Free Time with Jenny Blake

I'm excited to bring you an episode from the Pivot podcast vault today—this is a conversation with a longtime friendtor, Mike Michalowicz, that stuck in my mind long after we recorded on February 5, 2020. The episode launched on March 20, 2020, and the last group gathering I attended was Mike's in-person Fix This Next workshop at his office in New Jersey on Friday, March 13. Boy was the world about to get weird!Mike explains how to identify and serve the Queen Bee Role in your business, the cliffhanger phrase that freed up even more of his time to write and speak, his unique approach to IP licensing, “guinea pigging” new book ideas, how to stop keeping up with the EntrepreJoneses, and the secret to how he has been so prolific in publishing 8+ books in the last 15 years.More About Mike Michalowicz: Mike is the creator of Profit First, which is used by hundreds of thousands of companies across the globe to drive profit. Today, Mike leads two new multi-million-dollar ventures as he tests his latest business research for his books. He is a former small business columnist for The Wall Street Journal and a business makeover specialist on MSNBC. Mike is a popular main-stage keynote speaker on innovative entrepreneurial topics; and is the author of Get Different, Fix This Next, Clockwork, Profit First, Surge, The Pumpkin Plan, and The Toilet Paper Entrepreneur.🌟 3 Key Takeaways Identify the Queen Bee Role (QBR): The core function in your business that is the biggest determinant of your company’s health and success—it’s “thrive factor”—where the uniqueness of your offering meets the best talents of you and/or your staff. “When this function is at full throttle, the business thrives, and when it is slowed or stopped, the entire business suffers.” There is an order you should follow when solving problems in your business, following what Mike calls the Business Hierarchy of Needs (sometimes oscillating between stages). You must address sales and cash flow first, followed by profit, order, impact, and finally legacy. If you try to optimize or improve things outside of this order, you may be missing the biggest problems hindering your progress. Try Mike’s “guinea pigging” approach for new IP: Test ideas through workshops for your target audience before developing them further into a book, course, or broader program. You can make these free or low cost to learn as much as possible from your users. 📝 Permission: Stop trying to keep up with the EntrepreJoneses!✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Identify or clarify the Queen Bee Role in your business as it relates to your personal purpose as the owner. For example, the QBR in Mike’s business is thought leadership, and his personal mission is “eradicating entrepreneurial poverty” through his books and speaking (which also help serve the company’s QBR).🔗 Resources Mentioned Mike on the web: Mike Michalowicz, Twitter: @MikeMichalowicz, IG: @mikemichalowicz Run Like Clockwork business and programs Podcast: AJ Harper – Write a Book that Changes Lives (Including Your Own) 📚 Books Mentioned All books written by Mike Michalowicz, including Fix This Next and Clockwork (Revised and Expanded Edition) Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Write a Must-Read: Craft a Book That Changes Lives — Including Your Own by AJ Harper Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One 🎧 Related Episodes 032: Courageous Marketing With Mike Michalowicz 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) 140: How to License Your IP (Intellectual Property) ☎️ Submit a voice question or comment for future episodes: http://itsfreetime.com/ask📝 Check out full show notes from this episode and share it with a friend: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/185 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It was a hot summer day, and I’m grumbling while dragging a rolling carry-on suitcase full of books to sign and send to the post office, starting to build resentment at how much time it was taking. After two hours of signing, writing notes, punching endless kiosk buttons, I start tsk taking myself, saying I should never do this myself again (I’m the owner of the business, after all! This is admin I should surely be delegating out!).But alas, I ended up with one extra copy, curious at who I missed or how I miscalculated. And then . . . right as I was walking out, someone walked through the door that made my heart leap out of my chest—and making the entire errand worth far more than the time-price of admission.🌟 3 Key Takeaways: Doing things by the book doesn’t always leave room for the messy magic of serendipity. If we’re overly rigid about rules and business best practices, we miss the good stuff. Tightropes in your business—such as too-tight deadlines, an over-booked calendar, or working in an overly rigid way—are precarious, in that a single misstep can throw you off. Consider parallel systems as back-up: intentionally create redundancy, back-up options, and schedule flexibility to yield greater stability. As Julia Cameron writes: “Perfectionism is not a quest for the best. It is a pursuit of the worst in ourselves, the part that tells us that nothing we do will ever be good enough." 📝 Permission: Break the rules. Don’t always do things by the Big Ol’ Book of Business Best Practices. Give yourself permission to read or run an errand in the middle of the day (gasp!), maybe even doing a “$10 task” that relaxes your mind or opens you up to a magical moment of delight or serendipity.✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Identify an area of the business that’s on a tightrope—only one person, one client, one stream of income—and therefore vulnerable to disruption. Look for way/s you can build redundancy and balance by implementing a new process, a backup person, and/or any other shift that generates greater stability.📘Books Mentioned Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Life After College 🔗 Resources Mentioned Article: The Pyramid Pose | Intense Side Stretch pose Service: TaskRabbit Song: You Can’t Rush Your Healing by Trevor Hall (YouTube, Spotify) People: Kristin McGee on the web and Instagram; Trevor Hall on the web, Instagram, Spotify Podcast: Hustle and Grace with Hilary Sutton Peloton Yoga Class: 20-Minute Focus Flow: Shoulders with Kristin McGee Community: BFF (apply promo code PODCAST) 🎧Related Episodes 176: 🍪What’s the Chocolate Chip Banana Bread in Your Business?🍌 178: 📕Book Club — 3 Big Ideas from SAVING TIME by Jenny Odell 084: Sprinkling the First 1,000 Serendipity Seeds of a Launch 092: Train the System, Then the Person 069: Epic Evergreen Email Sequences with Allan Dib 129: The $10K Work Framework with Khe Hy 💻 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/184 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

“You have to live spherically—in many directions. Never lose your childish enthusiasm—and things will come your way.” —Federico FelliniThis week’s delightful guest, Madeleine Dore, reminded me of this wonderful quote while reading her book, one that I know you will love as much as I did: I Didn’t Do The Thing Today: Letting Go of Productivity Guilt.We talk about widening the measure and meaning of a day beyond our to-do lists, discovering the call of a new topic, shaping a big idea “blob of clay,” how she collects all the great quotes and stories for her book, why she sees herself as more of a guinea pig than an expert (and freelancer valuing independence even more than business owner), and how she decides when to sunset a project, rather than “maintaining something at all costs.”More About Madeleine: Madeleine Dore is a writer and interviewer exploring how we can broaden the definition of a day well spent. As a labor of love, Madeleine spent over five years asking creative thinkers how they navigate their days on her popular blog Extraordinary Routines and podcast Routines & Ruts. The lessons culminated in her first book, I Didn’t Do The Thing Today: Letting Go of Productivity Guilt. Madeleine continues to write, speak and ask questions—but mostly tries to hold things lightly.🌟 3 Key Takeaways We all go through creative phases of being a sponge vs. squeezing it: the former is a time to absorb the world and take in inspiration, even if it might look from the outside like we’re not doing anything. When caught in a deflating comparison spiral: Get up close, use it as a guide, return to what you want to do, and do it! Identify what is most important to you, and change the questions you ask as a result. For example, Madeleine’s decision to favor more time over more money means when considering a new project or direction, asking not “How much will this earn?” but “How much [free] time will this enable?” 📝 Permission: Stop measuring the day by how productive you were. Be curious and expansive when reviewing your day, including your internal accomplishments, moments of connection, or even moments of idleness. Instead of trying to optimize your day only through the lens of productivity, occupy and embrace your day for what it wants to be.✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Identify one area of your business or creative projects that may be languishing. What would happen if you gave yourself permission to close it out completely to create space for what’s next?🔗 Resources Mentioned Madeleine on the web, Instagram: @madeline_dore, Facebook Substack: On Things Madeleine’s podcast: Routines & Ruts 📚 Books Mentioned Madeleine’s book: I Didn’t Do The Thing Today: Letting Go of Productivity Guilt Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One 🎧 Related Episodes 2 Pages with MBS: How to Be Alive: Madeleine Dore [reads] Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life Free Time: 170: 🌈 “Imagine a World of Abundance” ✨, 169: Running a Goal-Free Business with Stephen Shapiro, 057: You+ vs. You 2.0 with MBS, 036: Shaping Big Ideas — Notion Walkthrough #2 Pivot: 287: Solving Pivot Puzzles with A.J. Jacobs, 305: Is What You Are Wanting Actually What’s Best For You? With Luke Burgis 💻 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📝 Check out full show notes from this episode and share it with a friend: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/183 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

📣 We’re publishing this week’s solo episode a day early as a friendly reminder that 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 by the end of today, 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 :)There’s a wall in my house that I know would look gorgeous if it were painted a deep, velvety, rich navy blue. It’s behind the TV, so every day I stare in its general direction while watching shows, and on some days I even remember (fantasize about!) my vision of painting it blue.But the wall remains stubbornly bare, stuck on factory settings. Why is it so hard to change one seemingly simple thing, even when a future vision is so strong?🌟 3 Key Takeaways: Remember the awkward stage within the four Levels of Learning: Unconscious incompetence (you don’t know what you don’t know), conscious incompetence (the hardest mentally and emotionally!), conscious competence (awkward but functional), and finally, unconscious competence (the new skills and systems are fully integrated and automatic) Plan for integration time: Deadlines press on, and yet doing the same work takes 2x or 4x as long because you’re improving, growing, and stretching into new arenas. Create support scaffolding through new systems: Old process grooves are well-worn, new ones take time, habit change, and updated systems. For example, when I want to change what we include in our show notes, the templates we currently use to create them are still based on our old way of doing it. Making all of the necessary changes takes extra effort, but ultimately makes the new method easier. 📝 Permission: You have permission not to do everything all at once and for things to take longer than you think they should. You also have permission to be incredibly awkward, a little confused, maybe lost, or even discouraged as you traverse the different levels of learning from unconscious incompetence to conscious competence.✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Set up one new template or process that could help you integrate something you’re learning or implement an improvement to the business.📘Books Mentioned Out on the Wire: The Storytelling Secrets of the New Masters of Radio by Jessica Abel Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One 🔗 Resources Mentioned Jay Acunzo’s podcast: Unthinkable and community: The Creator Kitchen (use promo code FRIENDOFAFRIEND for $100 off your membership for life) Jessica Abel’s podcasts: The Autonomous Creative, Out on the Wire and article: Hustle Culture is Really a Scam — On Cyclical Burnout Jenny’s Community: BFF (apply promo code PODCAST) Licensing: Pivot Programs 🎧Related Episodes Pivot: 47: Live Fiercely, Study Deeply . . . While Earning a Living — with Jonathan Fields Free Time: 181: Be Irreplaceable with My Creative Coach Jay Acunzo, 057: You+ vs. You 2.0 with MBS 💻 Access Free Time episode transcripts on Podscribe »🌟 Enjoying the show? The best way to thank us is by leaving a rating or review »💌 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/182 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi Friends! I'm re-airing this announcement as a friendly reminder that the Free Time podcast has made it to the nomination stage of the Webby Awards, the "Oscars of the Internet!"The Webbys celebrate the best and most innovative online content across websites, podcasts, games, apps, and videos.📣 Between now and TOMORROW, April 20th:Please visit itsfreetime.com/webby and cast your vote for Free Time! This nomination alone is a major achievement, putting us in the top 12% of nearly 14,000 projects entered.We're up for best individual episode in the Business category. I did a double-take when I saw the other nominees, as we were by far the smallest show and the only indie that's not part of a larger network. So if you want to cast a vote not just for me, but for independent creators everywhere, I would be incredibly grateful if you could . . . ✅ Visit itsfreetime.com/webby and cast your vote for Free Time before EOD on Thursday, April 20! After that, you'll see the results of where we currently stand :) You do have to go through a small registration process (just a few questions), but after that you can peruse other categories and vote for your favorite show among those too!🍰 Bonus: If you have a newsletter or your own community that you can post this link to, inviting others to listen to Free Time and vote for the show, that would be super icing on the cake!THANK YOU!! For being you, for being here, and for helping Free Time stay afloat through accolades like this one :)I also want to thank the One Stone Creative production team for making this possible. Without them, there's no way we would have landed this nomination. They help the trains run on time, ensuring every single one of 12 episodes goes live across my two shows every single month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

📣 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 April 20! One thing I love about Jay Acunzo is that his body of work is a love letter to craft and quality. We talk about mindset shifts and practices to help you focus more on resonance than reach; how to do work that matters to you so that your work can matter more; how he worked through his own existential creative crisis upon hitting the 200th episode milestone of his podcast; thinking like an explorer, not an expert; and “making the leap from what best practices say you should do to what your intuition is urging you to try.”More About Jay: Jay Acunzo is one of the world’s most sought-after business storytellers and brand consultants. He’s worked in marketing for Google, HubSpot, and ESPN before launching his award-winning podcast, Unthinkable, and authoring multiple books on creativity. Today he helps creators learn to increase the power of their creative work, not just the volume, through his membership platform, the Creator Kitchen.🌟 3 Key Takeaways Reach vs. Resonance: Reach is how many people see something. Resonance is how much they care. No amount of reach will ensure that people care. As David Bowie’s says, “Don’t play to the gallery.” “Don’t be the best, be their favorite”: Create resonance with the audience relevance pyramid, starting with the base—how relevant you are in topic and theme. Moving up, your content should be enjoyable and entertaining, then impactful, where you are helping people reflect or take action. At the top of the pyramid is personal, where you (and your content) truly becomes irreplaceable. Jay’s Mastery 3 P’s: Posture, Practice and Process. Posture is how you see yourself in the world. Practice is the cadence you are creating and shipping on (aim for consistent and purposeful), then process emerges. 📝 Permission: Focus on resonance before—or even at the expense of—reach. Let go of the idea of adding more people until you have a small group reacting in a big way.✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Define your Even More Meaningful Metrics. For example, Jay’s Unsolicited Response Rate (URR): When he publishes something and someone feels urged to respond in some way without being prompted, or Cackles Per Piece (CPP): points during the process of creating that cause so much joy he cackles out loud.🔗 Resources Mentioned Jay on the web, Instagram: @jacunzo, Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium Jay’s podcast: Unthinkable and community: The Creator Kitchen (use promo code FRIENDOFAFRIEND for $100 off your membership for life) People: Andrew Davis, Hrishikesh Hirway TV Series: Song Exploder on Netflix Video: David Bowie on why you should never play to the gallery, and AJ Jacobs: The Importance of Self-Delusion in the Creative Process Article: The Surprising Thing About Expectations by Seth Godin 📚 Books Mentioned Jay’s Books: Break the Wheel: Question Best Practices, Hone Your Intuition, and Do Your Best Work Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Kitchen Confidential: Adventures in the Culinary Underbelly by Anthony Bourdain 🎧 Related Episodes Unthinkable: Fine, I’ll Talk About AI; Song Exploder Exploded, Welcome to the Jumble Podcasts: Mike Birbiglia’s Working it Out, Song Exploder, Radiolab 2 Pages with MBS: Making What Matters Most: Jay Acunzo [reads] ‘Kitchen Confidential’ The Tim Ferriss Show: Managing Procrastination, Predicting the Future, and Finding Happiness with Tim Urban Free Time: 127: Protect Your Idea Factory, Build a Creative Flywheel, and Go Behind-the-Scenes of Book Publishing with Todd Henry, 014: Why It Matters to Celebrate Wins Pivot: 287: Solving Pivot Puzzles with A.J. Jacobs, 254: The Practice—On Generosity, Peculiarity, and Showing Up with Seth Godin Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

📣 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

📣 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!“Start with the truth, then edit.” That’s a gem that today’s guest, Jacqueline Fische, picked up while working in corporate communications that maps directly to how she encourages business owners to write: quickly, and from the heart. Go for speed, not sense. Edit later.More About Jacqueline: Jacqueline Fisch is an author, copywriter, and communications consultant. As the founder of The Intuitive Writing School, she helps writers make progress on their passion projects, and creative business owners sound more human in their writing. As a freelance copywriter, she’s helped hundreds of clients – tech startups, life and business coaches, creatives, and more – learn how to communicate more authentically and stand out in a busy online world. She’s also the author of Unfussy Life: An Intuitive Approach to Navigating Change, and the soon-to-be-published Intuitive Writing: The Remedy for Writer’s Block.🌟 3 Key Takeaways: Jacq defines intuitive writing as the “down to earth embodiment of knowing.” Identify the ways your intuition speaks to you, then create space for them in your day-to-day. (For example, switching all meetings to audio-only and even declining video-based activity) Try mapping bigger writing efforts with moon phases: start with the new moon, VERB with the waxing moon, VERB with the full moon, and VERB with the waning moon. Create a ritual for closing out with clients that encourages repeat business and word-of-mouth referrals: Jacq sends a “See You Soon” kit that includes a feedback survey and even pre-written, customized emails for recommending her work to a friend. 📝 Permission: Write whatever is on your heart. Whatever is coming up for you. Your story is yours and yours alone. You have full permission to write it.✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Set a timer to do 20-minutes of stream-of-consciousness writing for something you’re passionate about right now related to your business, whether it’s an about page, an invitation letter (aka sales page), or your next newsletter. Let the ideas flow without censoring yourself, and only return to edit the following day (or week).📚 Books Mentioned Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One Unfussy Life: An Intuitive Approach to Navigating Change 🔗 Resources Jacqueline on the web, IG: @theintuitivewritingschool, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Pinterest Tools: Brit Kolo’s Marketing Personalities, Riverside.fm, Jacq’s Intuitive Writing + See You Soon Kit 🎧 Related Episodes Podcast: Jay Acunzo’s Unthinkable—Fine, I’ll Talk About AI Related Free Time episodes: 003: Liberate Your Life Force with Christine Arylo Related Pivot episodes: Jenny & Penney Show (Spotify playlist) 💻 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/179 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

📣 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 if time wasn’t something we had to hoard, protect, or chase? What if we could change our relationship to time—to life itself—expanding beyond the linear, grid-like units running out as we race against the clock, and toward a true sense of aliveness instead?Today’s I’m trying an experimental format: diving deep into a book that relates to so much of what we talk about here, Jenny Odell’s Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock. I haven’t landed an interview with her (yet!), but I also really appreciated her previous book, How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy, so am happy to spotlight both.A few caveats: This is not a book review where I critically examine the content (here are two from The New Yorker and the NYT), nor a comprehensive summary. Instead, I’m bringing you three big ideas from the book related to our Free Time universe, that sparked aha moments and mindset shifts for me. I hope these inspire similar paradigm shifts for you. As always, my goal is to help set even more of your time freeeeeee!🌟 3 Key Takeaways: Notice the productivity paradigm that many of us are still operating under: seeing our days as a race against time, leading to an internal tyranny and guilt even if self-employed. Embrace the roads not taken: Step off the hedonic treadmill by allowing limits, and even deliberate mediocrity. Who gets to say what is mediocre in the first place? Cultivate abundance: “What if time [could] be gardened?” Jenny writes, “Then it's also possible to imagine its increase in ways other than individual hoarding.” 📝 Permission: To be tired in a good way, one that softens you; to be unproductive, to stop optimizing every micro moment of your day, to do less, to be free.✅ Do (or Delegate) This Next: Be an observer as you go about your week; look for people and places that give you time, that expand your sense of aliveness.🔗 Resources Mentioned Articles: The New Yorker—Why We Never Have Enough Time, NYT—Time Has Been Codified and Commoditized, WIRED—Jenny Odell Can Stretch Time and So Can You Community: BFF (apply promo code PODCAST) 📘Books Mentioned Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock by Jenny Odell How to do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One 🎧Related Episodes Interviews with Jenny on Saving Time: Jenny Odell Saves Time, and Herself, by Living Beyond the Clock, Making Sense of Time (Jenny Odell), Jenny Odell on Saving Time: Discovering a Life Beyond the Clock Free Time: 141: Process, Permission Slips, and Business Pivots with Tara McMullin 027: Time Management for Mortals with Oliver Burkeman Pivot: 305: Is What You Are Wanting Actually What’s Best For You? With Luke Burgis 🌟 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 share this episode with a friend: https://itsfreetime.com/episodes/178 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Friends!! I can't believe it!! The Free Time podcast has made it to the nomination stage of the Webby Awards, the "Oscars of the Internet!" The Webbys celebrate the best and most innovative online content across websites, podcasts, games, apps, and videos.📣 Between now and April 20th:Please visit itsfreetime.com/webby and cast your vote for Free Time! This nomination alone is a major achievement, putting us in the top 12% of nearly 14,000 projects entered.We're up for best individual episode in the Business category. I did a double-take when I saw the other nominees, as we're by far the smallest show and the only indie that's not part of a larger network. So if you want to cast a vote not just for me, but for independent creators everywhere, I would be incredibly grateful if you could . . . ✅ Visit itsfreetime.com/webby and cast your vote for Free Time before Thursday, April 20! After that, you'll see the results of where we currently stand :) You do have to go through a small registration process (just a few questions), but after that you can peruse other categories and vote for your favorite show among those too!🍰 Bonus: If you have a newsletter or your own community that you can post this link to, inviting others to listen to Free Time and vote for the show, that would be super icing on the cake!THANK YOU!! For being you, for being here, and for helping Free Time stay afloat through accolades like this one :)I also want to thank the One Stone Creative production team for making this possible. Without them, there's no way we would have landed this nomination. They help the trains run on time, ensuring every single one of 12 episodes goes live across my two shows every single month. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices