Flexible work. So why are you always working?
The Edit · Work · Ambition
Flexible work. So why are you always working?
Amelia Christie-Miller, Sabrina Sarl and Hermione Olivia on time, boundaries and the work worth making room for.
Leaving the office early is useful. Answering everything after bedtime is still work. A flexible diary can make room for family life, but it can also leave the working day without a clear end.
Amelia Christie-Miller, Sabrina Sarl and Hermione Olivia do not offer one model for combining work and motherhood. Their conversations with Simona raise three different questions: what should you stop doing yourself, when are you actually unavailable, and what makes the work worth your time?
Amelia Christie-Miller: being able to do it yourself is not a reason to keep doing it
The Bold Bean Co founder talks about learning to value her own time in the business. She describes outsourcing work she was not good at and recognising that doing it herself was not necessarily the best use of her contribution.
She also discusses the importance of paying herself properly. Together, those points make the conversation about more than fitting work around a baby. A business can depend on its founder’s time while treating that time as if it costs nothing. Delegation starts with taking that cost seriously.
Sabrina Sarl: decide when the flexibility ends
In her conversation with Simona, Sabrina is asked what boundary a creative mother needs. Her answer centres on switching off and recognising when it is family time. She also acknowledges how difficult that can be in practice.
The wider discussion gives space to the trade-offs of self-employment. Control over a diary does not remove the demands of building and running a business. The distinction is useful: being able to move work is different from having less work.
Hermione Olivia: be honest about what makes the trade-off worthwhile
Hermione talks about the value of work with a purpose she believes in. She describes how that sense of meaning can make a late email or a Sunday call easier to choose.
That is a different perspective from drawing a hard line around every working hour. Put beside Sabrina’s account, it makes the tension more interesting. Work can feel worthwhile and still need limits. Believing in a project does not settle every question about what it can ask of you.
A better question than “can I fit it all in?”
What would have to change for your work to fit the life you want this month? It might be a task you hand over, an evening you protect or a project you decide is worth a busy stretch. These conversations do not add up to one perfect timetable. They do make the trade-offs easier to name.
The full conversations
Watch Amelia Christie-Miller’s interview ↗ · Guest page →
Based on three separate DND interviews. Guest comments are paraphrased; the connections and closing questions are from The Edit.