Good Life Project - How to Finish What Matters & Get More Free Time | Spotlight Convo

Episode Date: February 20, 2023

How many times have you said yes to something, started it, gotten halfway through, then either been distracted, run out of time, energy, money, ideas, motivation, or all the above? And, just kind of walk away, leaving something that could’ve been amazing unfinished? Never getting the chance to back in the I DID THAT glow of accomplishment and tell everyone around you, “hey, I DID that!” And, yes, I’m raising my hand here.And, what about being able to do what’s important without it also taking over your life, and leaving you living reactively? Wouldn’t it be cool if there were ways, strategies, tools, processes and technology that could dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to get things done, so you could have so much more free time to do all the other stuff you love to do? Including absolutely nothing at all? These are the questions we’re diving into in today’s special spotlight conversation featuring conversations with Start Finishing author, Charlie Gilkey, and Free Time author, Jenny Blake. How do I not only choose and start but also finish what really matters? And, while you’re at it, how can I reimagine the way I work to create a ton more free time to do anything that lights me up? You can find Charlie Gilkey at: Website | Instagram | Listen to Our Full-Length Convo with CharlieYou can find Jenny Blake at: Website | Free Time Podcast | Listen to Our Full-Length Convo with JennyIf you LOVED this episode you'll love the conversation we had with Chip Conley about reimagining what you center in your life.Check out our offerings & partners: My New Book SparkedMy New Podcast SPARKED: We’re looking for special guest “wisdom-seekers” to share the moment you’re in, then pose questions to Jonathan and the Sparked Braintrust to be answered, “on air.” To submit your “moment & question” for consideration to be on the show go to sparketype.com/submit. Visit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount Codes Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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. The name of the game is follow through, right? And you increase your ability to finish the things that matter most. You know, you knock out those three projects of the year that really, really matter and you let the rest go. That has like this compound interest effect on your career that you just don't get when you're half finishing 17 things. Figuring out what really matters, what projects or adventures you want to deeply devote yourself to is hard enough. Getting started can be a pretty genuine challenge too, but there's an even bigger struggle when it comes to getting big, meaningful things done, and that is finishing them. How many times have you said yes to something, started it, gotten,

oh, I don't know, halfway through, and then he either gotten distracted, run out of time, money, energy, ideas, motivation, maybe all of the above, and just kind of walked away, leaving something that could have been amazing unfinished, never getting the chance to really just kind of kick back and say, I did that in that glow of accomplishment that tells everyone around you, this is what I created. And yes, by the way, I'm raising my hand. I have been one of those people. And what about also being able to do what's important without it taking over your life and leaving you living reactively, feeling like every minute of every day is scheduled and your life is so devoid of time to breathe, it starts to feel almost brittle, like it just shatter one day.

Wouldn't it be cool if there were ways, strategies, tools, processes, and technology that could dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to get things done so you could have so much more free time to do all the other stuff you love to do, including absolutely nothing? Well, these are the questions we're diving into in today's special spotlight conversation, featuring conversations with start finishing author, Charlie Gilkey and free time author, Jenny Blake. How do I not only choose and start, but also finish what really matters. And while you're at it, how can I reimagine the way that I work to create a ton more free time to do anything that lights me up. So excited to share

this spotlight conversation with you. I'm Jonathan were going to be fun. January 24th. Tell me how to fly this thing. Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight risk. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here.

It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series X, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone Xs are later required.

Charge time and actual results will vary. So productivity, not a fun word for most people. Well, what if there was a way to quickly figure out what matters most? Focus on that. Let go of everything else. Then go from idea to done, to become a productivity Jedi. This is what we're talking about in the first half of today's powerful spotlight conversation with Start Finishing author and founder of Productive Flourishing, Charlie Gilkey. We dive into Charlie's specific ideas around why so much of our effort to be productive fails and how to rewire our brains and schedules and actions for finishing and finally feeling good about what we're accomplishing. Here's Charlie. As we sit here in the studio today, you've been, I guess, about a decade into Productive Flourishing, right? Developing a tremendous body of work, frameworks, process, systems, working with so many different people.

And you have a book out called Start Finishing. So my curiosity with this is, why did you feel the need to write this? Like, what did you see was missing that made you say, this is something I need to do? Because writing a book takes a lot of time and energy and takes you away from a lot of other things. So what in your mind, knowing the way your brain works, justifies you saying this has to happen? So around 2014, I wrote a post called

Foundations Are Meant To Be Built On, Not Flown Over. And what I found with so many of my entrepreneurs and executives and things like that is we love to talk about the big ideas. We love to talk about the big strategy. We love to talk about all that stuff. Except for when you look at where the real constraint in their business was or where the real constraint in their opportunity set was, was the fact that they couldn't execute on the ideas they already had. Right? was the fact that they couldn't execute on the ideas they already had, right? And we just wanted to fly over sort of this scheduling and time management and project management and, you know, alliance building.

We wanted to sort of fly over all of that and just talk about the big ideas. But those big ideas weren't happening. And so it came from the sense of frustration in a lot of ways with some of my set of clients and peers. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. We're not skipping over this piece because it will trip you up at some point. So that was sort of facing that set of people. But when I looked out in Scandi, the productivity literature and even the personal development literature, I think there wasn't the hybrid I wanted to see that took the real reasons why we do and don't do things and mated it with the real ways we can get stuff done. There was always this

divorce between deeper motivation and deeper systems and deeper processes for getting stuff done. And so we ended up in this sort of bipolar literature and bipolar place where you end up with really good mantras for how to get stuff done, but doesn't actually help you once you start getting into the thrashing of the project or doesn't help you once you start it. Or you have a bunch of solutions that don't solve the real reasons you don't get stuff done. And so for me, I needed to create it for that reason so that I can say like, okay, this

book does both, at least to the best of my ability, right? And looking at some of the other book ideas and other things that I want to write about, it's going to come back to getting stuff done because I'm neo-Aristotelian in the sense of we become by doing, right? So no matter what you want to be in the world, there's some doing that you have to do to become that. And whether it's being a great parent or whether it's being a great member of your community, whether it's being a great pillar of your church, it doesn't matter what that is. All that being has some doing attached to it. And enough of us, I think, are overcommitted to the being side of things.

And we try to be all of the things and we don't fully understand how much doing we've also committed ourselves to doing until we look around and there's just a field of dropped balls and broken promises and regrets. And so, interestingly, one of, I find it interesting, is that one of the pillars of my sort of principles of productivity is actually self-compassion. And I wanted to write the book for multiple reasons, but one of them is so that people can see what's going on in their world and understand that they're not uniquely defective, that they're not constitutionally wired to never be able to get their shit together, that they're not fated to struggle. They're just making more promises with their mouth that their hands can't cash, right?

They're promising themselves and they set up expectations for themselves that then there's no way possible for them to actually live up to everything that they've said they're going to do and be. So when we pull down and say, you know what, there are fewer things that we're going to focus on and commit to, but we're going to do those well and we're going to finish them, then we start to see the sense of satisfaction. Then we start to see that sense of happiness. And then we start to thrive in our careers because we become those creatives that you can trust. When they say they're going

to do something, they're going to do it. When they set out to achieve a certain goal, they're going to do it. And there's a rare breed of creatives. You know, we have a bad sort of rap of being all talk or being a lot of talk and not so much follow through. But it turns out time and time again, I've seen this with people that I've interviewed on my podcast, all the research that I've done, all my clients, like the name of the game is follow through. Right. And you increase your ability to finish the things that matter most. You know, you knock out those three projects of the year that really, really matter and you let the rest go. That has like this compound interest effect on your career that

you just don't get when you're half finishing 17 things. So I think we don't fully recognize the cost of not doing our best work in that way. Like we think it's something we can get to, but I would want to put it more on just an essential way to find your happiness, both long-term, but also in that presence, because there's that shift when this week you made a dent in your best work. This week you got something done versus being the to-do list ninja, you know, where you put 82 things on your list, you crank them out. At the end of the week, you look back and you're like, but really, like, I didn't do the thing. I'm no closer to doing the thing. And everybody has a thing. That's the other thing that I've noticed. I talk about best work, and it's got a few unique

factors to it, but it's that work that your soul most yearns to do. And everybody's got a project they put in a physical drawer, in a mental drawer, in a virtual drawer that they're going to get to at some point when, you know, someday when the time is right or when their boss is less of a butthole or when their kids are in college or whatever, we've always punted that to someday, some later day. Everybody has that. But there's that sense of deep satisfaction when you quit the bullshit, when you quit the quote-unquote researching, when you quit all the conversations about doing the work, and you actually do the work. And it's surprising how simple it is to actually do it, and yet we don't. Yeah, it's interesting too, because you hear a lot in sort of self-help,

pop psychology, this line, you can do anything. Maybe for a heartbeat when you're listening to you speak, you're like, oh, that's what he's saying. I can do anything. But in fact, it's like you're saying the exact opposite. Yeah. Displacement is a real thing. And displacement is just the idea that choosing to do one thing means that there's a near infinity of things you've chosen not to do. Right? And so we too often conflate you can do anything with you can do everything. Right? right? I've been talking for a long time about what I call project world. And project world is the idea that when we look at our lives, it's kind of carved up into three to five-year chunks of a project, capital P project, both personally and professionally, right? And so I'll talk personally first. We go through these phases of relationships. We go through these phases of growth. Like if you're a kid, you know, you go through that sort of pre-teenage stage, then We go through this phases of growth. Like if you're a kid, you know,

you go through that sort of pre-teenage stage, then you go through that teenage stage, then you go through that, you know, leaving your parents' house, which could be college, it could be whatever, but there's sort of three to five-year chunks that define your life. Relationships, a lot of times, like getting married, there's a three to five-year cycle. We can go through that time and time again. In your career, it's the same thing. You take a job, you're in a position for three to five years, and you move on to another job. And so life is sort of split up into these chunks. And one of the reasons people, I think, get stuck and decide not to do their best work is because they think they're making a non-reversible lifelong choice. Like if I do this thing,

I have to make this one choice. And then for the rest of my days, I'm going to be doing that thing. You know, the grace about Project World is win, lose, or draw. In three to five years, you're going to be moving on to something else, right? You're not making that lifelong sort of decision. And what are you really focusing your time, energy, and attention on for this next three to five years? As I was doing research for the book, I stumbled upon a insight from Stuart Brand via Kevin Kelly, via Tim Ferriss, and one of his either tribe of mentors or tools of Titans. And Stuart's idea was any significant project takes at least five years to see through. Any real significant project takes five years to see through.

And of course, I did what I do. And I was like, okay, so most of us live to be 85 is a reasonable conjecture when you look at lifespans in the United States. So take your age, subtract your age from 85 and divide by five. That's the amount of significant projects you have left in your life. Does what's on your schedule next week reflect what you would want to be on that list? And if not, how are you going to make that change? Because if you don't make the change, what you're going to look at is all of these years, all of these projects that you didn't get to because you chose to do something else in your life. And I know, especially in productivity and personal development, there's so much emphasis on the choices we make a lot of times that are

divorced from the actual context of our lives, right? And I understand that some of us have different degrees of privilege that allows us to choose in different ways, right? If you got more money, you have a broader range of choices that you may be able to make than if you're a single mom is working two jobs to put food on the table. And what I would say in certain scenarios like that is that be honest about those priorities that you have, right? If your priority is to make sure your kids have a good life or that you do the best you can, that is a project. And so in my language, a project is anything that requires time, energy, and attention, not just economic work. And the reason I talk about it that way is because after thousands of conversations with

people, what they tend to think is that we have this mental switch that goes off. And it's like a new day equals 16 hours of open space of things to do. And so I should be able to fill that with all this. But every new day starts with 12 hours of routines and habits and stuff you got to do before you even like wake up. There's that much work to do. But because we have so cleanly made the division between economic work and life, we only tend to count the economic work.

And then we wonder why we're not getting things done nearly as much, because that's actually a small percentage of our life. Right. It's like, oh, you're not spending the time you say is really important with your family, or you're not spending the time to exercise on a regular basis or create healthful food or develop relationships. Yeah. Because those are the things where we just think, well, I'll just get it done in the margins. I'll just get it done in the margins. And I was talking to somebody, I think Angela would be fine with me talking. So I'll say it was Angela, because it was in fact, Angela, where we were

talking about her fitness goals and how she wanted to work out. And I was like, well, so now I'll pause here. Angela is also a coach. I'm a coach. And when you have a partnership where you're both coaches, it can be quite precarious, right? To have these conversations, because sometimes you're not wanting to be coached by your partner. But it was one of those places. Probably substitute sometimes for pretty much all the time. Pretty much all the time. And so it's always a precarious conversation. And this is also my body of work, which makes it even worse, right? So she's like, oh, no, I know what's coming on this one. And so she was talking about going to her classes and things like that. And I was like,

so how are you scheduling it? How are you doing that? And she's like, well, you know, sort of look at my schedule. And then I try to find a class that fits my schedule. And I was like, honey, like we own our own business. You could find the classes that work for you first and get those scheduled two or three weeks in advance and then build your work around that, right? Build your economic work around that. And of course she knew it in a certain way, but it requires prioritizing herself in a certain way and so when you dig two or three levels under why we make sort of decisions like that what i was really getting at and she knew was angela you need to see your worth and your value and you need to see that this particular goal that you have is more important than the economic work that you're prioritizing. And until we are willing to claim our importance and claim that things like that matter on the personal side,

personal side, where you're going to default to prioritizing, actually prioritizing economic work. And then what happens in the moment, in the year, or over the course of a lifetime, is that it's actually this personal stuff that truly does matter to us that gets kicked into the someday maybe land. And then we look back and you're like, but I never went on those trips. I never ran the marathon. I never built a guitar. I never did the things because I never could justify it economically. I never did put it in my schedule and say, I'm doing that. And I think when we start looking at everything as a project that requires time, energy, and attention, and looking at the fact that what is fundamental to our thriving is often not economically relevant, then we can say, yes, economic work is really important.

And it's just a portion of my life. It is not my life. All of these other things are important. So yes, I am making this choice to make less money or to do less work there because this two weeks of spending time with my kid or my aging parent or this new puppy or fixing my backyard or whatever it is, is actually critical to living the good life. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him. We need him. Y'all need a pilot. Flight Risk.

The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever. It's also the thinnest Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest-charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just 15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10. Available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum.

Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later happen, is also getting sometimes, I guess, I would call it brutally honest about the bandwidth that you actually have available to accomplish any of these things. And my experience has been that I lie to myself about that. And everyone who I've ever worked with lies to themselves about that as well. You have a process, which basically really helps you get very honest about it very quickly and then reorient the projects, the personal projects, the career projects, all these different, in a way that reflects what you truly have available. It's this approach where, you know, like by framing it as deconstructing, as analyzing, like, what are your available blocks? Walk me through this concept of blocks, because I found that just extraordinarily powerful and also eye-opening when I actually understood, okay, so I have these four different types of blocks. And when I start to map that out in my life, I was like, wow, this explains so much to

me about why I'm not doing certain things and why I'm doing certain things and what I might be able to rework in order to actually create a much more satisfying overall balance. Yeah, thanks for that. So a few things about block planning first, right? One of the traps that we fall into is that we actually think that we have any sense of estimating time of how long something takes and we're terrible at it, consistently terrible at it. So we can't tell the difference between something that's going to take 75 minutes and 90 minutes, right? But we make up a lot of stuff. And so we end up just trying again to treat ourselves like

robots, like we have that degree of consistency and we don't. And so once you let go of that idea and we go into sort of a block planning, it's much more intuitive. So there are four types of blocks that I encourage people to think through. So one is a focus block, which is that block of time where you do the highest level work that you can do, whether that's creative work or whether that's strategic work. It's usually solo time of just when you get whatever insight out of you. And those blocks are 90 to 120 minutes long, right? And why that long?

Because that's about the time that it takes you to really dig into getting something done, do all the transitions, do that thing and start to exit. And it's about the time that matches our biorhythms as well. If we go through circadian rhythms, about every two hours, our body will recycle, right? That's when you need to go to the bathroom because your body goes through these natural two-hour cycles. Yeah. After about two hours, I realized I've just read that sentence a third time. A third time. I'm still not entirely

sure what it says. Yeah. And so it accounts for that. And what I do need to say, because sometimes people confuse it. No, that's not two hours of you sitting there typing. That entire block of time where you do all of the coffee getting and you do the bathroom, but you don't switch to another tool, right? So those are your focus blocks. The second is your social blocks. And these are the blocks of time that you are interacting with another human, right? And so it could be a meeting. If you're in a service profession, it could be that that's the time that you're working with clients and things like that. Those also tend to be about 90 minutes to 120, even though we like to tell ourselves it's going to be 60 minutes and we stack ourselves from meeting to meeting. So why is it 90 to 120 minutes? Because when you look at

the amount of time that it takes you to really transition into prep mentally and emotionally for a meeting and then to down cycle, and then the reality is most of the time you meet with other people, there's work that needs to happen that's generated from that, whether you need to send emails, so on and so forth. Right. And so we don't give ourselves nearly enough time for this. And then we end up in task debt because we don't have a place for that in the schedule, which leads me to admin blocks, which are 30 minutes to an hour long, where you do all the email and the phone calls and you just batch all of that stuff and get it done. And you're in that mode, right, of getting it done. And then the last one is your recovery blocks. And, you know,

interestingly on this one, Jonathan, I used to not talk about recovery blocks because it's on that self-care side. So recovery blocks are what they sound like. They're when you do the self-care or the bits that, you know, are you treating yourself like you're human. So there could be meditation, it could be sleeping, it could be eating, it could be exercise, it could be whatever it is that helps you recharge and take care of yourself. I'm with clients and I'm one of those people that I don't really have a emotional difference between helping someone figure out what their schedule needs to look like versus figuring out what the business model of their, you know, or their team composition. It's all work to me and it's all equally enjoyable. And so I would just be looking at their calendar and be like, so where's lunch? Like, and you look at, you know, six meetings stacked back and forth, like, so where's lunch? And you look at six meetings stacked back and

back, like, where are you eating? And like, oh, well, I just kind of fit it in. Except for, I also remember the conversation that I had with them about them not eating lunch. It's like, you're not actually fitting this in, right? Where's exercise? Where's all of these things? And so I became more adamant about people thinking about their recovery blocks and making sure that they're on their schedule. Because otherwise, work or other things slide into those blocks. And you just don't get it done. And it becomes one of those things. But fundamentally, what I want people to focus on when it comes to their best work projects or when it comes to doing the work that they most want to do is those focus blocks.

Because we have far fewer of those than most people think. And that is what drives your projects. And if you don't have enough focus blocks, you're not going to get the momentum that you want. And if you have none, what you're going to end up doing is committing to ideas that don't have room on your schedule to do. And so there are just things to think about. Like what I will tell most people is if you can't find three focus blocks for a project every week, you won't actually make any momentum on that project. It'll continue to be one of those things that you're like, oh, I'll do it next week, or I do it next week, or I do it next week. And you'll continue to punt it. And it's not that there's anything wrong with you. It's just there's not enough room in your schedule.

And you're trying to do, you know, we learned about block planning in school. If you had those little shapeshorter things where you like got to put the triangle in the triangle hole and the circle in the circle hole. But unfortunately, what we do when we actually look at our work is we keep trying to cram the square into the circle hole. But unfortunately, what we do when we actually look at our work is we keep trying to cram the square into the circle hole, right? We keep trying to cram our focus time, our focused work into the in-betweens of meetings and social media and emails. And we wonder why we're not getting anywhere because it really does take, you know, 90 minutes to two hours to dig into that, make significant progress and exit from that. And a lot of times I've noticed that

because of the way people stack their days, they're not even allowing themselves the chance to get into doing their work because they know they don't have enough time to get into it and get out of it. So what's the point? Might as well jump to Facebook. You know, you might as well, you know, see whatever deals on Amazon that you didn't need today, but you're going to find out anyways, right? And so changing that and just saying, how do I reorient my schedule to put my focus blocks during the times of my day where I'm most likely to be creative and focused and high energy makes a world of difference. And we're just playing with time here, right?

We're not, we haven't changed the amount of available time. We've just changed how we've used that time in ways that are better at getting you to where you most want to be. Yeah. So, I mean, it's a combination of one, owning the fact that the focus blocks, like the work that we need to do in those focus blocks is invariably going to take, you're just going farther and farther and farther behind and then beating yourself up and then becoming,

you know, just own the fact that, and this is going to take way longer than I think. Yes, even I'm smart, I'm accomplished, all the yada, yada, yada, and still it's going to take more than I think it's going to take more than I think it's going to take. So let me set aside the time so that I actually feel like I can get real work that matters done. The other thing I took from that is that if you can't find at least three of those

blocks per week on a regular basis to do that for a project, then it's probably a really good idea to say no to it. Because the only thing that you're going to be building into your week in your life is frustration rather than momentum. Absolutely. And here's where displacement comes back in, right? Saying no to that new project, what you have to get real about is you are prioritizing something in your life already. And so rather than saying, no, I can't, right? Because I don't have time. The real true story is, no, I'm choosing not to do that project because I'm choosing to do these other things. And that can be a point of frustration for a lot of people, right? Because they don't like that that's actually what's going on. But I think that is the wedge in

your life that allows you to start saying, okay, if I want to do differently, I need to choose differently, right? And the other thing about focus blocks that are really important is it's 90 to 120 minutes when we look at how much time we're watching tv when we look at how much time we're on distracting sites when we look at how much time we're shopping when we look at how much time we're doing things that are either wasteful or if we really had to counterpose those activities versus the work we're most called to do, it's a no-brainer, right, to do the work. So it's not like you have to go dramatically change your life. It's just you have to start stealing time from things that are either wasteful or don't

nourish you as much. And so this is, you know, three fewer Netflix binges, right? This is, you know, two times of you not going out to eat because that's really time intensive when you think about it, right? There are ways that you can steal back this time. And, you know, whether we want to tell the John Grisham story where he wrote most of his novels two hours in the morning before he went to work. Like, there are so many stories where we have stolen that time and put it to things or people who take longer lunch breaks and work on their projects during their longer lunch breaks. And, you know, there are so many different ways to maneuver. And the other thing that I want to remind folks is that we'll really squander a day, right? We will really like a full day.

That's what we hope for. Like, I just want a? We will really like a full day. That's what we hope for. Like, I just want a full day or I want a full week. And then I'm going to do the thing. Except for when that full week happens. What I've seen across countless clients and countless conversations is one, that's when your body tries to claw back all the recovery that it hasn't been getting. So you end up sleeping a lot and venting out because it's like, oh, I can do it now. Right. I actually have space in my schedule. And the second thing that will happen is that you will start thinking, okay, how am I going to spend this whole day working on something? And you'll burn your body out. Instead of saying, I need a whole day, I would want you to be thinking, okay, what are the three focus blocks for the day?

What are the three significant chunks of a project that you can do in those three ads? And be super clear about what that needs to be so that you don't get in at the end of that full day and you're like, I just been clicking all day. Like I'm no further along, which creates the story and this head trash and this pattern to where you start resenting doing that because you look at every time you've done that in the past and you've either slept the whole day or you click the whole day and you haven't gotten what you've wanted out of it and that makes a lot of sense um and i have experienced that personally as i'm sure a lot of people have the other thing that i think it it makes makes sense for us to touch on while we're

sort of in this zone is the idea of time of day. I have for two reasons, right? One, I have found that my brain works in different ways at different times of the day. If you ask me to be hyper creative and hyper productive, like at four o'clock, it's going to be a completely different experience than if you asked me to do it early in the morning or even late at night. And so when you think about not just how many of these four different blocks do I have in my life realistically, and then how many of the focus blocks do I have available to get the stuff that really matters done? The other thing I found super helpful, I know you're a big advocate for, is understanding when in your day does it make sense to actually build these into your schedule?

Because it can make, I have been so surprised, it makes a profound difference what time of day I actually do these. Absolutely. And that experience is not unusual, right? There are, roughly speaking, three different chronotypes that we all fall into. And that's that early morning, sometimes called LARCs. That is the, you know, night owl, which we normally call people who have later sessions. And then there's this emu, this third, Dan Pink calls them third birds, but I like calling them emus, right? That are people who are really on fire in the afternoon, neither in the morning nor in the evening. Like the afternoon is their sweet spot.

And again, unfortunately, we live in this industrial reductionist society that puts us on this first shift nine to five schedule. And that's when you have to do all your work. And even when we go solo, we adopt that mindset, right? That nine to five is when you work. But really, if you're a lark, the reality is about seven to maybe one o'clock is your peak zone, right? Outside of that, you're going to be doing lower level work, you're going to be burnt out, you're going to be tired, so on and so forth. And even if you get an evening session on top of that, like working in the afternoon is just not going to be your thing when we start talking about focus blocks.

And you just sort of invert that for every chronotype. It makes such a huge difference. And the reality is, and I want to be more stark about this. If you try to do your deepest work in an off-peak cycle, it's going to be a road of frustration because you're not going to do it or you're going to do it and you're going to wake up and look at what you've done and be really frustrated about how bad it is and how much time you wasted in doing it, right? And so, again, using displacement as our friend here, it's really helpful to think, if I don't, I'm a morning person myself, right? If I don't do it in the

morning, it's not going to happen. It is not going to happen. So choosing to do all the other things besides that in the morning means that I have also chosen not to do this thing. And that choice or that sort of recognition is really powerful when it comes to how we focus and how we set ourselves up for success. And again, I want people to really be thinking, yes, you can talk about taking every day. And if you're a morning person doing it from seven to two and doing all that, yes, that's one way you can do it. But I'd also want to say, maybe it's just Monday, Wednesday, and Friday in the morning that you steal one block. Every one of us, like the world can live without you for two hours. I promise you, right? The world can just do whatever it's going to do for that amount of time for you

to focus on your work and what matters to you. And that's where we start talking about boundaries. Because a lot of times we don't set the boundary that we need for that. And so whether it's a scheduling app, or whether it's whatever it is, we know we work better in the morning. And yet, we still take morning meetings. Why? Right? Because your client needs it, or because somebody needs it. Turns out time and time again, that we have far more ability to choose our schedule, even in a corporate environment, right? Then we really assert. And so we end up in these periods to where we're sitting in the meeting right during our peak zone and know at a certain point that the work is not going to get done.

And yet we still try to take it home with us and get it done. It just makes such a difference. So hard that it's, if people were to do one thing, I would say, you know, take the time to figure out when you're at your peak and experiment with putting some focus blocks in there

and just stealing two hours at a time. Yeah. How would you recommend that people actually do that? Like what's the, is there a simple process to figure out what time of day that zone is for you? Yes. So we have some tools on our website that helps people track this. But what I've learned is a really great tool, a really great way of backing into it is think about how you would operate on a vacation when you've already rested.

It tends to give you an idea of when you would naturally do different types of things, right? Because you don't have the external constraint of other people's schedules and other people's priorities, right? So part of it can be momentary journaling, where you look at every hour and say, how do I feel on a scale of, you know, one to 10? Am I creative or am I not creative? Would be another way that you can do it. What I've experienced with this one, Jonathan, is most people already know. They really do know. And they haven't allowed themselves to make their schedules match their chronotype. They keep trying to make their chronotype match their schedules, and it doesn't work. Yeah. When I think about the work that you've been doing, when I think about this book, Start Finishing,

it's on the surface is about, yes, like here's a really cool methodology to start finishing the work that you're doing in the world. But bigger picture, it's actually a methodology to allow you to do the work that matters most, most effectively so that you can then spend the greatest amount of time being present and engaged in all of the parts of your life that matter most to me. I guess it comes full circle because in

the beginning, I asked you like, why this book? And you're like, well, it's kind of part productivity book, but it's also kind of part, you know, like self-improvement book. I think it's just that ripple effect. I think so. And I would want to say it in a bit more nuanced way. What I want people to really get into is the work of their lives, right? So that we see that they're, and work is not a four letter word for me in the sense of it's something we want to get away from. We want to minimize so and so forth. It's this really sacred stuff that we get to do. Only a parent can parent their child in the way that they're going to do it, right? Only certain people can be leaders in their communities in the way that they're going to do it. Only a particular creative is going to create in the way that she creates. Whatever that is, I want people

to see that this life work can be prioritized. I won't go as far as to say should be prioritized because people have their own priorities, but it can be prioritized. And that for many people, that's where deep satisfaction, deep flourishing comes from. And so, yes, it's a book that will help you do your economic work.

I'm just as excited about the fact that it's a book that will help you do the work of your life and make sure that what you need to do to become the type of person that you most want to be is on your schedule and is on your project deck and has the group of people around you supporting that goal, just like what you would do any other economic work that matters to you, right? Yeah. This feels like a good place for us to come full circle as well. So hanging out in the studio today, in the context of this container of the Good Life Project, if I offer out the phrase to live a good life, what comes up?

Do what matters most, right? And I'm going to focus on the doing, right? I won't say stop talking and start doing, but I will say like, if you know that you've been doing a lot of talking and a lot of ideating, but you haven't been doing a lot of making or doing or leading or whatever your thing is, just understand that that gap between the good life you want to live and where you are is probably bridged by certain types of doing that you have to start doing thank you thank you i love learning from charlie his brain just works in ways that mine doesn't so it's great to be able to tap his genius to get past the stagnation and resistance and hurdles and just

really start getting cool things done. Next up, we're diving into some similarly cool and downright genius ways to tap technology, process, automation, and other tools and strategies to be able to do what matters in a way more efficient and effective way and free up a ton of time to do anything you want from napping to travel, building a creative empire on the side to binging the latest episode of your favorite series, or really anything else you dream of doing. If you just had more time on your hands to do it with Jenny Blake on your side, you are about to learn how to literally create time. Jenny is an author host of two podcasts, Free Time for Heart-Based Business Owners and Pivot with Jenny Blake, and keynote speaker who loves helping people

move from friction to flow through smarter systems. Her newest book, Free Time, Lose the Busy Work, Love Your Business, is quite literally life-changing. And as a fun ad, you'll actually hear Jenny do some live coaching with me that led to me taking my first ever month-long creative sabbatical, something I never imagined I'd have time to do until talking with Jenny. So here's Jenny. 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 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? Yeah, well, 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. 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. 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. We all, the number of inboxes that have propagated across LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, email, text messaging, TikTok, whatever platforms everybody is on 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. 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. Yeah, no, completely agree with that. Let's get granular because, because, you know, the way that you describe and you write about this, you know, you get very specific about your work and the hours that you put in and revenue and all of this stuff and how, you know,

Jenny from a decade ago lives a very, very different working life and life now based on your sort of 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. 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 three. 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 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, but ensuring that these different parts of life get the attention that they need to thrive. And I know for myself and my team, 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 minutiae 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. 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. 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. And there were times where I genuinely worried. Let's say even when you would text and 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 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 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 attention and their energy. Because one of the questions I'm always asking is, who is profiting from the pressure you feel? 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 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. I just thought was never put into the conversation is what would help 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. 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 an 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 all of these same ideas and

principles and they work less also. And somehow all the work is still getting done. 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, 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 devil 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 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 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 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 8 p.m. 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. We're 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. 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 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. Yeah. And it also 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 framework, sort of like this guiding structure for us, because I think a lot of people listening and not probably nodding along, they like, 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? How do I actually start to operationalize this in my life, in my work, in my business? You introduced 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 put these ideas to work in our lives. 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. So I don't know if you're interested, but we could do a little mini coaching around this if you want. Got it. Tell me what you mean by friction and flow, because I think it makes sense to get specific there.

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 than not. Got it. Okay. That resonates with me. So then, yeah, I'm going to take you up on your invitation to do a little mini intervention here then. Let's work with your free time framework. 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,, 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. I run two companies now, so I can't just stop things. 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. Is that the type of thing that would be interesting to dive into? Yeah, definitely. And I appreciate you sharing and being open to doing this and just sharing with all of us. Because I think it's also easy. I'm a longtime listener of your podcast. It's easy to think that those who have podcasts or show up as the expert guests have it all figured out. And I just love that you're open to sharing this. The Apple Watch Series 10 is here. It has the biggest display ever.

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Mark Wahlberg. You know what the difference between me and you is? You're going to die. Don't shoot him, we need him. Y'all need a pilot? Flight risk. 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. Yeah, no, 100%. 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? I would say somewhere in the middle. So I'm going to give it a 6, 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. I feel a sense of friction and a certain sense of in and out of burnout or overwhelmed, even though I kind of know, like I have enough 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. So let's start with the align 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 going to tackle it? So let's look at values. What is important to you about this writing project? So this is a deeply personal writing project, deeply meaningful. It's different than anything I've ever written before.

And it's to a specific person who I love dearly. And so, yeah, it is something that 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, to me, that's an energized state. But I'm not doing that. So I'm not feeling the energy of it. Yeah.

But you did light up when you started to talk about it. Yeah. It matters. It really matters. And I think also over the last few years, we all have have the sense of, we don't know what tomorrow is going to bring, you know, and, and like, I want this out of me, no matter what tomorrow is going to bring. And yet I'm not doing it. 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? 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 patent anyway, but it's true. 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. 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? 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'm just like, I want to open my eyes and just like, you know, like, and, 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.

Yes. Like it's calling you forth. And it's interesting that your reaction is actually this is the only thing that truly feels energizing. If I could drop everything else and work on this and have the space for it, that would be super energizing. Yeah. And in fact, I've often fantasized about that. You know, whether it's this project or other writing projects is literally just taking a month, because I think 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 just wake up in the morning, take care of my body, my relationships and write this thing. So tell me about where is your energy getting blocked? There's a reason that you haven't already set aside this month. And 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? I think just the volume of projects. 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. 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

sparkotypes and that's effectively in startup mode you know so it needs any company in startup mode tends to need a lot more love um and is under resourced 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 a certain tipping point. So, you know, as, as 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? 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. Yeah, I don't disagree. Okay, let's talk about strengths. 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? Strengths as a writer is just 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. So I think like there's definitely that as like a central strength. I would also, it's weird to say, but like 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. I write very quickly. So strength is also the speed at which I create because I've been doing it for so long now. 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's been our every day, you know, is that those folks keep the machine running so that I don't have to do a lot of that. Okay. So let's move on to the second stage design. So just to put a cap on it then. Yeah. That was about the align, like stage one align. We talked about values. We talked about energy and we talked about strengths. 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. Oh my goodness. 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 not the right project. So then 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?

A solid, let's call it draft of a manuscript. 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. Absolutely. So I would say like the outcome would be a solid draft of a manuscript. Beautiful. And what would be your ideal outcome for the two businesses? That the ideal outcome was that nobody would know I was gone. 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. 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.

Yep. Anything else for ideal outcomes? How will you feel at the end of this month? Content. That's so beautiful. Content and proud. Yeah. Awesome.

What about ideal impact? So 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? For them to feel seen, to know me differently, and to feel better prepared to take on the world. For them to feel seen, for them to know you even deeper, and feel prepared to take on the world. Yeah, I think so. I love so. 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? The impact on me just knowing that it's out of my head. You know that I took this thing and it now exists outside of me. Yes. And you described at the beginning feeling tension because it's kind of knocking at your door, it seems like. And it's on your mind and 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. 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 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. Yeah. So on two levels, one would be probably to find a place to go for a month where the physical location 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, I, 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 be and physically feel at peace and move my body and be in nature, 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 um so that we could sort of like be in it uh together to the extent that it was something that like was something would be nourishing to her also um or maybe she's there for part of the time and then it goes back and forth

so physically i think like i see them this working best if i literally remove myself from my physical location um in terms of business, you know, process and structure, because a lot of what we do is 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 produced and ready to go and ready to air with multiple properties and shows. And for any engagements, basically just block out 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 be needed for anything like that. I'm hearing three big homeworks, which are joy works. Number one would be pick a location. And maybe Stephanie would have fun picking with you because you said she's invited and it's with her, for her as well. So picking somewhere in nature, ideally with terrible cell and Wi-Fi 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. Yeah, no, I think those are like the three big things. 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? Well, I need to write. That will be essential 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. And very good at this, I'll say.

She's very talented for finding joyful spots. She's really, really, really, really good at finding joyful spots. On the two businesses, you know, production teams that are in place. So it would be a matter of just coordinating with like those 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. 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. Yeah, no, that sounds great. Okay. So we're recording this in February. Oh, are you going to hold me to something? 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? When would you love, when would be your ideal month to do this?

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 in the larger context of things. 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 back up could be August or September. Yeah. No, that makes sense. Okay. Great. So with this in place, that assigned stage, you know, at least loosely defined, now rate on a scale of 1 to 10. We started at a 6.

How do you feel about your approach to this writing project? Probably closer to an 8. Okay.'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 yes 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 that 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 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 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 assigned part of it, like I think that's actually relatively straightforward, the who, what, when. So I feel like I'm closer. 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 starting to feel really exciting. 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. Yeah. No, for sure. 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?

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 to 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. 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? 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. Yes, awesome.

So you're gonna tell Stephanie, look and start looking for a place and I have to sneak in, what one next step would have the biggest impact. allow me the greatest amount of freedom to choose when to do this. Awesome. Okay. I love it. I have my orders. 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. That's great. Yeah. Especially cause I'm a maker. So that actually is something that I would really, that would immediately be energizing to me. Yeah. A little kindling to just get you excited for this. 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 in 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 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 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 or 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 deeply meaningful to us. Absolutely. And I think when we are truly rested and present with our 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.

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. 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? 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 burnout. 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. Thank you. Thank you so much, J.F. And thank you for being open and letting us all into your world a little bit. It's really an honor. Well, I hope you love Charlie and Jenny's take on how to finish what matters and create

more free time in your life. There is a reason they are both in my personal brain trust and have been for years. And before you leave, if you love this episode, safe bet you will also love the conversation that we had with Chip Connolly about really reimagining what you center in your life. You can find a link to Chip's episode in the show notes. And of course, if you haven't already done so, please go ahead and follow Good Life Project in your favorite listening app. And if you found this conversation interesting or inspiring or valuable, and chances are you did since you're still listening here,

would you do me a personal favor, a seven second favor and share it? Maybe on social or by text or by email, even just with one person. Just copy the link from the app you're using and tell those you know, those you love, those you wanna help navigate this thing called life a little better so we can all do it better together with more ease and more joy.

Tell them to listen. Then even invite them to talk about what you've both discovered because when podcasts become conversations and conversations become action, that's how we all come alive together. Until next time, I'm Jonathan Fields signing off for Good Life Project. Apple Watch Series 10 swimming or sleeping and it's the fastest charging apple watch getting you eight hours of charge in

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