Hey there,

Nearly everything in this week's newsletter comes back to the same question: What deserves space?

Space in your tech stack. Space in your garage. Space on your calendar, and the patience to let something work before you cut it.

I've been asking that question in my business, in my marriage (the Star Wars collection is still here, and so am I), and with the clients I work with inside Velocity Generator. Here's what's been on my mind, and what I think is worth a few minutes of yours.

Why I ran my first summit on MemberVault

I've built communities on more than 14 platforms over the past decade. For my first summit, Been There, Homeschooled That, I picked MemberVault. The MemberVault team wrote up why. The short version: I can see whether someone actually finished a lesson, affiliate tools come with every plan, and registration, content, community, and affiliates all live in one place. I’m a sucker for an effective one-stop shop.

​Read the article on the MemberVault blog.​

What actually deserves your time, money, and attention right now?

Most experienced business owners I know have no shortage of things they could do. The hard part is deciding which of those things matter, especially when you're close enough to the business that everything feels important.

That's a big part of the work we do inside Velocity Generator. On Monday, Oct. 5, I'm hosting a live Velocity Generator Open House from 10 to 11 a.m. Pacific. I'll show you how it works, walk you through part of the process yourself, and give you a behind-the-scenes look at the membership so you can decide whether it's a fit.

​Check it out here.​

Living with a collector

I married one of the top two Star Wars collectors in our county. Kathi Lipp and I spent two episodes of Clutter Free Academy talking about the 17-plus years since.

​Episode 738 sorts out the difference between collecting, clutter, and hoarding, and why treating one like another can damage a relationship. Episode 739 covers what changed in our house, starting when I stopped focusing on Brian's stuff and dealt with my own. The rule that's kept the peace: negotiate the space, not the stuff.

When a smart practice feels pointless

Some of the most useful things you do in your business won't show a result this week, which is exactly why they're so easy to quit. On The Business You Really Want, Gwen Bortner and I talk about how to tell the difference between something that isn't working and something that hasn't had enough time. That includes the ad campaign my collaborator wanted to cut at Day 5 and what happened by Day 10. We also cover why changing too many variables at once makes your data useless.

​Watch or listen here.​

Help launch Shake Ridge Press

I love an underdog. For as long as I can remember, publishers have been saying memoir doesn’t sell. Any evidence to the contrary (Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, Tara Westover’s Educated, Jeannette Walls’ The Glass Castle, etc.) is dismissed as an anomaly or the result of celebrity.

My friend and mentor Susy Flory, a New York Times bestselling memoirist, disagrees. And she’s putting her full weight behind that belief, founding Shake Ridge Press to publish the true stories traditional publishers overlook.

To fund the publication of the publisher’s first titles — three memoirs and a memoir-writing guide — Susy has launched a Kickstarter campaign. The campaign closes Wednesday. Rewards start at $10, and your card is charged only if the campaign reaches its goal.

​Back the campaign.​

— Tonya

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This email was written by Tonya Kubo (not AI). If you're receiving it, it means you have signed up for one of my offers in the vast expanse of the internet. Some links here are affiliate links, meaning I might make money if you use them to make a purchase.