💌 We've Moved! Welcome to Our New Home ✨

+ This week's Time Well Spent tools, quote, questions, and permission slip

Sep 01, 2023

Hi Friends,

You may notice a different look and feel for the Time Well Spent newsletter today…

I’m excited to share that I’m sending it from a new virtual home! We have moved to Substack: my favorite new platform as I writer and reader — more on that below.

If you are also subscribed to PivotList by Jenny Blake, forgive me as you heard most of this yesterday — skip to ahead to the What’s Next section :)

This is the sign you've been looking for neon signage — Photo by Austin Chan on Unsplash

Before we get to this week’s curated round-up . . .

This change will allow you to read from the Substack app, more easily reply and engage with fellow Free Timers in the comments, “restack” snippets you like, browse the archives, and support the work if you feel called to do so.

I will be able to create richer newsletters with fancy content embeds—my husband calls it “upgrading the facilities,” host an archive page with previous issues, and publish the Time Well Spent newsletter and podcast to the same main feed (you can stay subscribed wherever you already listen).

🚫 If you no longer want to receive Time Well Spent:

No hard feelings! Unsubscribe with one click here or at the bottom of this message.

If you prefer to use a different email address for Substack subscriptions, just two quick steps: unsubscribe here, then re-subscribe for free:

If it’s been a while, hi! 👋 You are receiving this because you subscribed to the Time Well Spent newsletter at some point in the last three years and have not (yet) unsubscribed. If it’s no longer serving you, I understand the need to clear unwanted inbox clutter! Before you go, check out this week’s round-up below to see if anything resonates :)

Everything you’re currently getting will remain free

That said, I’m at a major pivot point in my business, and your support at this juncture would mean the world to me!

I have been publishing online for nearly twenty years—currently taking the form of three books, three newsletters, two podcasts, a private community 🎵 and a partridge and a pear tree.

To continue operating sustainably within my Delightfully Tiny media company, I am now also making paid options available.

If my work here at Free Time has been helpful for you these last few years, I would love to invite you to become a paid subscriber or founding member.

The button below offers a one-time discount of 20% off as a thank you for making this software transition with me, good through September 9, 2023. You can also gift a subscription to a fellow business bestie who would love to set more time free:

Get 20% off for 1 year

Give a gift subscription

📜 The Longer Story: Why Substack? Why Now?

Earlier this summer on my 12-year biziversary, I started a paid project in stealth mode called Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h with Jenny Blake.

I was craving a place to write more personal essays again, particularly about the rollercoaster of running a business, and felt it was important that those more private, in-the-moment updates be behind a paywall.

The software and community here sparked so much joy that for the first time in fifteen years, I feel the camaraderie from my earliest blogging days returning—and I know you will love it too!

As a result, I have moved everything over, including:

Time Well Spent with Jenny Blake(you’re here now): For creative small business owners to set your time free through smarter systems, based on my 2022 book Free Time: Lose the Busywork, Love Your Business and podcast of the same name that launched in 2021.
PivotList by Jenny Blake: My free twice-monthly round-up of the best of what I’m reading, watching, listening to, and new software I’m geeking out on. This is for you if you’re high net growth and navigating what’s next; it accompanies my 2016 book Pivot: The Only Move That Matters Is Your Next One (+ Life After College before that), and weekly Pivot podcast that launched in 2015.
Rolling in D🤦🏻‍♀️h with Jenny Blake: Divine disaster diaries from a breadwinning business owner living in New York City—twice weekly personal essays.

One person I follow practices artistic tithing, where ten percent of her income goes to supporting other writers on the platform. I now pay for fifteen fellow Substackers, and while at first I feared subscription fatigue (like so many of us!), this combined expense has become the happiest money that leaves my bank account every month.

I love supporting the writers and thinkers whom I respect most, and who have given me so much over the years.

💌 What’s Next?

There’s nothing you need to do—you’ll keep getting my Time Well Spent round-up two to three times per month on Fridays, and my twice weekly Free Time podcast episodes (guests on Tuesday, solos on Friday).

If you do want to support the work and my ability to continue this newsletter and podcast, I would be deeply grateful!

Once again, I’m thrilled to invite you to become a paid member, starting at just $8/month or $75/year—with extra goodies if you do decide to upgrade, including access to a quarterly office hours call with me (the next one is on November 15).

The button below gives you a one-time discount of an additional 20% off as a thank you for making this move to Substack, good through September 9, 2023:

Get 20% off for 1 year

Give a gift subscription

🥁 And now, onto the good stuff!

Here’s the latest greatest round-up for Heart-Based Business Owners . . .

🥂 HOSTING

Business Bestie Brunch + Q4 Pop-Up Mastermind — now with a virtual option!

Join me and Sarah Young, founder of Zing Collaborative and author of Expansive Impact, on Sunday, October 22 (in person) or Sunday, October 29 (virtual) for a three-hour brainstorming extravaganza with a small, curated group of Heart-Based Business owners. The VIP day is supported by a three-month program with a mix of 1:1 coaching and group calls to close 2023 strong, and set a joyful strategy for 2024.

📆 Early Bird enrollment ends tonight at midnight. The final deadline to apply is September 15. If you’re interested in joining:

Learn More and Apply Here »

⚙️ Tips & Tools

My friend Stephanie Huston gave me this great tip for attending IRL conferences when she helped manage the Free Time book launch at SXSW:

Create a linktr.ee (here’s mine as an example)
Linktr.ee allows you to download a QR code that points to your page
Add that QR code to a phone-sized wallpaper template (here are some on Canva)
Save that image to your photos on your phone, or temporarily make it your background wallpaper.
As you meet people, just pull up the photo or swipe to an app-free screen on your phone for easy scanning and exchanging contact info!

And if you don’t already have it, one more friendly nudge to get the Substack app—you’ll love the reader experience, an oasis of calm far away from social media chaos and Sisyphean email systems.

As a reader, due to my own inbox overwhelm I had nearly stopped reading newsletters altogether—my motivation to write them stalling in parallel—until I downloaded the app and could peruse subscriptions peacefully with my morning coffee on my iPad.

As a writer who has been sharing publicly online for so long, I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to create community in the comments again.

The app allows you to easily “heart” and bookmark posts, and see progress markers of what percentage of each article you’ve read if you want to finish later. You’ll probably be surprised at how many of your favorite writers/thinkers (and newsletters you receive) are already on Substack—they’ll automatically show up in your app’s feed if so.

Available for iOS and Android

💬 Quote

“Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”
—E.L. Doctorow, Writers at Work: The Paris Review Interviews, 2nd Series

💭 Question

In what ways has operating your business this year been like driving at night in the fog? Looking back, can you see how one next step at a time led to the next in important ways, even when you couldn’t connect all the dots in advance?

📝 Permission

Keep going, even when you can barely see the road ahead. Permission to be scrappy as you “Survive ‘til 25!” if you’re having a rough go.

If you are still in business, you are winning! Even when it feels like a Hot Mess.