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The Open House is back! 🍂

We had so much fun opening up The Reach Club earlier this year that we’re doing it again for fall. From September 29 to October 8, you can drop into four free coworking sessions, meet the community and see what it’s actually like to work alongside us. Come cowork with us →

Hi Reader,

Over the past few weeks, I’ve been deep in a big client project.

It’s been interesting, challenging work that I’m generally excited about, but it also took up a lot of my time and energy. I worked late. I shuffled around other deadlines, and I had to become much more deliberate about protecting time for other business activities, like my marketing, The Reach Club, and this newsletter.

This is one of the tougher aspects of self-employment. A full workload looks like success because, well, it is. We want paying clients! But serving current clients can easily consume the time you need to keep the rest of your business running well.

Then the project ends, you finally look up from your laptop and realize your pipeline is quiet.

I’m not aiming for perfect balance during busy periods. But I do want to get better at maintaining what I’ve started thinking of as my minimum viable CEO week.

The idea is simple: protect one hour each week to step out of delivery mode and work on your most important non-client priority.

Depending on what needs attention, that might mean:

• Sending a newsletter or publishing a LinkedIn post
• Checking in with a past client or collaborator
• Fixing a process that's creating extra work
• Spending an hour on an upcoming campaign, event or idea

The most useful action will probably change from week to week. When your pipeline looks thin, reaching out to a past client might matter most. Before a launch, that hour might go toward scheduling emails. After a chaotic project, you might use it to improve your process before the next one begins.

I’m especially aware of this as I prepare for the next Reach Club Open House. I built The Reach Club partly because I know how hard it is to protect time for your own priorities when client deadlines keep competing for your attention.

Because if your business always gets whatever time and energy remain after client work, it may not get much of either.

So, what’s the one thing your business needs from you this week?

’Til next time!

Big (virtual) hugs,

✨ What’s happening inside The Reach

🗓️ Events worth leaving the house (or opening Zoom) for

👩🏾‍💻 Too busy doing the work to market the work?

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Jasmine Williams Media is a company founded and primarily operating within the ancestral, traditional and unceded territories of many nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee and the Wendat peoples, also known as Toronto, Canada. This land is now home to many diverse First Nations, Inuit, and Métis peoples.