I ❤️ this book. There is a reason Free Time has five stars on Amazon. It is joyful, insightful, and practical. The target audience is entrepreneurs and small business owners. However, Jenny Blake’s advice can help anyone. It can benefit those seeking to automate processes, improve services, and build high-performing teams. The 300+ pages fly by…
She wrote the book to help owners (and teams) reclaim their time by creating a business that runs without constant oversight. The goal is to be profitable and support well-being, creativity, and sustainable success. The era of “churn and burn” is over.
Key Concepts
- ⚙️ Optimize, automate, and delegate: This is a common mantra across all five business process books. Examine your current workflows to maximize efficiency. Document them and automate repetitive, low-value tasks. Determine whether to delegate or outsource what remains.
- ? Growth through delegation. Actual business growth comes from two things:
- Developing internal documentation. She has a “Manager Manual” containing core operating procedures, workflows, and metrics. The team updates it regularly.
- Trusting your team (she calls hers a “delightfully tiny team”) to handle critical aspects of the business.
- ? You need a growth mindset. Everything changes—including the world inside and outside of the business. Weathering unexpected lows requires continuous learning and an ongoing openness to change.
Surprises
There was a consistent emphasis on joy, love, working with people you value, and “ditching” the tasks that drain you throughout the book. ? The pandemic took its toll on everyone. As she recounted some of her challenges, Jenny was emphatic about enjoying life and work post-pandemic. She advocates no more than 25 focused hours per week spent on the business.
Work is love made visible.
-Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
Conclusion
Whether we run our own business, manage a household, or are part of a team, we all want to achieve escape velocity. ?
- This is where you can free up enough time to focus on high-level strategic thinking, creativity, and tasks only you can do. You can step away from daily operations. Everything will run smoothly and efficiently without you.
- Once this happens, you can lead your business or organization into its next growth phase. ?
Are you ready to hit your escape velocity? Take the Free Time Quiz!