Fran Hauser on Embracing the Twenty-Minute Mindset

Totally Booked with Zibby

Zibby Owens interviews author and entrepreneur Fran Hauser about her new book, '20 Minutes is the New Hour.' The conversation explores how t

Key takeaways

• Launching Bedford Books in eight weeks was possible by focusing on essentials and avoiding the trap of perfectionism.
• The concept of 'Kairos' (the quality of time) should be balanced with 'Chronos' (linear, scheduled time) to foster creativity.

Main topics

• Time Management
• Entrepreneurship

Notable quotes

Procrastinating is just like putting it off without a plan. I have a plan.

Conclusion

The episode offers actionable strategies for professionals to reduce o

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) Welcome to Totally Booked. I'm Zibby Owens. I've interviewed more than 2,000 authors on this show and learned endless amounts about storytelling, reinvention, and life itself. Because when you talk about books, you're really talking about life. So get ready to hear from today's best authors, the best-selling, and the not-yet-discovered. Come find your next great read and the story behind it. Enjoy. Speaker 1 (0:27) Today's episode is with someone I have such tremendous respect for. I got to know Fran Hauser over the last couple of years and just think she is the coolest. She is a bestselling author in her own right. I'll read her bio. But she founded Bedford Books in Bedford, New York, which she writes all about in this book. And I will be there tomorrow. So check your calendars tomorrow, September 26th. At 12 o'clock, I will be at Bedford Books in Bedford, New York for a meet and greet with the, and Fran Hauser is the owner of that store. So you will hear our conversation here and then put it in your planner. Come meet me tomorrow, I hope. Anyway, here's more about Fran Hauser. Fran Hauser is the author of 20 Minutes is the New Hour, the Ambitious Woman's Guide to Doing Less and Achieving More. She is a leading career expert and vocal champion of women in the workplace, a former president of digital at Time Inc., and a startup investor. As I mentioned, she's also the owner of Bedford Books in Bedford, New York, and the acclaimed author of The Myth of the Nice Girl. She has spoken at over 200 organizations, including Meta, Google, Unilever, BlackRock, MasterCard, and the Conference for Women. Her insights have appeared in Fortune, CNBC, Fast Company, Elle, Refinery29, and Business Insider. Fran lives outside New York City with her husband, two sons, and beloved mini golden doodle. Enjoy our conversation and use your 20 minutes to come to my event in Bedford tomorrow, Saturday, the 26th. Welcome, Fran. Thank you so much for coming on Totally Booked to talk about... 20 Minutes is the new hour, the ambitious woman's guide to doing less and achieving more. Speaker 2 (2:06) Congratulations. Speaker 1 (2:07) Thanks, Sivi. Thanks so much for having me. You can't see this, listeners, but I am wearing pink to match this cover. Perfect, right? Perfection. Speaker 2 (2:16) And I'm wearing blue for you. Oh, thank you. Because I know how much you love the color. Speaker 1 (2:21) Oh my God. It's so us. This whole book was like speaking my love language. This is the stuff I think about all the time. And you articulated all of it in such a great way. And I was like, okay, now when people are like, how do you do everything? I'm just going to be like, here, just take Fran's book because she has all the answers. Oh, I love hearing that. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. So first of all, you open the book and talk all about. how you managed to launch a bookstore in a record amount of time. And by using that as an example, you invoke all the principles of time management that you basically have in the whole book. So start by talking about Bedford Books, what you said yes to, what you said no to, and how that really exemplifies some of the things that you want everybody to know. Speaker 2 (3:07) Yeah, I think the opening of the bookstore is actually the perfect example of this 20-minute mindset because We did open it. We opened it in eight weeks. And it typically takes like six to nine months to open a bookstore. And because we had a more constrained timeline, it really forced clarity around like what we were going to do and not going to do. You know, we didn't have any time to like perfect things or procrastinate or. you know, fill it with unnecessary tasks. Because when you give yourself too much time, that's what ends up happening, right? You end up filling that time with unnecessary tasks. So, you know, with the bookstore, it became really clear to me that, you know, I was not going to launch with e-commerce. I was really going to focus on brick and mortar. I was not going to launch with relationships with every one of the... big five publishers. You know, instead I was going to do my whole opening inventory order from Ingram. They're, you know, as you know, a wholesaler and, you know, and I was not going to obsess about like all of the little things. Like even the logo is an example that I talk about in the book where, you know, I love a good logo. But the way that we approached it was I just, I walked around town with my creative designer friend who, created the logo. And I basically said, I love that logo. I don't care for that one as much. Here's why. She came back with three logos. One of them, like we tweaked a little bit and it's awesome. Like I love the logo. And I really think that if I had had more time, I would have asked for like 30 more iterations of the logo just because we had the time. So I love this idea of like, just think about how much time you're allocating to a task or a project or an initiative, because often when you give yourself too much time, you end up filling it with unnecessary tasks. So I love, and also Zibi, you'll really appreciate this. You know, I got the book deal for this book in September of 2024. I decided in October that I was going to open the bookstore. So when we sold the book idea, the bookstore wasn't a part of it. The book proposal was really all about my time spent in corporate, in startup investing, as an author, as a speaker. And then the bookstore came along and the bookstore opening really became like the hero story in the book, which I also think makes the book so much more accessible and relatable to a much larger market, which is really interesting. So I love that that happened. Speaker 1 (5:54) And I loved that you decided with the help of a friend's advice that you wouldn't fall victim to having to be at the local holiday fair. I love this example so much because there's so much pressure to do certain things where you're like, oh, you have to do this. You have to do this. And it's like, well, I could, but then my focus will be diverted from something that perhaps is more important and needs my time and attention. And it's the whole like, okay, I know this is important, but a million things are important. Let me pick one. Speaker 2 (6:23) Yeah. And it's also for me, like, I love the holiday market story because people pleasing has always been my thing. Like it's, it's always been my Achilles heel, you know? And, and, and that was like the perfect example of a friend mentioning this holiday market and basically just saying, oh, Fran, you're going to be open for the holidays. You have to do the holiday market. And I attached so much weight to those words, you know, and When I then talked to my cousin, Nina, who owns a hair salon in Bedford, she was the one that was like, why is this so important to you, this holiday market? It wasn't even on your radar. And then your friend happened to mention it, and now it's like a whole thing. And that was the moment where I was like, yeah, no, I'm not. Because then I have to figure out point of sale for the holiday market. It just becomes its own big thing. And it's taking me away from... the bookstore, which, you know, we needed to open by December 12th. So yeah, I really, I love that story too. Speaker 1 (7:28) I think one of the main through lines is it's good enough. Like this has got, this has to be good enough. I've done my best and now it's time to move on. Like the logo is a great example, but you have so many more in the book and it's just like, we can't obsess over every last decision or we run out of time. So as you said, time is sort of the enemy of the good in a way. but also making things as good as they possibly can be. And it's not worth it. It doesn't, the incremental value you get from the extra 25 % or 5 % or 1 % that you're working hard on something, it's not worth it. Speaker 2 (8:02) It's not. It really is the law of diminishing returns, right? I mean, that's what it is. It's like, yeah, I can spend