Reclaim Your Free Time: Simple Strategies to Take Back Your Life | Jenny Blake

What if working less could actually make you more effective? In this perspective-shifting conversation, Jenny Blake (author of Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business https://amzn.to/3CNKL59) reveals how she runs multiple successful companies working just 20 hours a week, and shares her revolutionary three-part framework for creating more space and choice in your life through smarter systems. Learn how to reduce friction, increase flow, and build a life where you can do your best work while having time for what matters most. You can find Jenny at: Website http://itsfreetime.com/ | Free Time Podcast http://pod.link/freetime | Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h Substack https://rollingindoh.substack.com/ | Episode Transcript https://www.goodlifeproject.com/podcast/productivity-time-management-work-life-systems-jenny-blake If you LOVED this episode, you’ll also love the conversations we had with Brené Brown https://episodes.fm/647826736/episode/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5nb29kbGlmZXByb2plY3QuY29tLz9wPTQ4NDI about doing more of what fills you up and not getting derailed by inner or outer criticism. Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the Wheel https://jonathanfields.substack.com/aboutVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes https://www.goodlifeproject.com/sponsors/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

  I'm constantly feeling behind in what I call these Sisyphean systems of never-ending inboxes. So, part of the free time obsession is my passion for systems and sort of geeking out about organization and structure is that I think we all need help. Like, we need strategies to deal with the crush of the inbound.

• 0:23Jonathan Fields?

  So, what would you give to have more free time, less stress, and more ability to do the things you love while knowing everything else is just handled? That is the promise of a powerful new body of work from today's guest and a dear friend of mine and my go-to person whenever it comes to like figuring out how to simplify my life, Jenny Blake. Jenny is an author, host of two podcasts, Free Time and Pivot, and a keynote speaker who loves helping people move from friction to flow through smarter systems. Her new book, Free Time: Lose the Busy Work, Love Your Business, is quite literally life-changing. And that's whether you own your own business or you work for someone else, by the way. I actually featured Jenny in my last book,

• 1:06Jonathan Fields?

  Sparked, because she's what I call an essentialist, meaning she lives and breathes to create order from chaos in the name of clarity and ease. Her mind works in ways that mine never has and never will. Jenny is world-class at creating systems that give you back your life. And the stunning volume of ideas and tools and processes and resources that she has developed and curated in free time, along with the dashboard she's launched alongside it, it made me realize how much harder I've been making things in all parts of work and life, and how much more automation and ease I could access. And as a result, how much more time I could actually create and do the

• 1:49Jonathan Fields?

  things that truly light me up. So, I was super excited to invite Jenny to dive deeper into these ideas and methodologies and specific tools and resources to create more free time and joy in work and life and beyond. So excited to share this best-of conversation with you. And a quick note before we dive in. So, at the end of every episode, I don't know if you've ever heard this, but we actually recommend a similar episode. So, if you love this episode, At the end, we're going to share another one that we're pretty sure you're gonna love too, so be sure to listen for that. Okay, on to today's conversation. I'm Jonathan Fields and this is Good Life Project.

• 2:39Speaker 02

  State Fair food is getting smaller and pricier. We'll have room for fried cookies. Okay, you'd never overspend on food. What's your deal?

• 2:47Speaker 03

  What's his deal? He went to Metro and got $450 in value on the new Samsung Galaxy 837 5G for free and no activation fees.

• 2:56Speaker 02

  Free phone? Oh, sign me up.

• 2:58Speaker 03

  Get that more for your money feeling, only on Metro by T-Mobile.

• 3:01Speaker 04

  Bring your number and activate $40 period plan. $450 based on device discount waived activation fee. Not available if with Metro T-Mobile in the past 180 days.

• 3:09Speaker 05

  With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends, it's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com/bank. Capital One, N.A., Member FDIC.

• 3:40Speaker 06

  Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a Berry Chantilly Cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings. And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better. Save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.

• 4:11Jonathan Fields?

  Jenny Blake, so good to be hanging out with you in this virtual container. You know, we have had many, many, many, many conversations over the years as friends, as colleagues, as collaborators. We've had conversations on air, off air. I have seen you iterate through all sorts of fascinating variations of the way that you move into the world, both professionally and personally. In the early days, on the professional side at Google, jumping out to build your own company, which you've been doing for, I guess, about a decade now, and becoming an author, sharing a book that changed so many people's lives, Pivot, which is really about saying yes to the fact that life is a state of perpetual beta, let's do it well. And now, as we sit

• 4:54Jonathan Fields?

  down to have this conversation, I think it's kind of interesting because you're hanging out in New York. I happen to be in Palm Springs, California, where I bounced out here with my wife to do a bit of work and we're staying a little bit longer. And we both sort of created this structure in our work and our lives that give us a certain amount of freedom to work when we want, to not work when we want, and to be in a lot of different places. Sometimes it works really well. Sometimes it's a little bit more challenging. But you have devoted so much of your time to free time, which I think is kind of like an interesting thing to do. And it's almost become an obsession of yours. It's

• 5:37Jonathan Fields?

  like, how do we do this thing where we have more space, more of the in-between? And I guess, part of my curiosity is, as you evolve, what you want to devote so much energy to, why has the idea of free time bubbled up to the surface for you and taken such a strong lead?

• 5:59Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, thank you for this amazing recap. And I always, always love our conversations and connection. One through line through my time at Google, working in coaching and career development, leaving Google and navigating the choppy waters of solopreneurship. And then, we've all gone through a tremendous amount of pivoting and change with this global pandemic.

• 6:21Speaker 00

  I kept seeing these patterns in myself and others, what I call the burdensome bees, people getting bored, burnt out, buried by bureaucracy, or bottlenecked. And that goes for people running their own business, or someone working in another business. And these burdensome bees drive me crazy for the same reason that you wrote Sparked. We know how painful it is to feel stuck, and stuck in place, and to be bored or burnt out. And we all have so much complexity and uncertainty that we're already navigating, as you've written about so beautifully, too, that my obsession, my essentialist need to create order from chaos, is about freeing us. And I just, I know how painful it can be to feel stuck and unsure.

• 7:05Speaker 00

  And so, yes, my obsession with free time is how do we really enjoy the time that we have? How do we be present? But also, how do we have free time be this active verb, this muscle that we're building, to continually free more and more of our time, so we can do our best work, the work that sparks us and brings us alive?

• 7:24Jonathan Fields?

  So here's my question. When you sort of position free time as this aspiration that we all want more and more and more of, are we countering that with a notion of anything that is not free time being not good?

• 7:39Speaker 00

  I consider free time optionality, choice. So, in this definition, it's not necessarily, oh, let's all work less and less and less until we're only working an hour a week. It's actually about how can we create a little more space and spaciousness in our calendar, in our week, so that we have choice of what to work on. So that's kind of how I define free time, that it's your choice and you get to decide. So it's not necessarily less, but it's less of the stuff that drains us. And it's just such a compliment to Sparked, because Sparked is about doing the work that brings us alive.

• 8:17Speaker 00

  And in this sense, I would say that category probably many of your listeners and I would say, yeah, I would like to do less and less and less of minutia and admin and the stuff that's super draining and that feels distracting from the work that I am passionate about.

• 8:36Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me. You know, for the same reason that I'm really not a fan of the phrase work-life balance, because the underlying assumption with work-life balance is that they're two polar opposites that need to be balanced against each other, that life is good, work is bad. And therefore, like, you know, you have to do this like constant balancing against them, rather than, well, what if work could be a beautiful, organic, intrinsic, and joyful expression of life? And, you know, like, it's just sort of like this seamless thing. So the notion of free time, I think, being more like in an intentional state, like, the ability to choose where you want to allocate your energies at any given time. And that may be something that we call work

• 9:21Jonathan Fields?

  if it is just a joyful expression of something that we do purely for the feeling that it gives us. So I like the more expansive take that you have on a phrase that I think a lot of people would be like, oh, that's my time to relax.

• 9:36Speaker 00

  Right. Yeah. I mean, I'm thinking about when I was at Google, I had a perfect on-paper job. I was working in career development and launching this global drop-in coaching program called Career Guru. And yet, 80% of my time, I was in meetings, back-to-back meetings, Monday through Friday. I would walk through the halls with the laptop in my crook of my elbow, typing while I was in the elevator, eating on the go, and buried by email, crushed by email, so much so that my friend and I, my friend Julie and I, used to have email parties on Sunday afternoon. We would watch Say Yes to the Dress. We would have chocolate, wine, and pumpkin seeds, really random array. And we would just try

• 10:17Speaker 00

  our best to hack away at email because there was no time to do it during the week. And working at this fast-paced global company would just pile up. Now, today, over 10 years later, we all, the number of inboxes that have propagated across LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, email, text messaging, TikTok, whatever platforms everybody is on.

• 10:39Speaker 00

  Is exponential and I don't know how anybody can keep up. So part of my passion around all of this is that just because these new tech companies keep adding tools and inboxes to our lives, we have not fundamentally changed either how much time we have, how much attention and how much energy. The energy here is so important. I don't know about you, but like the last two years have tired me out. You know, I'm always trying to make the best of it. And yes, at some point I got my stuff together enough to work on a book, but that's my favorite type of work is deep work. And I'm constantly feeling behind in what I call these Sisyphean systems of never ending inboxes. The same way running a household, there's never ending laundry and cleaning and dishes.

• 11:24Speaker 00

  So part of my, the free time obsession, going back to my essentialist nature that you so generously featured and sparked is my passion for systems and sort of geeking out about organization and structure is that I think we all need help. Like we need strategies to deal with the crush of the inbound that I think so many of us are experiencing now amidst so much global turmoil and upheaval, just as the baseline.

• 11:52Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, no, completely agree with that. Yeah. And it's funny because the notion of systems and process and like having a system and a process for literally everything, from the moment you wake up your eyes, the moment you go to bed, it feels so rigid. It feels so sort of like, but I don't want to be, I don't want to spend my entire day following rules. And yet the way that you approach it is, well, it's not necessarily about saying like, everything that you do is bounded by rules. It's about saying that a certain amount of what you do is capable of being done in a much more automated and efficient and not thoughtless, but thoughtless. Way almost and to the extent that we can actually like make that happen,

• 12:36Jonathan Fields?

  those systems and processes, they free us, they free up so much bandwidth, emotional cognitive and actual physical bandwidth to go and make a choice about like what else we want to do with that time. So it's a little bit of a, you know, contradiction to think that living in a very heavily rules and process and system based space could actually create a lot more freedom to just wander and not be so structured and rigid.

• 13:02Speaker 00

  Yes. And I think the best rules happen in the background that you, you spend a little bit more time upfront to design them and create them. And then ideally they save you time over and over far into the future. It's because I know a lot of people feel allergic to the word systems and even structure, process, wah. Some people are already have already practically stopped listening. But actually, the best systems are ones that you can't help but use. So for example, household items, I mean, this one's a really simple and maybe by now more and more people do this. But put your toilet paper, paper towels, dish soap, et cetera, on recurring subscription, like figure out the last few times you've ordered, what was the time distance between them and put them on automatic subscription. That way, nobody has to remember moving forward

• 13:46Speaker 00

  when to reorder these basic staple items. Or I used to text a house cleaner, I used to just text every time I was ready to have her come. It was so inefficient because there was so much friction. I was always wondering, do we need her? Should we have her come? Is today a good day? Oh, does my husband Michael, is that okay with him? Let me run it by him. It was so much work that it just wasn't happening. And I was actually developing asthma that I hadn't had since I was a child because we had so much dust and dog dander. Finally, I found a service that is on a recurring day and time, weekly, set it and forget it. It's not on my mind anymore. So I'm not even just talking about in the work sense. I think there's a lot of adulting related stuff like

• 14:28Speaker 00

  this, that if we just create a little bit of structure frees us because I don't, some of this stuff, I don't think anybody is jumping to do, you know?

• 14:37Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. You know, my sense is that the resistance isn't also that we don't want this. It's that we don't want to have to be the ones who figure it out and then make it happen. You know, it's the, it's the initial burden of like setting it all up that stops so many of us from saying yes to a lot of the ideas that you talked about.

• 15:01Jonathan Fields?

  And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

• 15:07Speaker 02

  State fair food is getting smaller and pricier. We'll have room for fried cookies. Okay, you never overspend on food. What's your deal?

• 15:16Speaker 03

  What's his deal? He went to Metro and got $450 in value on the new Samsung Galaxy 837 5G for free and no activation fees.

• 15:24Speaker 02

  Free phone? Oh, sign me up.

• 15:27Speaker 03

  Get that more for your money feeling only on Metro by T-Mobile.

• 15:30Speaker 04

  Bring your number and activate $40 period plan. $450 based on device discount waived activation fee. Not available if looked at or T-Mobile in the past 180 days.

• 15:38Speaker 05

  With no fees or minimums on checking accounts, it's no wonder the Capital One Bank guy is so passionate about banking with Capital One. If he were here, he wouldn't just tell you about no fees or minimums. He'd also talk about how most Capital One cafes are open seven days a week to assist with your banking needs. Yep, even on weekends. It's pretty much all he talks about, in a good way. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See CapitalOne.com/Bank. Capital One, N.A., Member FDIC.

• 16:08Speaker 07

  Hi, this is Mark Bittman from the podcast Food with Mark Bittman. Cheers to fall savings at Whole Foods Market, home of the higher ingredient standards. This Halloween, share chocolates and candies made without that spooky high fructose corn syrup. Throwing a party? Make it easy with a berry chantilly cake. Ready to cook pizza? No antibiotics ever chicken wings? And sushi made fresh daily. Fall gatherings never tasted better, save through November 3rd at Whole Foods Market.

• 16:46Jonathan Fields?

  Let's get granular, because the way that you describe and you write about this, you get very specific about your work and the hours that you put in and revenue and all of this stuff. And how Jenny from a decade ago lives a very, very different working life and life now, based on yours or like fierce commitment to systems and processes. So let's talk about some of these actual granular metrics in your life, because they're a little bit jaw dropping. And I think folks might hear them and think, is that actually possible? You work an average of 20 hours a week. Tell me about this.

• 17:29Speaker 00

  I honestly feel, especially for business owners who are juggling a lot, and I'm the primary earner for our household. So my 20 hours generates our income, period. It's the sole source of income. And I find that 20 to 25 hours a week is what I can handle. I try to make them very focused. So no meetings on Mondays or Fridays. I only schedule calls and podcast interviews between about 11 and 3. And then I also segment by day. So on Wednesdays, that's my day that I interview other people for my podcasts. Thursdays are days where I meet with team members. Tuesdays are for random one-off calls. And this just helps me get into the energy and the flow of that type of day.

• 18:12Speaker 00

  So that I'm not feeling so frazzled, switching from one thing to the next. I mean, things were different when I lived alone and I was single, but now having a husband and a dog and a business, I just find that I need more time to take care of myself, to ramp up and read in the morning, have a really focused four to five hours during the workday, take my dog out for a walk, spend some quality time with my husband, go to bed early enough to do it all again the next day. So I'm actually just awed by anyone who is working 40, 50, 60 plus hours a week. Because I think it's so challenging to stay healthy and rested. And as you said, not necessarily balancing those other elements,

• 18:52Speaker 00

  but ensuring that these different parts of life get the attention that they need to thrive.

• 18:59Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I mean, I think it's a really interesting question. Because certain types of work require, like shift work I'm thinking about. You know, they're sort of like, there is an endless number of tasks that need to be done. They're going to be piled up before you arrive for your shift. They're going to be there like long after and the next person's going to tag in and do it. And so, you know, a lot of people won't have the option of saying, I'm literally going to cut back. On the number of hours that are, but when you actually look at the work that's being done, so often, the fact that the work week is what it is and has expanded over the last couple of decades also, it's actually not helping either us as individuals, as human

• 19:43Jonathan Fields?

  beings, and it's not helping organizations. I mean, the latest sort of like data that I'm seeing is that actually, you know, the same level of actual real high level work can be done in significantly less time and simultaneously respect the humanity of the people who are doing this work.

• 20:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, more and more companies are piloting four day work weeks now. I'm reading it more and more in the news and I love these companies that are willing to just try something. They can't say for sure whether it's going to work. And that was one of the silver linings of these last few years is that everyone was catapulted into this work from home experiment. Not everybody, those who were fortunate enough to work from home, but a lot of companies had to think on their feet and move really quickly toward enabling their teams to work in a remote distributed way. And I think that it showed everybody, yes, pros and cons. There's a lot to like about the sweatpants life that, you know, I've been living for a while. And there's a lot that's really challenging about it. I mean, as we record

• 20:43Speaker 00

  this, I'm in a enclosed studio downtown in New York because my home is so chaotic that I was pulling my hair out with trying to record things like podcast interviews with a dog barking, doorbell ringing, toilet flushing in the background. It just drove me nuts. But I appreciate that we're all getting a little bit more creative about envisioning what's possible and what's required. And going back to this question, how can we do more of our best work? And I find that with companies, there's no one person at the top who wants to create a culture of burnout necessarily. I mean, sometimes, yes, there's truly toxic work environments. But you know, even just going back to my Google experience, or I worked at a startup

• 21:25Speaker 00

  before that, no one was trying to create a culture of burnout and a culture of all day, every day wall of meetings or the crush of email, but it just kind of happens. And this is where I think it is so interesting. Like you said, how many focused hours do we really need in a day? And if we're not just counting on button seats time, oh, I have to be sitting in front of my computer precisely from nine to five, Monday through Friday. What I find, having had more flexibility as a business owner is if I just start and don't stop for five hours, I don't really need breaks in between. I'm not procrastinating. I'm not jumping on social media. I like that five focused hours because then it sets me free in the afternoon. And as one of my clients said to me, in the afternoon, I

• 22:10Speaker 00

  don't even know my own name. If you want to talk about sparked in a broad sense of work, but even like sparked within a 24 hour circadian rhythm, like I'm super on in the morning and in the afternoon, I'm a disaster. I don't think any company, no one should want me working for them during that window where I'm just a zombie. It's pointless. So I would so much rather consolidate that focus and do better work in a shorter timeframe.

• 22:36Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I mean, that makes a lot of sense to me. What is it? Was it Pareto's law that says that every task expands or contracts to accommodate the amount of time? Parkinson's law, to accommodate the amount of time that you allocate towards it. So like, we've kind of figured, well, like if the traditional work week is 40 to 50 hours, you know, just because that's how long it takes to get the thing done, that you have to ask, well, have we actually just expanded? Like how long it actually takes to accommodate the amount of time that society has assigned to it, you know, like requiring when in fact, you know, if, if, you know, we follow Parkinson's law and said, well, okay, so we're gonna, like, here's the invitation and the challenge. We're going to tell you that, you know, like,

• 23:20Jonathan Fields?

  you now only have 25 hours to do what you used to do in 40 or 45 hours. The bad news is you have to figure out how to do it. The good news is, all the other time, you get back to yourself and you get paid the exact same amount. How many people would say yes to that invitation and challenge? I think it's really fascinating. Like if you're listening to this now, Would you say yes to that or would you say no to that? I would be really curious to know how many people would actually say, "Oh yeah, I would be all in on that because I know that of the eight or nine or 10 hours that I'm sitting in front of a desk, even if it's my desk at home, I'm really only functional for like three to five of those and I could completely do this.

• 24:03Jonathan Fields?

  And then I literally buy my way into the ability to just do anything I want with the rest of the time.

• 24:09Speaker 00

  And then I bet if you asked the companies as well, and you said, "Would you rather, A or B, would you rather have your team members work a 40-hour typical work week that we invented during the factory era? Or would you rather have them work half the time but be five times more strategic? Five times in a greater state of flow, five times happier, more engaged, more productive? Which one would you choose? And I bet that most of those companies would choose option B. And I know for myself and my team,

• 24:40Speaker 00

  I crave that myself and my team members can work on the most strategic, highest impact tasks and projects for the business and do them well. I crave this. And it's actually quite frustrating when any one of us gets so buried by minutia and detail that the big things are falling through the cracks. That's the real concern. The other part of this I think is so important to talk about is trade-offs. So when I say I work 20 to 25 hours a week, I could easily work 40 to 50 hours and be phenomenal at email and be the most responsive person that everybody knows. But as you know, JF, I'm very slow. I put the snail back into email. I'm very slow with email and I'm very slow even with text messages.

• 25:25Speaker 00

  I treat texts like email. I'll respond a week or two later. And the people that know and love me and are willing to stick around for that just know that's how I am because it kind of frustrated me that as texting and things like Slack started to become more ubiquitous, just because our phone pings were expected to jump. And who said that my turnaround time for a text message was going to be instantaneous? Why? Just because the medium demands that? I don't agree. I didn't sign on to that, but yet that's what we come to do as a collective. So I like that certain phones have features now saying, oh, Jonathan is in do not disturb mode, or Jonathan has notifications turned off. That makes me happy when I see that.

• 26:07Speaker 00

  Or the fact that you could even write a little autoresponder for your text messages saying, I'm driving, or I'm doing deep work right now. And I just think that we all have the capacity to A, decide what we want to be bad at and what our trade offs are going to be, and then B, kind of redesign the rules together, even one off with friends and just let them know what to expect. And I always will tell friends, don't worry, it's nothing personal. I'm just a really slow texter. And that's a trade off I choose to make because otherwise I might not even have a book that we could sit here to be talking about because my attention would be so fractured and distracted.

• 26:42Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, and I love that you're also, you're broadening this out and you're saying, yes, part of this is about work, but it's also, these are the rules for life too, these decisions and processes for life. So the expectations aren't just for your boss or your teammates and stuff like it. It's for your friends. It's for your family. And we've fallen into these expectations without ever making conscious decisions that that was the thing we wanted to do. It just became the default state. So like, we never made a conscious decision that said, you know, like, every time a text or an email hits our inbox or our device, you know, we have 30 seconds to respond. It's just, that became the culture. And we felt like, well, we need to adhere to sort of like the general expectations of the culture.

• 27:23Jonathan Fields?

  So this is what we do, without ever asking the question, well, but do we really need to, you know, and, you know, like, what am I getting from adhering to this culture of instant? And then what am I giving up? Like, what, what humanity am I leaving behind by doing this? And also, what would happen? I think we're terrified of saying, but what if I basically just let everybody know I said expectations that says, this actually is not going to happen when you're interacting with me. There's no disrespect. But this is the way that I need to function in order to be okay in the world and to actually flourish.

• 28:01Speaker 00

  And there were times where I genuinely worried, let's say, even when you would text and I, if it took me a while to respond, I would worry, maybe Jonathan is not going to want to be my friend anymore. Like, maybe he just thinks he's going to think I'm ridiculous. He's not going to want to be my friend. And I, I went through that. I still go through that sometimes with people. But on the whole, it's just what I need to do. And what I find is that when we can have these conversations and set, level setting, if you will, that other people get ideas too. And it can be inspiring to hear the ways that other people are protecting their time and their attention and their energy. Because one of the questions I'm always asking is, who is profiting from the pressure you feel?

• 28:46Speaker 00

  Who profits from having a never ending inbox that has your attention all day long? The companies that are serving ads on the side of those emails, or the people who are emailing you with their agenda, not your strategic big creative projects. Who's profiting from you being on your phone, looking at texts all day, picking up your phone an average of 150 times a day, if not more? So I just always check that sense of pressure and micro guilt that I'm feeling. And I wonder who will, who designed this and why? I don't think that, nobody designed the factory system or these devices or many inboxes to be good for our health. You know, like I just thought was never put into the conversation is what would help

• 29:28Speaker 00

  each individual absolutely flourish and thrive and be physically fit and well connected to their friends, family and community? Certainly not being on a device all day or sitting behind the desk all day. So this is our opportunity now, especially with so much change and so much being shaken up. I think we all have this opportunity to. Draw some boundaries again. And you even talked about, it was so inspiring to me reading in Uncertainty several books ago for you. But you were also saying that some of the most creative people are super structured outside of their creative time because it kind of corrals the chaos of life that gives them more attention and energy for those windows that they really do want to work on their craft and their art.

• 30:12Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, for sure. I mean, some of the most innovative, creative people in the world are massively ritualized in everything but the work because it just takes all the bandwidth out of having to allocate anything to it. They don't have to worry about it. And it also creates a certain amount of certainty where they feel grounded and tethered and like their anxiety state is, you know, like, it's kind of like they know what's coming and they know how it's going to be handled. So they have a baseline lower level of anxiety because they know when they do the work, their job is to go to a space where there's a high level of uncertainty and the stakes are high and there's a lot of groundlessness and they have to be sustained there for really next level innovation and creativity to happen. So they figure out ways to get, like, to be able to breathe more easily everywhere but

• 30:57Jonathan Fields?

  that space. So you referenced this moment also. And I think it's really interesting because there is this massive reexamination of what we want from work and from life that's happening now. There's a reckoning and there's a reclamation that we're all in the middle of. But as you're, as you're sort of like, as we're talking about this, what I'm, what I'm realizing is I think a lot of people are reexamining the big picture, like, what is the work that I'm doing? What is the organization I'm doing? What is the job or the role or the title that I'm doing? And then making giant changes, you know, the quote, great resignation, we're seeing 60, 70 million people bail and go and do something else. But I wonder if that reexamination is getting down to the more granular level

• 31:40Jonathan Fields?

  of, no matter what I leave behind, and no matter what I then say yes to and step into, am I also looking at the structures and the system and the process and the expectation of me being always on in this new context? Like, am I reexamining and reimagining that? Or am I just changing jobs and roles and titles and companies and offices? Because... If we don't get to that level of granularity, we may find ourselves doing something that's moderately more interesting in a different office. And the novelty is like, kind of cool and new. But if so much of the structural stuff that brought us down before just gets repeated, we're going to end up feeling the same way.

• 32:22Speaker 00

  Yeah, and this is, this is, I think, a huge source of burnout is where we're sort of operating against our own energy needs. And then we just do that for long enough and literally burn out. Our adrenals get fried. I've done this so many times and it's, it's like, sometimes I think burnout comes from a genuine passion. We want to do all the things and we want to do well. And, and I'll speak for myself, like, sometimes I will give everything I have to a certain project and then totally collapse on the other side because I just didn't monitor my energy well, but it's hard to know in the moment. And so I think there's, there's something happening now as well around permission.

• 33:05Speaker 00

  And I remember, especially during 2020, just looking at what was I secretly relieved that got taken out of my life and my schedule? And I was actually, I live in New York City, as you mentioned. I was so relieved that I didn't have to consider all these plans all the time. I didn't realize how tiring that had become. And you and I can share this, that we're like mega introverts and leaving the house is a huge effort sometimes. But the other day I got invited to a book launch party and this is a person I love and I was so excited to celebrate her book. But the thought of putting on actual clothes and leaving the house, like, the level of resistance I was experiencing was just so high.

• 33:50Speaker 00

  And part of that is just the inertia the last few years. But the other part is just noticing. We all have such different energy stores. And I think that goes for different, certainly as we age, it goes with different phases of life. It goes with different situations in our household, caring for young children, caring for elderly parents. I mean, so much, so many dynamics are happening for all of us. And when you mentioned the structural factors of the big picture of our work, it occurs to me that it's such an important time for each of us to take an energy inventory. And there is no set amount. I find this really interesting. Like, there's a lot of, I experience a lot of compare and despair when I will compare myself to a friend

• 34:35Speaker 00

  who has seemingly limitless energy. And I don't. And I have to be really honest with myself. Part of the reason that I wrote Free Time and that I say I don't work full time, I work free time, is I just can't anymore. I am noticing, I'm 38, that's young in the grand scheme of things, but there's no way I can work the way that I worked when I was in my mid twenties. I don't want to and I can't do it. I burn out too quickly. I, just in the fall, the way I knew I was doing too much, I got a massive ear infection that was 10 out of 10 pain unceasing for five days. A month later, I got bronchitis. So these were these signals where my body was saying, you've got to slow down. You have to pace yourself.

• 35:18Speaker 00

  And so sometimes that burnout feeling and getting sick or having our body send these messages is a signal that we need to change and we must adapt. And we are, we just don't all have the exact same amount of energy reserves consistently, like a machine through our entire life. And I think acknowledging that is so important, especially during these times. And I don't know, I guess I would be curious too, Jonathan, your relationship to that. Because sometimes I find that, you know, there's that saying, don't write a check that your body can't cash. Sometimes I find that my mind, in a way, my creative energy or my intended capacity is just so much bigger than my actual capacity. But it's really hard to figure out exactly what that is because it is changing all the time.

• 36:03Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I'm right there with you. I've learned over the years that actually my mind is way tougher than my body. I've sort of trained and developed the ability to push myself psychologically, emotionally, cognitively to a pretty extreme point. And sometimes you just have to go there because it's the nature of what you're doing. If you're launching something or whatever, maybe there's a short term window where you're not going to be sort of like in this quote, you know, like beautifully centered balanced place, sort of the nature of the beast, but the pendulum has to swing back. And if it stays out that, you know, like hinterland for too long of extremity, then my mind has the ability to stay out there longer than my body. My body starts to slowly check the boxes of bringing

• 36:48Jonathan Fields?

  me to my knees until I am completely curled up and fetal on the floor. And my brain has to listen and say, oh, it's time. And I wish I could say that, you know, in my maturity, I've gotten way better at it. I've gotten a bit better at it. But I still have those moments where I have to constantly check in with my body and say, what's it telling me? Because I've learned that my body is actually much more the canary in the coal mine for me. It's much more the the true tell of whether I'm pushing too hard, I'm going too fast, I'm not being smart at what I'm doing. My brain psychologically can take a lot more, but my body really starts to take a hit. So I've, I'm learning more to

• 37:28Jonathan Fields?

  treat that as like an important intellectual data point in understanding how I'm living my life and whether the choices I'm making are okay. You know, one of the things that pops into my head also when we have this conversation is like, so let's say you're working in ecosystem with other people, whether you're in a job or whether you have your own business and you have a team, whatever it may be. And you're like, this is my new value set. This is really important to me. I need to reimagine the way that I'm doing things and build a lot of systems and processes. So now I can work 20 hours a week instead of 40 or 50. I think there's an assumption that pops into a lot of people's head when they hear that, well, how nice for you, you know, but now basically what you're really just doing

• 38:10Jonathan Fields?

  is you're shifting the burden onto everyone around you because somebody's got to, quote, "pick up the slack." And in fact, when you look at your team, that's the, like, the first proof point that that's not true at all. In fact, you have your team follow all of these same ideas and principles, and they work less also. And somehow, all the work is still getting done.

• 38:34Speaker 00

  Yes, this is so important to me. And this is something I call heart-based business. I know you've talked a lot about this over the years, too. I can't stand the thought that, oh, the owner gets to optimize their life, or the owner, the manager, or the boss, whomever, gets to optimize and be so light and free. Meanwhile, the team is burning out, working around the clock. The owner is this tyrannical, double-wears Prada boss, and the team is working on stuff that they hate. No, absolutely not. So I really think that the whole ecosystem matters. And for me, heart-based business is, it matters just as much how the owner experiences the work and their time, how each team member, how

• 39:15Speaker 00

  clients, community members, everybody counts. I'm always looking for, how can we work with joy and ease for the highest good of all involved? So like you said, my team, I work with three to five people at any given time, and they work about five hours a week, maximum 10 when we're in a big launch. And I make it very clear that if I ever send a message on nights or weekends, you don't have to respond until your next work window. Some people like working on the weekends. I don't care. I don't care when they work, but I'll only mark something urgent if absolutely necessary, something is on fire and going to break. And I think it's really important to be considerate of not creating fire drills

• 39:59Speaker 00

  for everybody else. You know, there's this phrase around, I think it relates to codependency, but like, "Your emergency is not my problem." And I'm really mindful of that, of the owner. It's so easy for people in positions of power to like create emergencies with the work. And I think that's poor planning. So it's my job, like with my, I have a podcast, I have two podcasts as well. And I remember like, if I ever didn't follow our process and get ahead and I was going to record something at the very last minute, who's going to edit that episode? Me. Because I did not want to create a scramble for my team, just because I didn't get my stuff together in time. So that's, that's me being stubborn about it. Maybe some people

• 40:42Speaker 00

  would still press that on their team. But there was an example, we had a launch and I had a new person working with me who had just come from over a decade, working in a really fast paced startup. And the doors were closing on this launch, the doors were closing at midnight. And I went to bed at like 8pm, as I do, my grandma hours. And someone emailed right that evening. And she wrote to me and she said, Oh, somebody emailed, the doors are going to close. Do we need to jump in and respond? And I said, No, it's okay. Just respond in the morning. Like it's past our work hours. And she did. And she wrote back, she said, Sorry, doors, you know, we didn't get back to you, but here are the answers to your questions. And if you still want to enroll, we're happy to have you.

• 41:25Speaker 00

  And this person totally appreciated it. They ended up signing up. But my team member was shocked. She could not believe that I wasn't staying in front of my computer until midnight. She just, it was so flabbergasted, her that way of working. But it kind of sets the example for everybody, including the people who are signing up for any potential programs.

• 41:45Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. And it also is sort of like, it demonstrates that like, if this is, it's not about time. It's, it is about like, how you use that time. You introduce a new metric also, which I think kind of like brings like, is an interesting thing to explore. Time to revenue ratio, you know, suggesting that you you optimize not just for money, which so many of us do in both personally, like I want to optimize to make like the greatest income or the greatest living possible, but also for ease and at the same time and sort of like create this constant balancing. So tell me more about this metric because I'm kind of fascinated by it.

• 42:26Speaker 00

  I just find it so interesting that on the P and L profit and loss statement, you know, we have gross earnings, we have operating expenses and then net profit. And in the business press, you might hear about entrepreneurs who are making millions of dollars or tens of millions, but nobody talks about A, the operating expenses for whatever earnings that they're claiming. Oh, I run an eight-figure business and we earned $10 million last year. Great, but did it cost you 11 million to generate that 10? We don't know. You're not telling us. Similarly, are you working around the clock, burning out and with no time for your family and missing your kid's birthday? You know, what's going

• 43:07Speaker 00

  on behind the scenes to earn that 10 million? What is it costing you in terms of time, AKA life force? It's your life and we, none of us know how much of it we get. And so I think it's very interesting, like even Amazon. Great, Bezos is a kajillionaire, but he's completely burning out the people in the warehouses who are working these insane hours at an ungodly pace with very little breaks, trying to keep up with robots. It's absolutely crushing. So great. Should we be so proud of Jeff Bezos? Yes, he has tons of innovative ideas, but at what cost to the people who are working in the warehouses, making it

• 43:47Speaker 00

  all possible? And so the time to revenue ratio means considering for the revenue, and this, this could apply if you're on salary too, doesn't matter, for the salary or the revenue that you brought in, let's say, last year, how much of your time? Went into that, how many hours in the year, like in my case is about a thousand hours a year for let's say my five year average, 300,000 take home. And so you can calculate time to revenue ratio for yourself, or if you're a business owner for your team. So let's say you're working in a business, instead of just looking at, oh yeah, how much did we earn? You could say, well, how much team member time did that require? And not just how much did I pay my team, how much time was involved?

• 44:32Speaker 00

  So this, I think, is a metric that could help us all design smarter systems and actually consider time as a factor in terms of earning. The last thing I'll say on this is I share what I call the million dollar bureaucratic client question. I think it's an interesting thought exercise. The way I pose it in the book is if someone offered you a million dollars to work around the clock, absolutely crushing 100 hour weeks for a really bureaucratic nightmare client for one year, no cancellation allowed, would you do it?

• 45:09Speaker 00

  Some people I spoke with said absolutely yes. I worked this way for far less pay. I would, I'm at a stage in my life where I need the money and yes, I would take it. But not everybody would. There were people who had gotten through cancer diagnoses, who had gotten through health scares, who said, no, no amount of money is worth me working that way because I could die halfway into that year. I don't mean to be morbid, but that's true. So I think it's interesting for each of us to consider that question. And is there a number on a check? What is that number that would be worth sacrificing our health and our attention and time with our family and loved ones? And I think at least just getting clear on what our numbers are in this regard, this

• 45:51Speaker 00

  time to revenue ratio can help us, just as we talked about with the physical signals, can help us see when we're on track and when we're veering off track and maybe need to pare back or change directions.

• 46:03Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. And a big part of that is you actually have to know what your time is. And I think that's where like there's a huge. Miss here, you know, because when you're picking up your device 150 times a day and like, oh, it's just like, you know, like five seconds, you're like answering this five seconds or, or scanning this, like that 150 just kind of feels like, oh, it's the occasional glance here, there, there. But at the end of the day, if you multiply each one of those out by like a minute or so, or something like that, it's 150 minutes, like two and a half hours. It's all of a sudden, you know, now we're like, oh, wait, you know, we're actually talking about hours out of the day.

• 46:42Jonathan Fields?

  So how do we even try and optimize for these things? When I, I sense, and I'm curious what, what your experience has been, the bigger, earlier step is that we just don't have any genuine sense of how much time we're spending doing different things, especially when it's fragmented into these micro bursts, spread out over hundreds of teeny little seemingly inconsequential moments or snippets throughout the day. But when you look at it cumulatively, it can be kind of brutalizing. So how do we actually, how do we own what we're truly doing?

• 47:22Jonathan Fields?

  And how much time and energy it's taking from us before we even figure out like how to reimagine that, that time and energy?

• 47:32Speaker 00

  I use an app called Rescue Time. It's always running in the background on my computer. And I try to stay really disciplined of not doing work on my phone. I know it's possible. And every now and then I do, but that actually helps, helps me keep a separation of work and the rest of my life. So when my computer is open, I'm only working on it. And in fact, my husband, Michael, when we were early in our relationship, he would get so perplexed when I absolutely refused to open my laptop for us to watch a show. I was just like, absolutely not, no, but this thing is staying closed because I had such an association with work. But that means that when the laptop is open, Rescue Time is on and it's tracking in the background.

• 48:13Speaker 00

  Some people suggest keeping a time journal. Who, who will do that? I don't know. I, I can't even bring myself to do that. And I'm like obsessed with these topics. Something like rescue time, I looked at my data for 2020. I spent 200 hours on Zoom calls because it was like the year of Zoom, you know? And then one of my next biggest activities was email. So I think instead of trying to look at the micro, I'm not trying to optimize in 15 minute increments, nothing like that. I find that when we are pulled by big, meaningful projects, we want to work on them. We actually want to block off the distractions and I use these little $10 for a packet of foam hangers that I hang on my door that actually tells Michael, the only other person

• 48:57Speaker 00

  in my house, what I'm doing and whether it's okay to interrupt or not. I think that when we have a draw, when we have something big and compelling we're working on, we're less drawn to even want to pick up our phone during that window. But those windows are, become more concentrated. So for me, with, with my time, trade offs, and as you said, really trying to reckon with how it's actually being spent. If I were to look at my rescue time and see that my number one activity in a year was email, I would probably be a little sad because it meant that I did not tackle a giant project. Now, giant projects are what bring me joy. That's my spark type. I don't know if that's for everybody or not.

• 49:40Speaker 00

  Maybe some people would actually just thrive being in email because it means they're communicating, making connections, building community. It's awesome. That's cool. There's like, I have no judgment here. But I would want to see in my data, I wrote my books in Google Docs primarily and in Notion, that's the operations hub where I run my business. I would want to see the number one activity is Google Docs. You know, is something on my computer that represents me doing my best work. And then only in third place should be like email and then Zoom and things that are more fragmented on the whole.

• 50:14Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, and I'm right there with you, being a maker. I'm always trying to optimize for like the things that allow me to be just generative. You know, and for me, like you said, for some people that it might actually be email. It might be like the conversation is their art, you know? For me, it's not, you know? For me, I needed to kind of go into my cave. So I'm always looking for that metric, too. You introduce a framework, sort of like this guiding structure for us. Because I think a lot of people listening and not probably nodding along, they go, well, yeah, I want more free time. All of this makes sense. I spend way too much time in the minutia and all the yada, yada. But what now? Like, how do I actually start to to operationalize this in my life, in my work, in my business?

• 50:57Jonathan Fields?

  You introduce what you call the free time framework with these three key elements and then some sub elements under that. Walk me through this framework because I think it becomes the model for us to all say, yes, this sounds interesting. And now here's how we actually start to to put these ideas to work in our lives.

• 51:14Speaker 00

  The main diagnostic is where are you experiencing friction? And where are you experiencing flow? And once we identify a friction area, then we can walk through the free time framework, align, design, assign to reduce friction and move toward greater flow.

• 51:30Jonathan Fields?

  Got it.

• 51:31Speaker 00

  So I don't know if you're interested, but we could do a little mini, mini coaching around this if you want.

• 51:35Jonathan Fields?

  And maybe let's also like, tell me what you mean by friction and flow? Because I think it makes sense to get specific there.

• 51:41Speaker 00

  Yes. Friction is anywhere in your life or work where you feel drained, distracted, heavy, you're procrastinating, it's dragging you down. The friction is that there's just something getting in the way and making this area feel heavy and burdensome. And then flow is time is flying. You're happy. You don't even notice the clock. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes it as almost a near ecstatic state of bliss where you don't recognize time passing. And so flow is that you are clicked in, you are working in your zone of genius or on your biggest strengths, and you're doing great work. And research shows that we are five times more productive when we're in a flow state

• 52:25Speaker 00

  than than not.

• 52:27Jonathan Fields?

  Got it. Okay. That resonates with me. So then, um, yeah, I'll, I'm going to take you up on your, your invitation to do a little mini intervention here, then let's, let's work with your free time framework.

• 52:40Speaker 07

  And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors.

• 52:45Jonathan Fields?

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• 53:30Jonathan Fields?

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• 54:12Jonathan Fields?

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• 55:21Jonathan Fields?

  So what comes to mind for me right now, so I'm a maker. I love to make things and one of my really prime channels of expression is writing. And I've wanted to sort of be diving into a large scale writing project for a while now. It's just, it's not, it's all friction and no flow. And I've written books, I've written big, big pieces of work many times over. So like I know the process and right now it's just not happening. You know, I kind of even know, like I know the next thing that I want to really start to say yes to. And I'm getting massively distracted by a lot of other things. And granted, there are other things going on, like I run two companies now. So I can't just stop things.

• 56:03Jonathan Fields?

  But also there's not a whole lot of efficiency in the parts that I'm involved in. I'll say the parts that are essentialist producers involved in is very efficient. But when I get my hands in it, everything tends to break. So I would love to actually devote myself to the next big writing project. And I'm experiencing just sort of like nonstop friction right there. What is, is that the type of thing that would be interesting to dive into?

• 56:32Speaker 00

  Yeah, definitely. And I appreciate you sharing and being open to doing this and just sharing with all of us. Cause I think it's also easy, I'm a long time listener of your podcast. It's easy to think that those who have podcasts or show up as expert guests, like have it all figured out. And I just love that you're open to sharing this. So it sounds like the writing project, it's something, there's a gap because it's something you really want to do and work on and have flow around. But it's, as you said, currently. Totally loaded with friction.

• 57:02Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, no, 100%.

• 57:04Speaker 00

  How would you rate your energy on a scale of 1 to 10? Let's say 1 is just total and utter friction and 10 is flow. What's your current rating?

• 57:14Jonathan Fields?

  I would say somewhere in the middle. All right, I'm gonna, I'm gonna say Tim Ferriss says take 7 out of your rating skills.

• 57:23Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 57:24Jonathan Fields?

  So I'm gonna give it a 6, you know, which is interesting for me to assign because from the outside looking in, you're like, there's huge amounts of work being done, huge amounts of things being produced and created and put into the world. But at the same time, I'm definitely experienced, like I feel a sense of friction and a certain sense of in and out of burnout or overwhelm, even though like I kind of know, like I have enough of a, of a mindset practice to be able to zoom the lens out and get meta and be like, oh, you're in this state right now. Oh, you're, to actually understand, to look down into myself and understand where I am. But I'm still there. So clearly I'm not doing what I need to do to create change in that state.

• 58:03Speaker 00

  Well, and as you said, there's so much, there's so much going on in a bigger picture sense in your business and with what you're juggling. And yet this writing project is like fruit that's hanging on the tree. You see it, you want to pluck it, but something's preventing you. So I, I like how specific it is and I like how it's just zoning in on this one thing. And maybe that can inform the rest. So let's start with the aligned stage of this. And align is all about, is this aligned with your values, your energy and your strengths before we even optimize how you're gonna tackle it? So let's look at values. What is important to you about this writing project?

• 58:42Jonathan Fields?

  So this is a deeply personal writing project. Something I'm not gonna share what it is because I don't know if it will ever be made public, but it is deeply personal, deeply meaningful. It's different than anything I've ever written before. And it's to a specific person. And, you know, who I love dearly. And so, yeah, it is something that.

• 59:06Jonathan Fields?

  I would love to write. I feel compelled to write. And it's a genuine expression of who I am, what I believe in the world, my deepest held values. And when I think about me just sitting there writing it, like, to me, that's an energized state, but I'm not doing that. So I'm not feeling the energy of it.

• 59:24Speaker 00

  Yeah, but you did light up when you started to talk about it. And I had a feeling it was gonna be, the subject will be top secret. But your face changed. Like, you said it's for someone who's really important to you and it's deeply meaningful and just super connected to who you are and that there's something in you that has this message or this subject that you are really excited about.

• 59:49Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, it matters. Like, it really matters. And I think also over the last few years, like, we all have the sense of, we don't know what tomorrow's gonna bring, you know, and, and like, I want this out of me, no matter what tomorrow's gonna bring. And yet, I'm not doing it.

• 1:00:08Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, we'll get there. We'll get there. So I'm hearing values of meaningful self-expression, the maker in you that loves to take something and create. What other values are at play in this writing project? I mean, like you said, you have so much else going on in the business. So what other values of yours does this project hit?

• 1:00:31Jonathan Fields?

  I don't know if it's a value, but authentic expression, creativity, honesty. You know, like, writing, this is something where I want to write, where this is not, there's no fluff. It is just raw, pure, and honest, and real, and human, and sometimes not clean or pat in any way, but it's true.

• 1:00:54Speaker 00

  Wow, see, I already am so excited for this. And these are your gifts, authentic, raw, unfiltered, truly cut to the core communication. This is absolutely in your zone of genius.

• 1:01:08Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I agree. And actually, it's sort of like the, what I want to write is stepping into that on a different level also.

• 1:01:16Speaker 00

  That's so exciting. Okay, so then, let's look at energy. When you think about stepping into that at a whole different level than you ever have before. How does it make you feel?

• 1:01:28Jonathan Fields?

  If I like put myself, if I close my eyes and I imagine myself actually doing this, I just want to do that and nothing else. I just like, I want to open my eyes and just like, and you're like, and write that. It feels good. Like it gives me like, I, I feel like that, that is, it would be really hard to do, but also really energizing and rewarding.

• 1:01:48Speaker 00

  Hmm. Yes. Like it's calling you forth. And it's interesting that your, your reaction is actually, this is the only thing that like truly feels energizing. If I could drop everything else and work on this and have the space for it, that would be super energizing.

• 1:02:05Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. And in fact, I've often fantasized about that. Um, you know, um, whether it's this project or other writing projects is literally just taking a month. Cause I think I can, I can do this entire thing in a month and putting everything else on autopilot, earning my way into it in some way, shape or form. And that's kind of what I'm thinking about right now. Maybe that's where we're going. So that I literally can just tap out for a month and you know, like, and just wake up in the morning, you know, take care of my body, my relationships and write this thing.

• 1:02:35Speaker 00

  And it's really interesting that you say that because in a way you said two really crucial things here. You just need a month. Like you didn't say, oh, this is a three year project, a magnum opus, a decade long. No, you need a month. That's kind of your energy, your anticipated energy need in a way. But as you said, earning your, earning your way into it, that right now it feels like you haven't earned your way in yet because you're juggling so much else. So tell me about where is your energy getting blocked? Like there's a reason that you haven't already set aside this month and you're, as you said, even though you want to work on this, you just can't seem to start. So what is dragging your energy down or away from it?

• 1:03:15Jonathan Fields?

  I think just the volume of projects, you know, right now there's a lot on my plate where like I said, I run two companies. Some folks know that, some folks don't. You like it's, so we produce a podcast twice a week, which is awesome. We have a new one that, um, is- Is like entering the world probably as we have this conversation, which is another very large lift. And we have a second company that develops and deploys all the full body of work around the spark types. And that's effectively in startup mode, you know, so it needs any company in startup mode tends to need a lot more love and is under resourced, you know, until we sort of like hit the a certain tipping point. So, you know, as

• 1:03:57Jonathan Fields?

  I'm saying this, like, what there are two storylines in my head. One is like, yes, that's your truth. And two is, yes, and is it really? You know, like, is does every startup have to like, like function this way? Like, or have I just not done the work to like reimagine a lot of structure and process to make everything that I'm doing now happen, but in a much more humane way, both to me and those around me?

• 1:04:24Speaker 00

  Hmm. It almost seems like in your mind, you have to choose. Whereas what I just heard you say was, actually, I need to step out of the businesses for a month. Then I it's not forever. Yes, they are in startup mode and they do need you to an extent. But that if we ask it as a more open ended question, how can I free up my energy for this writing project for a month? That at least then it's an open ended question. They're not just directly playing tug of war.

• 1:04:54Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah. And in fact, there's evidence that I can do that because three years ago, I took the better part of a month off to go out to rural Pennsylvania and work with a luthier and build a guitar. And in theory, then I was just as quote, time compressed as I am now. But I knew it was coming because I actually committed to it like six months in advance. I paid the money to do it. And then I made sure that in those six months, we sort of like front loaded everything and set up everything because I knew it was happening. And I actually even I roped a friend in to make the same commitment with me. So I knew I was also beholden to him. So like, I couldn't break this promise to me or to my friend. And there was money already committed.

• 1:05:35Jonathan Fields?

  So it almost like it became this forcing function for me to reverse engineer what needs to happen to buy myself the ability to do this, which I haven't done with this writing project. So it's kind of interesting to me.

• 1:05:46Speaker 00

  And in hindsight, was the guitar project worth it?

• 1:05:49Jonathan Fields?

  Oh, yeah, like a thousand times over.

• 1:05:52Speaker 00

  Yeah, as your friend, I know this is like one of the highlights. When I would go to your house and see the guitar there and see you strum on it. And didn't Casey strum on that very guitar for your GLP intro music?

• 1:06:04Jonathan Fields?

  He did. And yeah, in fact, the GLP theme music is him playing something that he wrote on the guitar that I built. And Casey, for those who don't know, is a dear friend and sort of like member of our community.

• 1:06:16Speaker 00

  So in a way, like, not only did it completely light you up and energize you, but it became creative fuel. So this writing project could help and serve the business and your other projects in ways you don't yet see, the least of which being your energy, which is vital to everything else.

• 1:06:33Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I don't disagree.

• 1:06:36Speaker 00

  Okay, let's talk about strengths. This is kind of, we could go multiple places with this, and I know we want to keep this to a mini session, but what do you think your biggest strengths are as it relates to either tackling this writing project or even strengths that you have that you could bring to being able to step aside from the business for a month in order to do it?

• 1:06:58Jonathan Fields?

  Strength as a writer is just like whatever craft I've developed over the years to be able to say what I want to say with language that I feel conveys what's in my head. Occasionally, I'm able to do that.

• 1:07:13Jonathan Fields?

  So I think like there's definitely that is like a central strength. I would also, it's weird to say, but I consider another strength, just that I've developed a different lens. On life and experiences and a different take, a different way to see and synthesize common experiences that I think help with this. And when I'm writing, I actually, when I create the space to do it, I'm really efficient. I work very quickly. That's why I said 30 days I could do this if I had to set aside just that. You know, I write very quickly. So strength is also the speed at which I create because I've been doing it for so long now.

• 1:07:54Jonathan Fields?

  In terms of having the businesses function on the side, you know, it's less about my strengths and more about the people that I have in place around me and their strengths and their commitment and ability to create systems and process that allow things to function. And that is, that's been our everyday, you know, is that those folks keep the machine running so that I don't have to do a lot of that.

• 1:08:18Speaker 00

  And it's interesting because at the start you said wherever you get involved, the systems fall apart a little bit.

• 1:08:25Jonathan Fields?

  Oh, yeah. Like the rule in both companies is like, don't let Jonathan touch anything with like a system, a process, a plug or a battery. Cause I tend to break everything.

• 1:08:36Speaker 00

  So in fact, stepping aside for a month could enable team members to really double down on their strengths and strengthen the two businesses while you have your hands out of the honey jar.

• 1:08:48Jonathan Fields?

  Entirely possible.

• 1:08:49Speaker 00

  Okay. I also love that you said, yes, you've been writing your whole career and efficiency is a strength. So in a way you said you gotta earn your way into this, but you could be confident that if you were to go into a completely unplugged month, you would come out with something substantial and that would be far better than this constant friction and tug and pressure you're feeling now while trying to do it at the same time as doing everything else.

• 1:09:15Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, no, I definitely feel that way.

• 1:09:17Speaker 00

  Okay. So let's move on to the second stage, design.

• 1:09:21Jonathan Fields?

  So just to put a cap on it then.

• 1:09:23Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:09:24Jonathan Fields?

  That was about the align, like stage one align. We talked about values. We talked about energy and we talked about strengths.

• 1:09:28Speaker 00

  Yes. Is this aligned? Like maybe we would have come to the realization, it's not the time for you to work on this at all, but your energy. And your values, it's completely aligned with what lights you up, what you're great at. You, oh my goodness, I think I wish we all could spend a month and come out with something as meaningful as I know you will. So it seems super aligned. Nothing in your energy was saying that it's not the time or the not the right project.

• 1:09:54Jonathan Fields?

  Cool.

• 1:09:55Speaker 00

  So then now, now we can be intentional about design. So design covers ideal outcome, impact, and then we'll design the process. So like how we free you from your business in order to do this. So what is your ideal outcome? If you were to go away for a month, what would you want to come back with?

• 1:10:15Jonathan Fields?

  A solid, let's call it draft of a manuscript. And again, I'm not sure whether this ever sees the light of day as a commercial piece of work, but I still want it to be sort of like a complete piece of work.

• 1:10:28Speaker 00

  Absolutely.

• 1:10:29Jonathan Fields?

  So I would say like, the outcome would be a solid draft of manuscript.

• 1:10:33Speaker 00

  Beautiful. And what would be your ideal outcome for the two businesses?

• 1:10:38Jonathan Fields?

  That, the ideal outcome was that nobody would know I was gone. Like they would function as effectively and efficiently. Everything that needed to be done would be done and maybe even better without me in the mix.

• 1:10:54Speaker 00

  Awesome. Awesome. So ideal outcome is you come back with a manuscript in draft form and no one really even notices you're gone. The month flies by, maybe things even improve because you're gone during this time.

• 1:11:08Jonathan Fields?

  Yep.

• 1:11:09Speaker 00

  Anything else for ideal outcomes? How will you feel at the end of this month?

• 1:11:13Jonathan Fields?

  Content. Like the feeling that I had the final day, like the final hour of the final day that I spent a month building a guitar was just like a full body, oh hell yeah, that was worth it. And now I'm proud of what I, what I did. So that, like that feeling.

• 1:11:38Speaker 00

  Hmm. That's so beautiful. Content and proud.

• 1:11:42Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 1:11:44Speaker 00

  Awesome. What about ideal impact? So we, we may not all, all of us listening may not get to see the manuscript TBD, but what impact do you want to have on the person who it is for, person or people plural? What impact do you hope that this will have?

• 1:12:07Jonathan Fields?

  For them to feel seen, to know me differently, and to feel better prepared to take on the world.

• 1:12:20Speaker 00

  Hmm. For them to feel seen, for them to know you even deeper, and feel prepared to take on the world.

• 1:12:31Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I think so.

• 1:12:32Speaker 00

  I love it. Any other impact, what about like on you, on the business, or anything else in terms of designing the ideal impact of this project in this time?

• 1:12:44Jonathan Fields?

  The impact on me, just knowing that it's, um, it's out of my head. You know, that, that I took this thing, and it now exists outside of me.

• 1:12:56Speaker 00

  Yes, and you described at the beginning, feeling tension because it's kind of knocking at your door, it seems like, and, and it's on your mind, and it's, it's getting ready for you. We talked about the fruit metaphor. But that at the end of this month, you could feel relieved a little bit. It's stage one, it's out, at least out of your mind. And maybe that would enable you to focus on the businesses with a little more presence, because you would know that at least you've, you've moved this project forward as well.

• 1:13:28Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, I mean, for sure, you know, and if I decided that this was actually something that either in its state or adjusted, it was something that would at some point be for public consumption, you know, then there's a potential impact at that scale as well.

• 1:13:43Speaker 00

  Absolutely, and that you'll know, I think you can't quite know that until it's out. Draft one is out.

• 1:13:49Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah.

• 1:13:49Speaker 00

  So let's talk about the third part of design, which is process. This is where we shift into a little bit of the nitty gritty. At a high level, what would enable this to to flow? So like, how do you want to design the month? Whether it's where you are, what decisions you need to make? And then we could also look at process in terms of stepping away from the business for this month of what needs to happen.

• 1:14:16Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, so on two levels. One would be probably to find a place to go for a month where the physical location was was beautiful, was inspiring, was natural. Also, by sort of like the nature of what it was, removed a lot of distractions and probably had really terrible cell signal and and super slow wifi. So that I was like, not, you know, it was just so hard to try and like, do all the things that would normally distract me that I just gave up on them fairly quickly. And also where I could I could be and physically feel at peace and move my body and be in

• 1:14:57Jonathan Fields?

  nature, you know, like sort of like pulse between creation and immersion in nature. Because both of those tend to be a really powerful cycle for me that one fuels the other, which fuels the other. And of course, be with my wife the whole time so that we could sort of like be in it together. To the extent that it was something that like was something would be nursing to her also, or maybe she's there for part of the time and then goes back and forth. So physically, I think like, I see them this working best if I literally remove myself from my physical location. In terms of business, you know, process and structure, because a lot of what we do is

• 1:15:38Jonathan Fields?

  produce media and trainings and things like this, we'd have to really anticipate, you know, probably months out, what's the buffer that we need to build in order for me to step away and know that we're completely fine. We're all we're all produced and ready to go and ready to air with multiple properties and shows. And for any engagements, you know, like basically just block that a month where we're not booking anything where I would actually be physically or virtually present for keynotes or workshops and facilitating and stuff like that where I wouldn't I wouldn't be needed for anything like that.

• 1:16:12Speaker 00

  I'm hearing three big homeworks, which are joy works. Uh, number one would be pick a location and maybe Stephanie would have fun picking with you because he said it's she's invited and it's with her for her as well. So picking somewhere in nature, ideally with terrible solid and wifi signal, picking the time window. So far enough out that you can plan and that you from now don't have any keynotes or anything that requires your presence. And then the big, the third big chunk is telling the team so you can get enough in the can, as we say in the biz, enough episodes scheduled and ready that no one's in a scramble either before you go or afterward.

• 1:16:52Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, no, I think those are like the three big things.

• 1:16:55Speaker 00

  Is there anything else that would fall apart during this month that if you were not to design it now or upfront, they would go, oh, my God, everything's on fire because Jonathan is gone this month and we didn't think about XYZ. Is there anything like that we're missing?

• 1:17:08Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm.

• 1:17:09Speaker 00

  Put another way, is there anything that wouldn't be able to wait until you got back?

• 1:17:14Jonathan Fields?

  Probably very little. I'm sure, I'm sure there would be some things, but nothing like major is coming to mind right now.

• 1:17:21Speaker 00

  Okay. So those three big chunks, finding the joyful location, picking when, and then just creating a work back plan. As you said, earn your way in. And the way you're going to earn your way in is just get a jump on all the media that you produce.

• 1:17:35Jonathan Fields?

  Yep, that works.

• 1:17:37Speaker 00

  Okay, so that's the design stage. We're designing the ideal outcome, the ideal impact and the ideal process. The third and final stage is assign who will do what by when. So let's just get clear on those three things we just mentioned. Let's assign them. You don't have to do it all. You're just going to help get everyone on board. And I know that's something you're really good at. So who will do what by when? Who needs to do what by when for these three things?

• 1:18:04Jonathan Fields?

  Well, I need to write. That will be essential. Um.

• 1:18:11Jonathan Fields?

  To source a location, I'd probably do that in harmony with Stephanie. For those who don't know, Stephanie is my wife and business partner.

• 1:18:19Speaker 00

  And very good at this, I'll say. She's very talented for finding joyful spots.

• 1:18:24Jonathan Fields?

  She's really, really, really, really good at finding joyful spots. We have lived in 18 different homes over the last 18 months before finally settling into one longer term place. So all sourced by her. On the two businesses, you know, production teams that are in place. So it would be a matter of just coordinating with like, like those people are ready to make things happen. But just, you know, to record at a pace where by a certain date, we had enough episodes in the can, where everybody felt really good with me vanishing for a month. So the folks in production who we have in place. And I think that would probably be it.

• 1:19:07Jonathan Fields?

  And those would be the main things. Again, I'm sure there like, we have like lots of other folks outside of our immediate teams, but that we'd probably need to figure out little tweaks to. Like, I don't think there's anyone new. We're not a giant like company, like, so it's like fairly small number of people who handle different things. So it's like sort of coordinating among our awesome human beings that this is coming. And sort of like, this is how we all need to prepare for it.

• 1:19:32Speaker 00

  And maybe to that end, a little fourth homework is just the communication plan while you're gone. So is there a situation where they should email you or when do they text or call you of what scenarios might be happening, but just so that everyone feels good, like they know when to bother you or not. And you know that they'll get in touch when something's urgent.

• 1:19:54Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, no, that sounds great.

• 1:19:56Speaker 00

  Okay, so we're recording this in February.

• 1:20:00Jonathan Fields?

  Oh, are you gonna hold me to something?

• 1:20:02Speaker 00

  Yes, what month would be joyful from now, knowing what you know about your production schedule and seasonality and this project that is just knocking at the door of your mind?

• 1:20:15Speaker 00

  When would you love, what would be your ideal month to do this?

• 1:20:19Jonathan Fields?

  In theory, I would say May, but I'm not sure if that's enough lead time to make all of this happen. So it may be more realistically, something like September, where I can literally just buy myself a month to completely vanish and do this, which isn't that far off, like in the larger context of things.

• 1:20:38Speaker 00

  Totally. So May is ideal. That sparked something, thinking about May. And if it didn't put too much undue pressure on the team, May seems like that called to you. And then backup could be August or September.

• 1:20:51Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, no, that makes sense.

• 1:20:53Speaker 00

  Okay, great. So with this in place, that assigned stage, you know, at least loosely defined, now rate on a scale of one to 10, we started at a six. How do you feel about your approach to this writing project?

• 1:21:10Jonathan Fields?

  Um, how do I feel about my approach to it?

• 1:21:13Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 1:21:14Jonathan Fields?

  Probably closer to an eight.

• 1:21:17Speaker 00

  Okay.

• 1:21:17Jonathan Fields?

  I feel like it's not like, it's not really entirely sussed out. I'm not like, you know, like all in on it quite yet, but I can

• 1:21:23Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 1:21:24Jonathan Fields?

  I can see more clearly, like the steps that I would need to really think through. I understand like, you know, like why it's really important to me. I understand what the outcome is that I want, what the impact I want from that is. I have to think more about what the actual granular processes would be, like as part of that design stage. So I think that's why I'm not entirely there yet also, because that's going to take some, some figuring out. And that's actually not my sweet spot. That's not the type of stuff that I'm super skilled at or love doing. So I'll have to sort of like figure out how to move through that. And in terms of the, like a sign part of it, like I think that's actually relatively straightforward, the who, what, when. So I feel like I'm closer.

• 1:22:07Jonathan Fields?

  And once I actually figure out a granular process, like here's what needs to happen between now and then, then I start moving much closer to like, oh yeah, this is getting, this is starting to feel really exciting.

• 1:22:21Speaker 00

  Yes, yeah, that we have at least the loose architecture of it. And maybe you could even assign that piece you mentioned, like the granularity. Maybe there is someone you can engage to help you think that through or map it out.

• 1:22:33Jonathan Fields?

  Yeah, no, for sure.

• 1:22:34Speaker 00

  I always like to wrap up, I like two questions. I know you have your famous last question of the pod, but two questions to wrap up this little micro coaching. What's one insight or aha from this mini session?

• 1:22:49Jonathan Fields?

  Probably that there is this sort of like fairly straightforward linear process. That if I want, if I'm walking around saying this really matters to me and I'm not doing it, that it was probably because I didn't just have sort of like a fairly straightforward process. Just say this, then this, then this, and now I feel like I do. And there's still work to be done, but now I kind of know where to focus.

• 1:23:09Speaker 00

  And I'll add on behalf of all of your listeners and gleepers. We crave for you to do this project. We might not ever see it, but knowing how much it lights you up and what a frigging talent you are at writing and communicating. I think all of us could say, yes, Jonathan, please step back from the day to day systems and go do your thing because we all benefit so much from it. Last question, what's one small next step that you can take in the next week?

• 1:23:41Jonathan Fields?

  Okay, so because this I think would be like one of the most fun things to do. Stephanie and I looking for a place, a location, an escape, like a creative escape to make it happen.

• 1:23:52Speaker 00

  Yes, awesome. So you're going to tell Stephanie, look and start looking for a place. And I have to sneak in what one next step would have the biggest impact.

• 1:24:04Jonathan Fields?

  Figuring out our production schedule that would allow me the greatest amount of freedom to choose when to do this.

• 1:24:18Speaker 00

  Awesome.

• 1:24:19Jonathan Fields?

  Okay.

• 1:24:20Speaker 00

  I love it.

• 1:24:21Jonathan Fields?

  I have my orders.

• 1:24:21Speaker 00

  You'll touch base with Steph, you have your, you have your marching orders. I might also add, maybe just like, starting an outline, like doing some, as far as big impact, something on the creative side, like drop one next step into the creative bucket, next step.

• 1:24:36Jonathan Fields?

  That's great, yeah, especially because I'm a maker, so that actually is something that I would really, that would immediately be energizing to me.

• 1:24:42Speaker 00

  Yeah, a little kindling to just get you excited for this.

• 1:24:45Jonathan Fields?

  This has been awesome, this is super helpful, and zooming the lens out, you know, what I think is so fascinating too is, you know, like the, we started the conversation around the context of free time and how valuable it is to us and how much we've sort of lost control of our ability to reclaim it and create it, and what we ended up talking about, and like my mini intervention here, is how I actually want to create this free time to do something that might be considered work, but it's actually just to do something which is, has been something I've wanted to do for a long time, that is a joyful expression of my ideas, my identity, my craft, my skills, like the thing that I feel like I'm partly

• 1:25:25Jonathan Fields?

  here to do, even though it will take a lot of work and a lot of effort, and some of it will be angsty, I'm buying my ability to do that effectively, because to me, that's one of the ways I actually want to spend my quote free time, whether it ever becomes something that's commercially viable, it generates income or revenue for the businesses or not, so I think it's just a really interesting sort of like frame on how we can use these ideas to just create time and space to do whatever it is that we want to do, whether that's hiking on the Appalachian Trail, or just doing something that actually takes a lot of work, but that's, you know, deeply meaningful to us.

• 1:26:05Speaker 00

  Absolutely, and I think when, when we are truly rested and present with our quote free time, where we're not doing anything at all. I think so many of us can relate to that. We want to work on legacy projects, big, meaningful, juicy stuff, building guitars, writing these meaningful words for others. Like, that is so much of how I do think a lot of us want to spend our free time is doing really meaningful work that we know can serve others and help others and change the world.

• 1:26:35Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm, love that. And that feels like a good place for us to come full circle. So just as you asked me your two closing questions for a mini coaching session, I'm going to ask you my final question, which I ask with everyone. So, sitting in this container of Good Life Project, if I offer up the phrase, "to live a good life", what comes up?

• 1:26:54Speaker 00

  I would say presence and choice, as we've been talking about these themes. But a good life is the ability to be there and be in the moment and be present for whatever it is that we're doing, and not to feel those tugs of guilt and angst and just not being able to keep up and burn out, you know? So just really being able to be present. And good life is choosing, choosing who we want to spend our time with and how and what to work on. That I think that is one of the greatest privileges that we can all work toward if we're lucky.

• 1:27:27Jonathan Fields?

  Hmm, thank you.

• 1:27:29Speaker 00

  Thank you so much, Jayef, and thank you for being open and letting us all into your world a little bit. It's really an honor.

• 1:27:36Jonathan Fields?

  Before you leave, if you love this episode, safe bet you will also love the conversation we had with Brene Brown about doing more of what fills you up and not getting derailed by inner or outer criticism. You'll find a link to Brene's episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Alejandro Ramirez and Troy Young. Christopher Carter crafted our theme music. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app or on YouTube too. If you found this conversation interesting or valuable and inspiring, chances are you did, because you're still listening here, do me a personal favor, a seven second favor, share it with

• 1:28:21Jonathan Fields?

  just one person. I mean, if you want to share- With more that's awesome too, but just one person even, then invite them to talk with you about what you've both discovered, to reconnect and explore ideas that really matter, because that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project.

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