Anna Whitehouse is a multitasker. Her new book '‘Quarantine’, written along with her husband and partner-in-life Matt Farquharson, dropped last week. In this dark-humored book, they recorded their stories during this lockdown.

You are an author, a journalist, a social media influencer, vlogger, radio host, mother, wife and a bit of a style icon.  Anna - you truly are a powerhouse!! How do you manage to wear so many hats and would you say you have a good work/life balance? 

I actually don’t think calling it a work/life balance works. I think it all comes down to trust and a shift in the way businesses see themselves working in a more human way. So many of us are stuck in the capitalist hamster wheel, but when those at the top step outside of the wheel, they’re able to see that empowering people to work in a way that isn’t dictating where and when they work, but allowing them to decide, actually ends up being better for business. It’s much better if a hamster is able to have a run around in a rotastak, rather than going round and round the same tiny wheel – you just don’t get the best out of people that way. In terms of my the ‘life’ side of it - things get done but sometimes my time is more consumed by work and my husband or mum has to take over. That's the balance I suppose - with having a team behind you. It's a free-for-all. If he doesn't wash his pants, he won't have pants to wear. If I don't finish off a brand blog post I won't be able to pay the mortgage. It's split but not in terms of 'my jobs' or 'his jobs' - it's all hands on deck!

You have been campaigning for flexible work since 2015. We are only starting to have these conversations in the film industry. Could you tell us a bit about your work and if you have any advice on how to approach the conversation with your employer?

It’s important to remember that flexi-working has to be a two-way process. Ultimately it has to be about productivity and focusing on the business benefits. It won’t work going in with a list of demands - always have the business at the centre of negotiations. A happier, healthier workforce is a more productive workforce. Flexibility is good for business. If you get an immediate no, don’t give up. Form a flexible working group (ensure it’s for everyone and not solely a women’s network) internally to discuss issues and open the company up to good practice across your industry in a non-confrontational way - the aim is to get them listening.

In July 2019, MP Helen Whately used the Ten-Minute Rule to introduce the flexible working bill to Parliament; unfortunately the bill didn’t get beyond a second reading - why do you think the bill didn't pass and will there be another attempt to push it through? 

The reality is Brexit hit and everything got swept off the table. But who could have predicted the situation we currently sit in? The working world has shifted overnight in the dark context of a pandemic and there are already talks in Whitehall around creating laws that align with the change we have seen. But the shift now is that minds have opened up to tech and trust in a way they hadn’t last year. The law is to enforce change but mindsets are already shifting.

The Film & TV industries have only just started talking about flexible work. Have you noticed any interest from the media industries in Flex Appeal? 

We worked out that the only job that can’t be done (somewhat) flexibly is probably on an oil rig, and with the world being forced to work remotely pretty much overnight due to COVID-19, industries across the board have had to sit up and take note. A great example of this in the media industry is Twitter, who earlier this month that their employees will be able to work from home  ‘forever’ following lockdown which proved, quite simply, that they could.

 Since the COVID-19 outbreak has forced so many people to work from home, do you think it's actually going to help to promote flexible work from now ?

I’ve been campaigning for flexible working for over five years with Flex Appeal, but I never imagined it would happen overnight and with everyone restricted to life within their four walls. I do think it’s really important to stress here though, that enforced remote working isn’t the same as flexible working – the latter has an element of choice. But here we stand (or sit) proving to many resistant companies that working from home can, in fact, work. It’s a huge step in the right direction, but there’s still a lot to do.

Where is my happy ending is an incredibly honest account of marriage and parenting - How did the idea for the book come about?

We’d basically gotten to a point where we asked ourselves are we happy? We’d followed the well-worn path of meeting, dating, living together, getting married and having two children but the question of happiness was on our minds. Like many couples, we were in a situation where we hadn’t looked too deeply at our own relationship, so we decided to write a book about whether ‘happily ever after’ actually existed. Turns out, it doesn’t. And that’s ok!

 You wrote the book with your husband Matt (aka Papa Pukka); how was the process of working together?

We wrote our first book (Parenting The Sh*t Out of Life) together too, but for Where’s My Happy Ending? we didn’t read each other’s chapters until the end because we thought it would cause us to edit our own words. Plus it was genuinely quite hard to read what we really think of each other in black and white for some parts. But honestly the process was incredibly therapeutic and certainly eye-opening. It’s the book we wrote together to stay together – and it worked!

 You have written and talked about motherhood in a very honest way. What advice did you wish someone had given you before having kids?

Ask for help. And if someone offers to help, to let them. Don’t soldier on in silence, thinking it’s an empty offer. Let your mate hold the baby while you wash your hair. Ask your mum if she can come over for an hour while you go to the shop. With my first kid I was too polite, wondering why anyone would want to hold my Weetabix-smattered offspring. Now I’ll happily hand both of them over to kindly strangers on a flight and have a blissful solo wee.

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