Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business

by Jenny Blake

Overview

“A brilliant, insightful read.”

—MORI TAHERIPOUR, author of Bring Yourself

“Hustle is dead. It never worked very well, and now it's burning us out. Jenny Blake is back with a generous, helpful and more caring alternative.”

—SETH GODIN, author of This is Marketing

“Wildly, wildly helpful. A chill, introvert-friendly birthday party for business owners . . . every page is a celebration. Free Time is, quite simply, a joy to read.”

—SARAH YOUNG, author of Expansive Impact

Time is not money. Time is life force. 

Your time is far more precious than money. It is your presence, your memories, your quality of life. As a business owner, you are already paying a risk and pressure tax. For many, growth fueled by added stress is not worth the trade-off. You have an urge to simplify and streamline instead. 

Ask yourself: Are you consistently doing the work that you and only you can do? Or are you burdened by busywork, the bottleneck blocking your company’s profit and potential? 

Free Time is not about working as little as possible. Nor is it about creating a lifestyle business purely for one’s own gain. It is about creating a life-giving business energizing every single person who is a part of it, from the owner to team members, to clients and community. Free Time is about making small investments now to create greater optionality in the future. 

A more joyful business is within reach. Imagine:

• Traveling, going off the grid, or handling family emergencies without panicking that everything will fall apart while you are gone.
• Working 10- to 20-hour weeks, delegating the rest to a motivated, part-time remote team.
• Answering questions with relief, knowing you don’t have to “own” the next steps.
• Empowering your Delightfully Tiny Team™ to answer their own questions before they even have to ask you.
• Harnessing your creative energy for the strategic projects that excite you most.

Jenny Blake, author of the award-winning book Pivot and co-creator of Google’s acclaimed Career Guru coaching program, is back with her signature blend of heart-based operating principles and practical tools. This book will teach you how to move from friction to flow through smarter systems and the three-stage Free Time Framework.™

Free Time is a playbook to free your mind, time, and team for your best work. This book will teach you and your team to operate efficiently and intuitively, while earning abundantly, so you can make your greatest contribution as a business owner. 

Let’s dive in.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781646870790
Publisher:	Ideapress Publishing
Publication date:	03/22/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Jenny Blake helps forward thinking organizations and individuals map what’s next. She is an international keynote speaker and author of Pivot: The Only Move That Matters is Your Next One, winner of the Axiom Best Business Books award in the careers category. 

Jenny hosts two podcasts with over one million downloads combined: Free Time for heart-based business owners, and Pivot with Jenny Blake for navigating change. 

After two years as the first employee at a political polling start-up in Silicon Valley, followed by five years at Google in coaching, training, and career development, Jenny moved to New York City in 2011 to launch her business. Originally from San Francisco, Jenny loves dogs, yoga, and buys too many books. She lives with her husband and their “angel in fur coat” German Shepherd. 

Learn more at ItsFreeTime.com and PivotMethod.com.

Table of Contents

Introduction 1

Business Stress Is a Systems Problem 2

The Check Is in the Mail 5

Heart-Based Business 9

Free Time Framework 13

Friction Versus Flow 16

The Missing Metric 18

High Net Freedom 23

Free Up Founder Time: Escape Velocity 26

Quiz: What's Your Free Time Escape Velocity? 29

Part 1 Align

Overview 34

Values 38

Chapter 1 Embrace Agile Operating Principles: What's Your Wi-Fi Password? 41

Take a Stand: "Even Over" Versus Bland 43

Chapter 2 Create an Externalized Mind 47

Define Your Brand 51

Chapter 3 Systematize the Spirit of Your Business 55

Energy 62

Chapter 4 Set Purposeful Intentions 64

Chapter 5 Let It Be Easy, Let It Be Fun 69

Close The Loop: Indecision Is Your Decision 73

Chapter 6 Give Yourself Golden Hour: What's Your Job Today? 75

Free Up Even More Founder Time 79

Strengths 82

Chapter 7 Build Your Business Intuition 84

Chapter 8 Continuously Bust Bottlenecks 90

Techtuition: Stop the "Bad at Technology" Story 96

Chapter 9 Embrace Imperfection: Cookie Dough and Tiny Streaks 100

Refocus: Eyes on Your Own Paper 103

Align Resources 107

Part 2 Design

Overview 110

Outcomes 116

Chapter 10 Invite Nonlinear Breakthroughs 118

Transcend Tug-of-War with Sacred Third Solutions 120

Chapter 11 Serendipity as Business Strategy 125

Chapter 12 Solve for Sisyphean Systems 132

Stop Sailing the Sea of Shiny Shoulds 136

Impact 142

Chapter 13 Always Be Listening 144

Chapter 14 Scale: Be Ready for a Big Break 151

Seven Scale-Building Levers 155

Chapter 15 Use Life-Giving Language 159

Process 168

Chapter 16 Design Deep Work Containers 170

How We Free Time at JBE 172

Chapter 17 Time Block and Bake in Batches 176

Bake in Batches to Eliminate Task Bloat 181

Chapter 18 Automate What You Repeat 186

Design Resources 193

Part 3 Assign

Overview 196

Who 200

Chapter 19 Promote Yourself from Chief Everything Officer 202

Chapter 20 Construct Your Delightfully Tiny Team 207

Chapter 21 Double How Much You Delegate 214

Run a Hiring Pilot at Home 219

What 224

Chapter 22 The Fiji Test: Make Ourselves Replaceable 226

Chapter 23 Drained? Let's Discuss 231

Chapter 24 Frustrated? Take Responsibility 239

Invite Debate, Disagreement, and Feedback 241

When 250

Chapter 25 Track Every Task and Assign One Owner 252

Tidy Tasks 255

Chapter 26 Answer Less: Every Question Lives Three Lives 260

Work Asynchronously 263

Chapter 27 Save Someone Next Steps 271

Assign Resources 278

Conclusion 281

On Work 285

Acknowledgments 287

Resources

Send a Free Time Permission Slip 292

Free Time Framework Quick Reference 295

Operating Principles Reflection Questions 296

Manager Manual Template 297

Free Time for Your Future Self: Systems-Thinking Steps 298

Additional Resources for Small Business Owners 299

Notes 301

Index 309

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“As Jenny Blake says in Free Time, ‘how we bake is as important as what we make.’ Having run a multinational organization and now my own Delightfully Tiny Team, I know that heart-based business is possible for organizations of any size, and we need it now more than ever.”
—Howard Behar, author of The Magic Cup and former president of Starbucks Coffee

“This book is a revelation—a detailed road map for building a business that fulfills you and serves the world, leaving anxiety and burnout behind. Jenny Blake’s advice is both grounded and inspiring, and always connected to life as it is actually lived, at the human scale.”
—Oliver Burkeman, author of The Antidote and Four Thousand Weeks

“With heart and smarts, Jenny teaches us how to think big, be strategic, and make time for what really matters. Free Time is an essential guide to running a business without running yourself into the ground.”
—Ximena Vengoechea author of Listen Like You Mean It

“Jenny Blake’s phenomenal book Free Time taught me how to rethink my business, creating smart systems to focus on what matters most.”
—Antonio Neves, author of Stop Living on Autopilot

“The go-to manual for running Heart-Based Businesses with ease, joy, and financial abundance.”
—Farnoosh Torabi, host of the award-winning podcast So Money

“It is not about working harder, it is about working “right-er.” Bigger results, better flow, less effort; welcome to Free Time.”
—Mike Michalowicz, author of Clockwork, Fix This Next and Get Different

“Wildly, wildly helpful. Free Time is a masterful blend of tools, tips, and frameworks to free your mind, time, and team—against a backdrop of pure delight. Imagine the most helpful entrepreneurial workshop you’ve ever attended, but held in an ice cream store with an infinite array of flavors. Grab a copy for yourself and your business-owning best friends.”
—Sarah Young, founder of Zing Collaborative and author of Expansive Impact

“Hustle is dead. It never worked very well, and now it’s burning us out. Jenny Blake is back with a generous, helpful and more caring alternative.”
—Seth Godin, author of This is Marketing

“Leave it to Jenny to come up with an ultra-simple, seemingly innocent concept and turn it into a profundity with many mind-expanding insights! Free Time successfully balances our brain and heart, rocking between the mental ah-ha! and the deep intuitive mmm-hmmm.”
—Penney Peirce, author of Frequency, Leap of Perception, and Transparency

“Stress is a systems problem. This was one of the more arresting statements I’ve read in a business book in a long time. Jenny offers an important vision of entrepreneurship freed from burnout and overload.”
—Cal Newport, New York Times bestselling author of A World Without Email and Deep Work

“After reading Free Time, I have gone from being semi-retired to relaunching my business. Jenny’s wisdom shines through, especially as she presents the intersection of systems-thinking and heart. I am truly inspired, but now, with a new path forward.”
—Denny O. Clark, Disability Workforce Inclusion Advocate and co-founder of Pinnacle Performance Consulting

“A brilliant, insightful read that provides an actionable framework for reimagining the way we work. Jenny’s depth of knowledge from her corporate and entrepreneurial career provide a fresh perspective on company culture and value-centric time management.”
—Mori Taheripour, author of Bring Yourself and faculty member, Wharton School of the Universityof Pennsylvania

“Jenny is openhearted, honest, and highly insightful. What makes her particularly unique is her willingness to pull back the curtain on her own business. Free Time is a delightful mix of grounding and spiritual strategies, plus uber-specific and systematic.”
—Lindsay Pedersen, author of Forging an Ironclad Brand

“For any entrepreneur who has felt stressed out or overwhelmed—and dare I say, that’s most of us—Free Time will come as a revelation. Her crystal clear thinking, smart advice, and rock solid systems will give your business a powerful boost, while maintaining your joy and sanity.”
—Dorie Clark, author of The Long Game and executive education faculty, Duke UniversityFuqua School of Business

“A vision that knits together the aspirational, spiritual, and operational.”
—Herb Schaffner, president of Big Fish Media

“Most entrepreneurs start their businesses in search of freedom; but to hold onto it, we have to protect our time. Free Time is a treasure trove of inexpensive, efficient ways to liberate ourselves from tasks that drain the life out of us—so we can do what we love and reclaim our peace, freedom, and passion.”

—Elaine Pofeldt, author of The Million-Dollar, One-Person Business and Tiny Business, Big Money

“For anyone who wants to keep their team tiny, their business elegant, and their life delightful.”
—Michael Bungay Stanier, author of The Coaching Habit and How To Begin

Editorial Reviews

A practical, commonsense guide for business leaders and beyond.”

—Booklist

"An invigorating and informative time-management manual."

—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2021-12-03
A comprehensive efficiency guide for solo entrepreneurs and small-business owners.

Business owner/podcaster Blake, author of the career-development book Pivot (2016), makes a convincing case for working smarter, not harder, in a book centered around a compelling question: “How can we earn twice as much in half the time, with ease and joy, while serving the highest good?” When she set out to build her own business after working at Google, Blake faced the typical challenges of self-employment, but instead of succumbing to income deficiencies and overwork, she restructured her business based on her emerging belief that “business stress is a systems problem.” That belief is effectively the platform for this book, because Blake intelligently demonstrates how her own system—the “Free Time Framework”—can facilitate business success and also free up time. Its three stages (“Align, Design, Assign”) provide a natural structure for the book itself, whose three parts describe the stages in detail. Clearly, Blake understands the power of three, as each section is further subdivided into three overarching chapter concepts; for example, “Align” asserts that a business project must line up with one’s “Values,” be compatible with how one focuses one’s “Energy,” and draw on one’s “Strengths.” At times, the book seems a bit too tightly organized, but Blake makes it work by weaving together short, engaging chapters that are chock full of relevant examples and useful sidebars. Particularly helpful are the initial overviews of each subsection and the concluding chapter recaps. The book’s content is substantive, and each part delves deeply into its subject matter. Blake’s suggestions always reinforce agility and efficiency. In Part 1 (“Align”), the author introduces one of her core principles: “Each time you repeat a task, take one step toward automating it,” which she discusses further in Part 2. Other worthwhile ideas in Part 1 include setting “purposeful intentions,” employing strategies for overcoming business bottlenecks, and learning how to “embrace imperfection.” Part 2 (“Design”) addresses how to establish and measure “ideal outcomes” and the potential impact of a project and how to design an efficient process. “Serendipity as Business Strategy” is an especially intriguing chapter, and a later sidebar, “Stop Sailing the Sea of Shiny Shoulds,” shares the story of Blake’s and another entrepreneur’s social media hiatuses and the positive effects they had on their businesses. Other concepts in this part, such as Blake’s “deep work” windows, will surely resonate with overburdened business owners. The primary focus of Part 3 (“Assign”) is delegation—arguably one of an entrepreneur’s biggest challenges. Here, Blake elegantly describes how to extricate oneself from being the “Chief Everything Officer” and how to build a “Delightfully Tiny Team.” She also covers several other useful techniques and tactics for maximizing time efficiency, such as building a task management system. All three parts of the book are well written, applicable, and actionable. Stylistically, Blake is a master of alliteration and rhyming; she’s also adept at employing numbered and bulleted lists. Overall, she delivers an entertaining, instructive reading experience.

An invigorating and informative time-management manual.

Kirkus Reviews