University of Minnesota - UMN Executive Leadership Insights
Free Time
Book

Free Time

Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business

Jenny Blake
Ideapress, 2022
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Editorial Rating

7

Qualities

  • Applicable
  • Engaging
  • Inspiring

Recommendation

Running a business can be rewarding and satisfying, but it can also be overwhelming and exhausting. If you’re a business owner experiencing burnout, business strategist Jenny Blake urges you to treat your stress as a signal. By embracing her “free time framework,” you can reclaim your time and sanity, prioritize work that energizes you, and create a business that doesn’t demand your constant attention. Learn to grow your business with systems that reduce stress and create efficiencies, and gain insights into why your free time might just be your biggest source of abundance.

Summary

Running a business need not exhaust you.

If you’re a small business owner or founder, you might have experienced “burn-it-all-down mode” — the state of feeling so exhausted, overwhelmed, and exasperated thinking of all your responsibilities that you fantasize about throwing it all away. Fortunately, a burn-it-all-down moment can lead to a breakthrough by drawing attention to the fact that you’re working in an unsustainable way. 

Running a business needn’t be overwhelming, exhausting, or all-consuming. It’s possible to transform your business so it can operate on its own, smoothly, without your constant attention. Author Jenny Blake runs her business in 20 hours per week and earns more than $500,000 in gross revenues annually. She does it by aligning her work with her strengths, values, and energy levels, and by designing systems to achieve outsize impacts from manageable amounts of effort. She also relies on a small team — just three people, each working five hours per week — to whom she delegates every task except those she absolutely must do herself. She takes two months’ vacation each year, and she schedules all her meetings to fall on Tuesdays...

About the Author

Jenny Blake is a career and business strategist and international speaker helping people build sustainable, dynamic careers they love. She’s the author of Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One and Life After College. She hosts two podcasts: Pivot with Jenny Blake and Free Time with Jenny Blake.

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