Free Time

About the Author

Jenny Blake is the author of the award-winning book Pivot and co-creator of Google’s acclaimed Career Guru coaching program. An international keynote speaker, she helps forward-thinking organizations and individuals map what’s next. She hosts two podcasts, Free Time with Jenny Blake for heart-based business owners, and Pivot with Jenny Blake to help others navigate change. Jenny began her career with a blog, Life After College, in 2005, which later turned into a book published by Running Press in 2011.

Main Idea

Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business by Jenny Blake presents a framework to help business owners create a heart-based business that energizes everyone involved. The book emphasizes aligning values, energy, and strengths to work, designing optimal processes, and effectively delegating tasks to ensure sustainable business growth without burnout.

Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Heart-Based Business
3. Free Time Framework
4. Align
5. Design
6. Assign
7. Conclusion

Introduction

Jenny Blake begins by addressing the common issue of business owners feeling overwhelmed and nearing burnout. She introduces the concept of “burn-it-all-down mode,” a state where the temptation to abandon everything becomes strong. Free Time offers a solution to this unsustainable way of working by applying a framework that focuses on creating a business that is energizing and sustainable.

Heart-Based Business

Blake describes a heart-based business as one that prioritizes simplicity, streamlining, and less stress. It focuses on aligning with values, serving the highest good, and ensuring the health and humanity of all involved. This approach shifts away from a profit-focused, hustle mentality to one that honors life and community.

"How can we earn twice as much in half the time, with ease and joy, while serving the highest good?" - Jenny Blake

Blake argues that business owners have a choice in how they run their businesses. Instead of succumbing to stress and burnout, they can choose to create a heart-based business that aligns with their values and promotes well-being for themselves and their teams. By focusing on meaningful work and building a supportive community, business owners can create a sustainable and fulfilling business model.

Free Time Framework

The Free Time Framework is designed to move businesses away from friction and towards flow. Friction represents disharmony, resistance, and overwhelm, while flow signifies the elimination of busywork, focus on vital projects, and alignment with strengths. The framework consists of three stages: Align, Design, and Assign.

Align

The first stage of the framework focuses on aligning values, energy, and strengths. Blake emphasizes the importance of operationalizing core values through agile operating principles, creating an externalized mind, and systematizing the spirit of the business. This stage also involves setting purposeful intentions, making work enjoyable, and leveraging peak energy periods.