Our (Nonexistent) Work-Life Balance Is Hitting Peak Urgency
Annie Auerbach in Conversation with Andrew Keen on Keen On
The coronavirus pandemic is dramatically disrupting not only our daily lives but society itself. This show features conversations with some of the world’s leading thinkers and writers about the deeper economic, political, and technological consequences of the pandemic. It’s our new daily podcast trying to make longterm sense out of the chaos of today’s global crisis.
In this episode, Andrew is joined by Annie Auerbach, the author of Flex, to discuss the notion of a flexible working lifestyle and how it can empower women in particular to lead a healthier and happier work/life balance.
From the episode:
Annie Auerbach: So much of that is this equation we’ve bought into, in this cult of busy, this cult of workism, which is that working long hours, productivity, climbing the ladder, all of that is a reason for being and is key to aspiration in our society. Once you think about where that takes us—the extrapolation to that is longer and longer working hours and exhaustion and burnout and not having boundaries and not shutting the computer at the end of the day, having very blurred existence, where work leaks into home life and leisure goes out the window, and rest and recuperation go out the window. All of that is a huge, urgent issue right now. Now more than ever. And I think we need to, as a society, place value in non-work. Place value on sleep, place value on rest and leisure and hobbies and relationships and the stuff that takes place outside work.
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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.
