Flex: Reinventing Work for a Smarter, Happier Life

by Annie Auerbach

Seasoned trends forecaster and consultant Annie Auerbach takes a fresh look at women’s professional lives today by rethinking the 9 to 5 in this “no-nonsense guide to thinking and behaving more flexibly in order to have a happier, better, less frenetic life” (Marie Claire)—now widely available for American readers and updated with an author note addressing work in the post-Covid age.The recent coronavirus outbreak has proven what Annie Auerbach has long working 9-5 in an office doesn’t work for most us. 

It’s time to change the rules.

We can be efficient and productive when we’re allowed the freedom of flexibility—to meet deadlines working during the hours and in the places we choose. But before the coronavirus pandemic, only 47 percent of American workers had access to flexible working options. Annie Auerbach advises major corporations, including Nike, Google, Unilever, and Pepsico. She understands work culture and the needs of employees. The world is changing for working women, but until the recent pandemic, companies turned a blind eye. Now, it’s time to make this change routine.

Auerbach reiterates the importance of leaving the office cubicle behind and explores the realities many women experience working from home and the changes to their daily lives, including the trickle-down effects, from emotional labor to balancing childcare and education with work, to even biohacking the female body’s unique rhythms. 

What happens when women embrace the concept of flex? We become more creative, more strategic with our time and energy, and more engaged with our personal lives. As Auerbach makes clear, we reject “our toxic culture of presenteeism, time-pressure, and ultimately burnout. It helps us escape the army of octopus lady jugglers, crazed with the exhaustion of “having it all.” It allows us to live longer lives more sustainably. It gives us self-worth.”

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help, Business, Audiobook

207 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 23, 2021

About the author

Annie Auerbach is a speaker, consultant, brand strategist, and the co-founder of trends agency Starling, which specializes in helping brands understand cultural change in order to stay relevant. Starling's clients include Pepsico, Nike, Google and Unilever, and Auerbach was named a 2019 Timewise Power Founder on #timewisepower50 alongside a range of flex working trailblazers who are changing the future of work. She has worked flexibly for twenty years in many different guises—part-time, remote working, freelancing, through a portfolio career and returning to work after having her two daughters. She lives in London with her family.

Reviews

[Lois · Rating 2 out of 5]

I would have found this short and sweet, if it wasn't for one glaring omission. While Auerbach talks about gender, class and other social issues - disability seems to be a dirty word. The closest reference she makes to it is towards employees who care for their parents in their old age. Disabled people have one of the most impassioned - and often ignored - cases for flexible working - so the complete lack of reference to it stood out glaringly. I would have thought the lack of reference would have been annoying - but it gets worse.

Auerbach also omitts all but the slightest suggestion of disability when discussing excercise, sleep, and periods - all of which can present complications/be impacted by both physical and mental disabilities. She makes glib suggestions for general health improvements. Then, she says that her period was 'disordered' when she was diagnosed with PMDD. A horrendous condition that is not only entirely real but also sometimes fatal. That ignorant drop of woo was awful.

Finally, Auberach takes a critical stance against technology and the role it plays in our lives - without any understanding of the opportunities and access it's allowed for a range of people, disabled or otherwise.

While no book is obligated to cover all people in all scenarios, every one of the topics mentioned is extremely relevant to disabled people - who are so often ignored by able bodied writers. This little book could have been a breezy introduction to the topic of workplace flexibility. Instead, it was coarse, shallow - and extremely irritating.

[Charity (Booktrovert Reader) · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not that is it is wrong but I didn't realize how geared this book was towards a womens audience than I was hoping for. She talked about her time when she had her second daughter and how stress she was, gender roles and a womans menstrual cycle...?
To me there wasn't much help in this area, even in her story she really didn't talk about how she found a solution to her burnout. There is a lot of facts and the word FLEX thrown in there. Also some tips on how to get flexible hours at your job. Which to get access to that freedom is virtually impossible to some people.
Overall this book didn't captivate me and didn't really deliver the whole purpose of the what the book promised.

[Dax · Rating 5 out of 5]

While a good chunk of this was heteronormative the author speaks to the queer experience in some ways but all in all this book was fucking fantastic. I loved the sass and the sheer amount of heart that the author has put into this inspiring book. It's a fairly short book so I great one to come back to when you need inspiration and hopefully a bit of a kick to work with your employers on creating a more flexible work schedule. This is a systemic issue and one that I truly hope more research will create true change that will affect folx lives.

[Casey Sacco · Rating 5 out of 5]

A quick read about choosing what life you want to live and just doing it, on your terms.

[Eva · Rating 4 out of 5]

Flex your mind, work, home, body, and future. This book didn’t have groundbreaking information on how to become more flexible in all these areas, but the information in the book and how it was presented—content broken down into smaller chapters, beautiful design—was just what I needed to hear. Really enjoyed it, highlighted a lot of snippets, and will definitely reference it here and there.

Observation: I believe this book was written (and visually designed) with primarily a female reader in mind, although some of the tips (and revelations) need to be equally heard by men.

[Dana Robinson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Does a great job introducing the idea of flex time and giving tips on making it work. Props for mentioning menstruation in the body section - that's something I've not really seen discussed elsewhere and is especially useful for US audiences. If you are a person looking for a better work/life balance or are in charge of such people, this is a worthwhile read.

I can't quite give it five stars, though. The book fails to point out the elephant in the room, and that's that things like "lean" business practices and the relentless drive to please Wall Street are the core reasons why we have to fight for a better work/life balance. For example, while I'll agree that continually educating yourself is an important part of thriving in today's world, we shouldn't forget that a major factor in that is corporations slashing the training budget to zero. The book would be a lot more satisfying if she named and shamed the fundamental reasons for so much worker misery. The book also ends weakly, with a brief section on how tech affects the workforce. There's some good bits in there about how digital disconnects are beneficial, but the parts about AI replacing humans are a bit wild-eyed. Automation will continue to replace workers in the future, but the idea that human-like AIs (or even *good* narrow AI algorithms) are going to exist relatively soon is pure fantasy.

Also, can we please stop claiming that a large number of jobs in the near future "don't even exist yet"? That's complete BS. Most people today have jobs that either existed fifty years ago or that are straightforward extrapolations of jobs that existed in the 70s.

[Novelesque Life · Rating 4 out of 5]

RATING: 4 STARS

I love the whole idea of this book, Flex, as I think flexible work schedules definitely will increase productivity. I rated this four stars, because as much as this book is a lovely idea, I am not sure how practical it is for most people. If you work in a private sector and/or maybe your executive team (my collective term that doesn't really capture all "bosses") is really into the environment, mental health, employee happiness and/or being technologically advanced (or even forward thinking) you may have a shot at this. Working for public post secondary institutes and public libraries - two areas that should be ALL about that won't even entertain the idea of WFH or hybrid model - even though the past 18 months we have worked exclusively from home. I will give you that there are many jobs within that are public facing where teleworking may not work, but that may be the reason they applied for that job in the first place. Not everyone wants to work from home, but those that do should be given that option if it has/is working. I do hope more companies/employers read this book and see the advantages Annie lays out. After reading this book, I did get a bit depressed that this was not an option for my life at the moment. I also kind of wanted to be a white middle class lady with a business degree so I could apply for jobs with that as an option. This review may have gave more of the rant route.

[Kara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a good book — short, interesting, practical. It was a big surface-level, though, and I've read better books about the future of work. I also find it odd that this was published in 2021 and yet includes no mention of Covid. A note at the beginning mentioned there's new material available online, but why not pause publishing and include that in the book??. It felt quite dated for that reason - work has changed a lot in the last few years.

I actually liked that there were sections on domestic labor and flexing work to fit your body's natural rhythms (including energy/sleep and even menstruation), but I feel the title/subtitle/cover don't accurately reflect how woman-focused this book was. That seems like a missed opportunity.

Overall, a good, quick read (or listen, in my case) that touches on a lot of things I'm interested in in the work/life balance space.

[Nikki · Rating 3 out of 5]

Flex: Reinventing Work for a Smarter, Happier Life by Annie Auerbach
Publisher: HarperOne
Genre: Business & Investing | Nonfiction (Adult) | Self-Help
Publication Date: February 23, 2021

Flex: Reinventing Work for a Smarter, Happier Life by Annie Auerbach is an interesting resource on work-life balance.

I found the content to be very interesting and worthwhile. The author touches on the outdated 8 hour a day, 5 day workweek, as well as tips in finding flexibility. I look forward to bringing some of the ideas to my place of work.

Overall, I thought this was interesting and had some good information.

I'm so grateful to Annie Auerbach, HarperOne, and NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this ARC ebook in exchange for my honest review.

[Kelsey Grissom · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book reads like your overachieving Millennial bestie who read a lot of articles on life hacking and bio hacking and then wrote it all down. The author claims she completely and successfully remade her own life with all this info, but she doesn’t really detail her experience other than to say things to the effect of “and my life is so much better now.” If you’ve read anything about flex-work or life hacking or bio hacking, you will not find much new material or many new insights here. If you’re totally new to these subjects, it might be a sort of light introduction to them. (But it could have been an article.)

[Brad · Rating 4 out of 5]

"flex is all about asking ourselves one question: how do we want to live this beautiful life"

Whilst this book is targeted towards women, I still found several good points to take away. It's about taking control of your time and living life on your own terms. The book gives great advice on how to be T-shaped (deep discipline expertise and cross discipline expertise), how to be more confident, the future of flexible workforces, not being a slave to tech, and the importance of and maintaining strong friendships.

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a working mom of two under two, this book is exactly what I needed. Annie uses real-life stories of working mothers to highlight how women can make their careers work for them, not vice versa. She offers practical tips on how to improve our flexibility and, most importantly, gives us permission to create the life we want and deserve. A great book to share with your expecting girlfriends, mom-groups, and husbands. (Yes, I'm having my husband read this next!)

[Melis Spears · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Sometimes I’m in the drivers seat, sometimes I’m in the fucking trunk” Such a quick read! This book is like a love letter to working moms, one that I didn’t know I needed. Super short but so many interesting facts packet into this pint sized book. I did not know there was a correlation between doing the dishes and sexual satisfaction. So many golden nuggets in this one, I will definitely read again at some point.

[Annie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good introduction and short guide to flexibility in the home and workplace, focused on women. Due to the brevity of the book, Auerbach shares tips and skims over topics without much depth or discussion. However, it’s still helpful as long as readers understand the goal of the book. I listened to the audiobook, read by the author.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick little book with some pithy reminders about how we have to be intentional to make things "work" - whether that is relationships, parenting, sleep, or careers. I identified most with her appraisal of her first attempt at work flexibility. "But clearly, flexibility, as I had it, was a shitshow." She was more successful when she started her own company. Go figure.

[Annette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant! Businesses are costing themselves money and productivity and creativity by clinging to the 9-5 industrial model. And society is losing out on happiness and innovation and so much more in the old model. It’s long past time for the change to flexible work and this book proves the many reasons why this is good for us all.

[Craig Coon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not the book I expected when I picked it up. I was expecting a book on flexible work, instead it was more focused on being flexible in your work and life. While a few fresh ideas were discussed the book mostly fell flat. A number of lists to try and achieve more happiness and flexibility did not provide as much insight as I expected.

[Hanna · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book for free at my library’s give-away table. Sweet little short read discussing the possibilities of flexible work. The author is based in the UK so several of their examples were specific to that cultural setting—such as employers being obliged to seriously consider employee’s proposal for flexible working.

[Jill Terry · Rating 2 out of 5]

The book fell flat for me. I understand the concepts the author was trying to make, but I feel the lens was limited. I feel like it mainly spoke to just corporate-job, heterosexual woman. I think more variety of working and lifestyle situations would have benefitted the book.

[Meg]

A short and timely piece for readers of the COVID era and the gig economy. Different approaches to work flexibility are presented here. There was also a lot of content about the division of labor in the home with one's partner, which was irrelevant for me but may be helpful for some readers.

[Andrea Del Angel · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars. A thoughtful and entertaining book about a lot of things that have been on my mind lately as a woman just starting in the workplace! Auerbach makes many great points and has given me some pointers on how to better handle remote working.

[Donna Hungarter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not a life changer, but full of interesting nuggets of truth and wisdom, such as one of her closing thoughts, “Perhaps the bravest thing of all is not knowing all the answers but having the courage to experiment, to invent, to make things up as we go.”

[Amy Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easy and quick read packed with lots of interesting information. I really enjoyed how the book was broken into different flex categories, such as career, home, body, mind, and future. Gave me some good ideas for a couple of things I want to try in my own life. Would recommend!

[Matt Zalman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, I couldn’t sleep so I listened to this book. From the title, I thought this book was about office flex time in our new office world. It is more about having flexibility in life. Overall, good messages, nothing new.

[Sonja · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good! Smart, well-researched, thought-provoking, actionable. I bought this book on a whim a couple of years ago and let it languish on my shelf. I wish I'd picked it up right away. I hope Annie Auerbach writes another book!

[Lela Jimenez · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of the chapters didn’t apply to my life, but overall this was a great quick read. This book shifted my understanding of flexibility in life and established a framework that promotes flexibility for women in the workplace and at home.

[Jezzeri · Rating 3 out of 5]

Flex is living and working on your terms. When we learn how to flex, we are able to challenge what is holding us back and reinvent the rules for a smarter, happier life. Learning to flex in life is asking yourself how you want to live this life and then going out there and doing it.

[Chris Sanzone · Rating 3 out of 5]

While it's a quick read/listen, it does bring some good information to light but mostly is "meh."

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

The early parts were interesting and had some resonant commentary on the current workworld, but the last chapter just totally lost me and suddenly seemed much less actionable.

[Bookworm · Rating 5 out of 5]

A kind, bold, real book encouraging us to take on life in rhythm with our own nature.