Flexible work arrangements: price what you want.

Your price list, line by line.

To begin, this exercise takes one sheet of paper and fifteen minutes. On the left, first write what you actually want, not the wedding pitch. For example, more time with a specific person, or never sitting in that traffic. Also add choosing who you work with, or not asking permission for an appointment. Then, on the right, write what you would give up per month for each. Make it an actual number rather than a feeling.

Testing flexible work arrangements against each line.

Then comes the question you will want to skip. For every line, is there a version you could get without leaving your job? So go line by line, especially the one you wrote third and stared at. In fact, some of you will find flexible work arrangements already exist nearby. For example, reduced hours, a compressed week, a different manager, or a job three miles closer.

The evidence on whether these substitutes deliver what leaving does is thin. However, the wage penalty for negotiated flexibility inside employment appears small. For that reason, Chapter 13 gives this question a full chapter of its own.

When the list gets stuck.

This exercise tends to go wrong for people in two ways. First, you write things never said aloud, it gets uncomfortable, and you stop at three. Push through, because the embarrassing line is usually the real one. Second, your right column stays empty, since freedom feels impossible to price. Instead, ask what you turned down in the last three years to keep this job. Then put a number beside that.