌟Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review.❤️ Join Jenny’s private BFF community for access to a monthly Q&A call, a private podcast feed with bonus content, and a community 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 full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/167 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

How many times have you gone skidding into vacation, arriving exhausted from trying to “earn” it before you leave? Then feeling guilty for any loose ends you were unable to tie up in time, maybe even brooding the first few days because you’re so burned out that you aren’t even enjoying your precious time off nearly as much as you thought you would? Research shows that we can experience diminishing returns when we have too much free time, which might explain the onset of vacation blues. In this episode, I’m sharing my rollercoaster that arises at the beginning of longer stretches of free time and a few strategies for settling in to find true peace and relaxation. 🌟3 Key Takeaways: Give yourself transition time on both ends of time off: switching from a pre-vacation work sprint to instant R&R is highly unlikely!  Sometimes you just need a day to float and not ask anything of yourself, including the pressure to relax (oh, the irony!).  Tune in: What’s sitting just below the surface? What are you noticing once the busyness and daily routine recedes? 📝Permission: To relax! Leave things undone. You do not have to “earn” your time off by working yourself into the ground preparing. You also hereby have permission to take a longer break than you think you need, allowing space for a slow unwinding when you arrive.✅Do (or Delegate) This Next: For your next vacation or big block of free time, buy yourself extra time and mental margin by starting your email autoresponder a week early, and ending it a week after you return.📘Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Grumpy Monkey, Bragging Rights by Lisa Bragg Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn Happier Hour by Cassie Holmes Goal-Free Living by Stephen Shapiro Invisible Solutions: 25 Lenses that Reframe and Help Solve Difficult Business Problems by Stephen Shapiro Outrageous Openness by Tosha Silver 🔗Resources Mentioned: Free Time’s Author Toolkit UCLA research via Cassie Holmes: Too Much Free Time? Blame Solitude or Lack of Productive Activity Article: The 7 types of rest that every person needs by Saundra Dalton-Smith MD 🎧Related Podcast Episodes: 126: Creating Time Buffer—7 Strategies for Spacious Scheduling JB on SPARKED with Jonathan Fields 'White Lotus' Creator Mike White on Fresh Air podcast JP on the Good Life Project: How I Took a Month Off to Write & Make Art (then what REALLY happened), Jenny Blake | How to Create More Free Time 💻 Access Free Time episode transcripts on Podscribe »🌟Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review.❤️ Join Jenny’s private BFF community for access to a monthly Q&A call, a private podcast feed with bonus content, and a community 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 full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/166 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Here are a few food-for-thought reflection questions, inspired by today’s guest: Are you working with amateur clients or ones who bring out the best in you? Are you pricing the “aggravation factor” into your proposals when necessary? What about “throwing proposals over the fence,” creating self-inflicted stress when prospective clients ghost you as a result? Finally, are you stuck in the feast-or-famine cycle of your business?If any of the questions above resonate, you will love this conversation with Ilise Benun, who has been running her business helping creative professionals for over 35 years. Ilise shares The Proposal Oreo Strategy; how she stays consistent with content creation while walking the line between discipline and rigidity; why she sees word-of-mouth marketing as a result, not real marketing; and creating abundant interstitial time by embracing eigenzeit—the German term meaning “the time inherent to a process itself.”More About Ilise: Ilise Benun is the founder of Marketing-Mentor.com, the go-to online resource for creative professionals who want better projects with bigger budgets, through which she offers business coaching. She is also a national speaker and author of 7 books, including "The Creative Professional's Guide to Money," three online courses via CreativeLive and Domestika.org, and The Simplest Marketing Plan – all tailored to the needs of creative professionals. She has also been hosting the Marketing Mentor Podcast since 2008, with over 465 episodes at the time of this recording.🌟3 Key Takeaways: Amateur clients are those who have not worked with a provider like you before and might have unrealistic expectations. The Oreo Proposal Method: Two cookies and a yummy center, comprising of a qualifying conversation to determine mutual fit, a live proposal walk-through, followed by a conversation about next steps. The best marketing is part of your day-to-day work, not an isolated set of activities. Consider three ongoing tools: strategic networking, targeted outreach, and content marketing. 📝Permission: Stop listening to the scolding voice in your head. See your business as a laboratory, where everything is an experiment.✅Do (or Delegate) This Next: Clear even more space in your calendar with interstitial time, space between events or obligations that you can use to prepare and reflect. Ensure that you have big blocks of time that you can use to let ideas marinate and develop.📘Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One The Creative Professional's Guide to Money: How to Think About It, How to Talk About it, How to Manage It by Ilise Benun 🔗Resources Mentioned: Ilise on the web, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube Ilise’s podcast: Marketing Mentor and Newsletter: Quick Tips Marketing the Invisible: How to Get Better Clients with the Proposal Oreo Strategy - In Just 7 Minutes with Ilise Benun 🎧Related Podcast Episodes: 133: Hire People Who Are Better Than You with Terri Trespicio 117: Tiny Marketing Actions with Pamela Slim 💻 Access Free Time episode transcripts on Podscribe »🌟Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review.❤️ Join Jenny’s private BFF community for access to a monthly Q&A call, a private podcast feed with bonus content, and a community 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 full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/165 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “A book is a business card.” That’s because what you don’t hear is that a book is a wonderful revenue generator! It isn’t — at least not directly. The extreme Time-to-Revenue Ratio of writing and marketing a book is not for the faint of heart, unless the book connects directly to a larger part of your business model, serving as lead generation for more profitable products and services.Some interesting stats for you: Even the big behemoth, Penguin Random House, reports that just 35 percent of books they publish are profitable. Among those that make money, just 4 percent account for 60 percent of those profits. In 2021, fewer than one percent of the 3.2 million titles that BookScan tracked sold more than 5,000 copies.Continuing on last week’s conversation about the three different publishing options and how to choose which one is right for you, today I’m diving deep into the mysterious royalty waters. How do each of the three methods — self, hybrid, traditional — stack up? Listen in to find out.For more data points beyond my own examples, check out The Transparency Project’s Publishing Paid Me crowd-sourced spreadsheet with nearly 3,000 responses.🌟4 Key Questions: Have you published a book before? How much cash (and free cash flow) do you have available? What is your creative vision? What is your timeline? 📝Permission: To take your time and try to take the pressure off. Keep marinating on your book idea, and trust that you’ll be shown what to do with the process.✅Do (or Delegate) This Next: Reach out to your network to schedule 20-minute chats with authors (friends-of-friends) who have taken each of these three routes. 📘Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business  Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One  Life After College The Coaching Habit: Say Less, Ask More & Change the Way You Lead Forever by Michael Bungay Stanier Turning the Flywheel: A Monograph to Accompany Good to Great by Jim Collins 🔗Resources Mentioned: Articles: A Trial Put Publishing’s Inner Workings on Display. What Did We Learn?, The Random House Antitrust Suit Revealed How Out of it Book Publishers Really Are Self- and Hybrid Publishers: Page Two, Running Press Publishing, Portfolio Publishing, Ideapress Publishing, Amazon CreateSpace Calculator: When do I earn out? (Jane Friedman's calculator for traditional book deals) 🎧Related Podcast Episodes:  103: How to Land a Literary Agent and Publisher with David Moldawer (Part One) 105: “Don’t write the wrong book!” with David Moldawer (Part Two) 077: Happy Launch Day! Antonio Neves Guest Hosts (Part 1) and (Part 2) 158: How to Decide on a Book (or Big Idea) Topic—10 Filters 162: Should You Self-Publish? (Part One) Pivot 207: How to Develop Your Book and Big Idea (Part 1) and 208: Your Book and Big Idea (Part 2) 💻 Access Free Time episode transcripts on Podscribe » 🌟 Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review.❤️ Join Jenny’s private BFF community 🛠 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📝 Check out full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/164 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Prolific punchy pontificator Khe Hy—creator of the $10K work accelerator and Supercharge Your Productivity—returns to the pod to share his strategy for collecting inspiring content, repackaging interesting tidbits, and regularly hitting “publish” on his newsletter, RadReads. Today we’re talking about idea kernels: micro-ideas that can be elaborated upon and turned into different kinds of content that help you connect with your audience and your fellow creators. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out Khe’s earlier episode on 129: The $10K Work Framework.More About Khe: Khe Hy is the founder and CEO of RadReads, an online education company that helps professionals lead productive, examined, and joyful lives. Khe is the creator of the $10K Work productivity method and teaches the popular cohort-based course Supercharge Your Productivity. RadReads provides guides, trainings, and coaching for over 36,000 professionals to help them gain back free time, scale their impact and make their little dent in the universe.🌟3 Key Takeaways: If you’re collaborating on making content, create rules for decision-making that your team members can follow. Are you telling yourself any stories that aren’t serving you? For example, can you only be a certain kind of creative or productive at a certain time or under certain conditions? Are they really true? If you have a large enough audience, social media sites, like Twitter and IG, can be a great place to test idea kernels. The feedback is immediate and can help you decide whether or not to develop a small idea further, repurposing it in a style best suited to the different platforms.  📝Permission: To not be consistent. If that consistency bugaboo takes over, it can suck the life out of the process for you. When you get stuck, create content based on kernels from other people's work to help them gain more visibility and to build a deeper relationship with them.✅Do (or Delegate) This Next: Set yourself up to find idea kernels that resonate with your audience by looking at what they’re consuming: their top ten podcasts or YouTube channels or Substacks. Follow the fun and look at what is interesting to you as well. 📘Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It by Michael E. Gerber 🔗Resources Mentioned: Khe on the web, Twitter, LinkedIn Courses: Supercharge Your Productivity, $10K Work Accelerator Articles: The Magic of Doing $10,000 Per Hour Work, How to be the Chief Unblocking Officer, CNN: Meet Khe He, the Oprah for Millennials 🎧Related Podcast Episodes: 129: The $10K Work Framework with Khe Hy and Pivot 313: What’s the pebble in your shoe? Pivoting from Wall Street to RadReads with Khe Hy Alex Cooper’s Call Her Daddy interview with John Mayer 156: 8 Idea Generation Strategies and 124: JB’s 5 C’s System for Content Curation 137: Attracting Clients Through TikTok (without Letting the Algorithm Drive You) with Inna Aizenshtein 💻 Access Free Time episode transcripts on Podscribe »🌟Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review.❤️ Join Jenny’s private BFF community for access to a monthly Q&A call, a private podcast feed with bonus content, and a community 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 full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/163 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Should you self-publish? This is a big debate among aspiring authors, and there is no one right answer. Today I’m sharing my take on the three main publishing options you have to get a book into the world:  Self-publishing (including direct-to-ebook or audiobook) where you hire your own team of specialists along the way. Hybrid where you partner with an established publisher, while fronting the costs as an author (for the team they assemble and either print-on-demand or funding a larger print run), and  Traditional publishing with one of the “Big Five” publishing houses, where they give you an advance, and you get the cache of making it through the “gatekeeper” gauntlet. 🌟6 Key Considerations: Cash Flow Your Business Model Quality Speed Team & Process Platform size, connections, and “know that I tried” 📝Permission: Take one small next step towards publishing your book. Remember, you are a messenger. When you get overwhelmed, return to asking, “What is in the highest good for all involved? How can I move forward with ease and joy?”✅Do (or Delegate) This Next: Check out the Author Toolkit, then draft a one-page query email highlighting the answers to: why me, why now, why this book, and your platform stats. 📘Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business  Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One  Life After College Published.: The Proven Path From Blank Page To 10,000 Copies Sold by Chandler Bolt Write Useful Books: A Modern Approach to Designing and Refining Recommendable Nonfiction by Rob Fitzpatrick Write a Must-Read: Craft a Book That Changes Lives—Including Your Own by A.J. Harper 🔗Resources Mentioned: Free Time’s Author Toolkit Article: New York Times’ How to Get Published—One Book’s Journey Related Podcasts: Self Publishing School, The Creative Penn Podcast Publishers: Page Two, Running Press Publishing, Portfolio Publishing, Ideapress Publishing, Amazon CreateSpace Audiobook Publishing: ACX, Findaway Voices 🎧Related Podcast Episodes:  103: How to Land a Literary Agent and Publisher with David Moldawer (Part One) 105: “Don’t write the wrong book!” with David Moldawer (Part Two) 077: Happy Launch Day! Antonio Neves Guest Hosts (Part 1) 079: Behind the Launch with Antonio Neves (Part 2) 096: Book Sales Stats—One Month Post-Launch 🎉 028: When the Financial Tides Recede 045: Behind the Free Time Brand with Adam Chaloeicheep 158: How to Decide on a Book (or Big Idea) Topic—10 Filters 070: Rough Drafts vs. The Writers Room 035: The Long Game with Dorie Clark 💻 Access Free Time episode transcripts on Podscribe » 🌟 Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review.❤️ Join Jenny’s private BFF community for access to a monthly Q&A call, a private podcast feed with bonus content, and a community 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 full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/162 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Processing email and social media inboxes is overwhelming enough for one person — can you imagine creating an entire company to help entrepreneurs do this at scale?! Communication curmudgeon that I am, I most certainly cannot.That’s why I invited today’s guest, Yaro Starek, to share the systems and approaches behind Inbox Done, his company that helps clients tame the never-ending email beast.More About Yaro: Yaro Starak is the co-founder of InboxDone.com, an email management company with a team of 45+ serving clients, including restaurant owners, venture capitalists, accountants, doctors, lawyers, real estate agents, car retailers, online coaches, and more. He is the host of the Vested Capital podcast, author of Blog Profits BluePrint, and angel investor. Yaro has been featured in SkyNews, Forbes, Entrepreneur Magazine, Huffington Post, Business Insider, Foundr, and hundreds of media outlets and events.🌟3 Key Takeaways: Yaro believes it’s best to have two team members entirely dedicated to email, not just a fraction of one VA’s time, which often just replicates the problems you have with staying on top of it yourself. Build in redundancy for handling communications.  Determine where you most want to receive different kinds of information such as daily summaries, details about leads and inquiries, personal matters, time sensitive client requests, etc — then create SOPs for how you get the information you need where you can most easily deal with it.  If your inbox is your to-do list then you are at risk of two things: You will not be able to fully delegate it, and it might not be the best way to prioritize your work. 📝Permission: To be involved in — not responsible for — your inbox.✅Do (or Delegate) This Next: Check out Jenny’s Stuck Email Categories template and start observing what the most common types of emails are (and subsequent processes to document) that you might be able to delegate in the future. 📘Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Blog Profits Blue Print by Yaro Starak A World Without Email by Cal Newport Unsubscribe by Jocelyn Glei The Tyranny of Email by John Freeman 🔗Resources Mentioned: Yaro on the web, Instagram: @yarostarak, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook InboxDone.com Yaro’s podcast: Vested Capital and course: Laptop Lifestyle Academy Article: How To Hire, Test And Train A Virtual Assistant To Handle Your Email  Tools: Yesware, SaneBox, Calendly, HelpScout (what JB uses for team emails), HubSpot, Slack 🎧Related Podcast Episodes: 002: Eliminate Email with Cal Newport 006: Going Pro on Podcasting with Jordan Harbinger 019: Most Valuable Activities with Dave Crenshaw 145: Tips for Training Part-Time Team Members with Kaneisha Grayson 104: Save Someone Next Steps 035: The Long Game with Dorie Clark and Pivot 298: Networking in a New Niche and Becoming Broadway Investors with Dorie Clark and Alisa Cohn 💻 Access Free Time episode transcripts on Podscribe »🌟Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review.❤️ Join Jenny’s private BFF community for access to a monthly Q&A call, a private podcast feed with bonus content, and a community 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 full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/161 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do you ever feel like you’re just not good with systems? If so, then this episode is for you. The more efficient we can be in our operations, the more time we can set free. Today, I’m sharing five questions to keep in mind while working to increase your awareness for potential automation opportunities. Automation is a skill, and this episode will help you get better at it.For more help and inspiration as you set your time free in 2023, I encourage you to join us in BFF, my private community. If you join before March, you’ll be in time for a special workshop on Trademarking and IP with a Heart-Based Business attorney. Learn more and enroll at ItsFreeTime.com/BFF. Apply promo code PODCAST for 50% off your first month.🌟Five Questions to Get Better at Spotting Automation Opportunities: Does this repeat? Is something falling through the cracks? Would more communication help? Is my data centralized where I can reference it easily? Do I need two or more different software tools to talk to each other? Bonus: What can I put on subscription? 📝Permission: Not to be a software expert or an engineer! ✅Do (or Delegate) This Next: Become an observer: Where are you repeating yourself? What’s falling through the cracks? Where would extra reminders be helpful? Get creative and start automating more!📘Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business  Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Storyworthy: Engage, Teach, Persuade, and Change Your Life through the Power of Storytelling 🔗Resources Mentioned: Free Time Toolkit and Quiz BFF Community Free Time Operations Dashboard Subscriptions: Trade Coffee, Lola, Factor Tools: Kajabi, Zapier, Notion, HelpScout, Slack, TripIt Pro, Typeform, Squarespace 🎧Related Podcast Episodes:  062: Made By Monday 🐸 On Content "Frog" Batching 156: 8 Idea Generation Strategies 102: 12 Systems-Thinking Steps for Moving from Friction to Flow 094: Top 5 Tools That Power My Business 088: Why I Moved from Asana to Notion for Task and Project Management 148: How to Build a Business Operations Dashboard 125: How to Create Your Own CRM with Alex Sherwood 018: Workcation in the City Pivot 077: 21+ Travel Tips, Tools and Apps — with Jenny Blake 💻 Access Free Time episode transcripts on Podscribe » 🌟 Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review.❤️ Join Jenny’s private BFF community for access to a monthly Q&A call, a private podcast feed with bonus content, and a community 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 full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/160 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Juggling a schedule for one person is tricky enough; for a two-entrepreneur household with kids, it’s another thing altogether! Learn how Jess and Dave make time for each other, for themselves, and for their deep work in today’s conversation about creating free time together as a family.More About Jessica: Jessica Marati Radparvar is a social impact strategist motivated by the belief that doing the right thing should be as easy as humanly possible. She is the founder of Reconsidered, a boutique consultancy and content platform that helps impact leaders drive bigger, bolder, more sustainable change.More About Dave: Dave Radparvar is an entrepreneur, father, and amateur skateboarder. In 2009, he co-founded Holstee, a company that offers inspiration and tools to help you live a more meaningful life. In 2020, he co-founded Reflection.app, a guided digital journal for mental wellness. Dave lives in Amsterdam with Jess and their son Shilo.🌟3 Key Takeaways: Revisit things that don’t feel right. As you and your company grow, regularly check in to see what feels right and what should stop or change. Clear communication and clarity around task ownership make it much easier to anticipate and enjoy the work you are in charge of. Is the best or right thing to do also the easiest one? Think about how you want to show up for your business and family; block time in advance for what matters most individually and as a unit. 📝Permission: Jess says, “For entrepreneurs who are new parents: accept where you are in your journey, you might not be able to accomplish everything you used to be able to. Be compassionate and loving to yourself. This time is temporary.” From Dave, “Do the things for yourself in the morning that set you up for mental and physical wellness. Work can wait until you have spent some time on what makes you feel happy and energized.”✅Do (or Delegate) This Next: Give yourself, or your business, a haircut. What is no longer working or serving you? Find something that needs to go or change to make room for something new. (Or just enjoy a new look!)📘Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life Admin: How I Learned to Do Less, Do Better, and Live More by Elizabeth Emens 🔗Resources Mentioned: Jessica on the web, Twitter, LinkedIn Dave on the web, Twitter, LinkedIn Holstee Reflection.app Reconsidered: Newsletter, courses, private LinkedIn group Newsletter: Dense Discovery People: David Goggins, MBS, Sarah Peck’s Startup Parent 🎧Related Podcast Episodes: 143: Exploring Time, Money, and Energy Capacity with Tara McMullin and Charlie Gilkey (Replay) 141: Process, Permission Slips, and Business Pivots with Tara McMullin 157: Downshifting to a Delightfully Part-Team Team with Laura Roeder 093: How to Sell Your Online Business with Alexis Grant 104: Save Someone Next Steps 098: How to Build Your Minimum Viable Team (MVT) 💻 Access Free Time episode transcripts on Podscribe »🌟Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review.❤️ Join Jenny’s private BFF community for access to a monthly Q&A call, a private podcast feed with bonus content, and a community 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 full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/159 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

One of the most common questions from those accessing the Author Toolkit (an assembly of my best-open-sourced templates and processes from 14+ years and three books) is a variation on: How can I decide on a topic? How do I narrow down my idea? How do I know if/when I have landed on the right idea?Today I’m sharing ten filters to help you narrow down your book idea — or, if you’re not an aspiring author, perhaps your next “big IP” area that will best serve your body of work, your business, and your future audience. 🌟10 Filters: How do I decide on a book topic? BookRx: Does it solve a problem people know they have? Would two friends at the coffee shop talk about the idea the way I’m describing it?  Is it evergreen for the market? Will there always be new people interested in the topic? Is it evergreen for me? Will I be able to maintain interest in the idea over time? Is it specific and yet still a big idea? It needs to be unique enough to attract attention and broad enough to have a large audience. Is it missing, or has it already been done? Some topics are more crowded than others, so spend some time researching other books and authors. Is there a trend, a hook, a twist? What is my unique take on this topic, and how will it benefit my audience? Does it serve an audience I’m excited to attract? Who do I want to work with, and will the idea help you connect with them? Does it serve my broader business/career goals? How does the book fit into my business or career? Am I uniquely qualified/positioned? Do I have the expertise and background to create a book on this topic? Why me, why now, why this book? What is my platform? Do I have the reach and connections to make a business case for the book?  📝Permission: Ditch dull ideas! No matter how good (or should) they seem on paper. Stay committed—and surrender throughout the process—to ideas that make your heart sing.✅Do (or Delegate) This Next: Once you’ve narrowed down your BookRx (or BigIdeaRx), create a one-pager answering: Why me? Why now? Why this book? What’s the timely hook or the unexpected twist? Bonus: Draft a mini-conversation about the problem it solves, with one friend lamenting to another over coffee, and the second one answering, “Ahhh, I know just the thing — you have to read this book!” 📘Books Mentioned: Free Time: Lose The Busywork, Love Your Business, Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One 🔗Resources Mentioned: Free Time Author Toolkit Adrian Klaphaak’s Career Pathfinder Course (promo code PIVOT) Jenny’s LinkedIn Learning Courses 🎧Related Podcast Episodes:  156: 8 Idea Generation Strategies 103: How to Land a Literary Agent and Publisher with David Moldawer (Part One) 105: “Don’t write the wrong book!” with David Moldawer (Part Two) 036: Shaping Big Ideas — Notion Walkthrough #2 038: Tracking Progress Toward Finishing a Book (or Big Idea) with an Essay Tracker — Notion Walkthrough #3 031: Eleventh-Hour Creative Gremlins Pivot 207: How to Develop Your Book and Big Idea (Part 1), 208: Your Book and Big Idea (Part 2) 💻 Access Free Time episode transcripts on Podscribe » 🌟 Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review.❤️ Join Jenny’s private BFF community for access to a monthly Q&A call, a private podcast feed with bonus content, and a community 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 full show notes and links from this episode and share it with a friend! https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/158 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices