Free Time Book Club Wrap-up!

Deep-diving into my virtual bookshelf and a Notion template for book-notes 🤓

Hi all!

If you’re joining us for this quarter’s book club pick, Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business by Jenny Blake…how’s it going? The mindset shifts of part one and two have been so refreshing for this new year, and my brain is exploding with new ideas for “freeing my mind, time, and team” on both the business and personal front — especially before baby boy joins us this summer.

Some highlights include:

• Creating an externalized mind for areas of life beyond my business. We already have a fairly robust process manual for all things on the agency front, though it’s definitely on my mind to give it a refresh! I’m also pulling together a more formally organized “manager manual” for all things in our household, from utility information and shared passwords, to processes for those once-in-a-while occurrences, like when the power goes out (as it did last weekend!) or setting up our home for seasonal shifts. Maybe even a babysitting manual later down the road, for all our son’s latest favorites and routines for anyone who watches him :)

• Scaling and thinking big: We all daydream about how our businesses and creative endeavors could take off one day. I love how Free Time actually puts this blue-sky pondering to use — prompting us to think about what we’d need to build and put in place if that “big break” happened sooner than we thought (perhaps from inviting a nonlinear breakthrough?!).

• Delegating more than I think I can: This, I know, is going to be a huge challenge for me, as I tend to prefer independent work and “owning” all parts of my processes. That, mixed with some internalized (mis)beliefs around my own worthiness of asking for and accepting help, makes my reluctance to delegate not just a systems bottleneck but a personal block that I know I need to confront sooner than later, especially with postpartum life around the corner. Of course, Jenny and Free Time reduce starting friction here with a delegation observation tracker, easing into more delegation by starting with awareness and noticing.

What have your favorite highlights and aha-moments been?

Free Time is a perfect example of a book that’s chock-full of lessons and ideas, but it does take effort and intention to implement! I’ve got my weekly Founder Time scheduled in my calendar, and (you guessed it) set up my own Notion space for all things Free Time. Here’s a deeper dive into my Notion space for book note-taking.

(And if you haven’t already, I recommend first checking out my video tour of how I use Notion for learning and curriculum-building!)

Issue #16: How I Use Notion to Systematize Learning

For paid subscribers! Check out the end of this post for my Notion template for book notes 🤓

So thrilled that Together Agency got quite the love from Jenny in a few of her podcasts over the last few months. Check these out for a bit more behind-the-scenes of brand-building:

• 265: 🦧 What to Do When You Lose Your Biggest Client (Part Two)

• 248: Four Brand Personas, Biggest Mistakes, and Best/Worst Clients with Adam Chaloeicheep

• 247: Has your Business Brand Become a Liability? How to Know When It’s Time for a Tune-up with Adam Chaloeicheep

1. This week! Does your business pass The Fiji Test? Join Jenny this Thursday, March 28 at 12pm ET to see some Free Time systems in action. Sign up for her newsletter

   Free Time with Jenny Blake
   and register for this free event here.

2. Coming up in May! I’m honored to have been invited to present at First Round New York on Friday, May 10. This is a one-day showcase of original first-round design presentations made to clients. It’s an exclusive opportunity to see behind-the-scenes of a client presentation — all the thinking, heart, and creativity that goes into big brand endeavors. And, drumroll please…I’ll be presenting our work for Free Time 💸  In person and remote access is available, and use code FR-NYC-TOGETHER for a 10% discount.

This wraps up our winter book club! I hope you enjoyed it, and would love to hear what books you’d love to see featured next in our seasonal reads!

This is already included in the template for personal curriculums from my previous post — but I thought I’d offer a standalone version if you’re interested in just the book note-taking aspect :)