For freelancers and business owners: Learn to free up your time by applying Jenny Blake's Align, Design, Assign framework to eliminate busy work and love your business again.

In this episode of the Business Book Exchange, we explore Free Time: Lose the Busy Work, Love Your Business by Jenny Blake. On the front cover, Cal Newport said that Blake's book is "[a]n important vision of entrepreneurship." Is Blake's book also an important vision of "freelancership"?

Listen in to hear us discuss:

• What is "free time" anyway? 
• Why it's essential to protect your focus time as a freelancer  
• How Jenny's Align, Design, and Assign framework offers solopreneurs and solo freelancers a clear roadmap for streamlining their businesses
• How to identify (and refuse) other people's "monkeys" so they don't take over your office

Key Links:

• Book Discussed: Free Time: Lose the Busy Work, Love Your Business by Jenny Blake
• Mentioned Book: Pivot by Jenny Blake
• Podcast: Jenny Blake's Free Time podcast and Jacq's episode with Jenny.
• Hybrid Publisher: Idea Press
• Book Cover Quote: Cal Newport
• Podcast on freelancer vs. entrepreneur: Seth Godin's Akimbo podcast 

Next month's book:

On Managing Yourself from Harvard Business Review HBR's 10 Must Reads series 

NOTE: We're reading HBR's 2011 edition–not the updated and expanded 2025 version.

Meet your hosts:

Jacqueline Fisch is a 3-time author, intuitive writing coach, and the founder of The Intuitive Writing School.

Jacqueline Fisch Website

Michelle Guiliano is a podiatrist-turned-indexer and founder of Indexer Index, a directory website for working with freelance book indexers.

Michelle Guiliano Website