Emily Austen, co-founder of a communications agency and author, says her new book Smarter: 10 Lessons for a More Productive and Less-Stressed Life has found an early audience among high-profile figures, as it argues for a reappraisal of modern productivity culture.
Austen recounts that copies have been requested or gifted to several celebrities: Dua Lipa made the book a club pick, Julia Roberts requested a copy while on a Warner Bros. film set, a copy was couriered to Bella Hadid during a London fragrance launch, Jessica Alba is a reported fan and Sophie Turner received a copy from her personal trainer. Austen wrote that she focused the book on the experience that transformed her approach to work and health.
Austen, who has described herself as the co-founder of a multi-million-dollar communications agency whose clients included Red Bull, Spanx and Abercrombie, frames the book as the outcome of a personal turning point. She recalled being 28 and hospitalized with a ruptured stomach ulcer; in that moment she said her preoccupation was less with mortality than with whether the hospital Wi-Fi would be strong enough to join a Zoom call. That experience, she writes, prompted a re-examination of the "cult of productivity" and the idea that constant busyness equates to value.
The book presents a series of practical prescriptions and mental reframes that Austen promotes as alternatives to what she describes as performative work. Central tenets include prioritizing output over visible effort, keeping a "to-don’t" list to eliminate low-value tasks, tracking personal energy rather than rigid time blocks, and cultivating self-supportive internal dialogue. Austen uses a metaphor she calls the "fish tank theory" to argue that environments and tools alone do not sustain performance without basic maintenance—rest, routine, and boundaries.
Austen also situates her advice against popular narratives of extreme early rising. She notes that while public figures such as Tim Cook, Jennifer Aniston and Anna Wintour are cited for waking early as a productivity tactic, her own routine is later and framed around energy management rather than a fixed start time. She invokes athletic training as an analogy, saying medal-winning athletes build rest and rehabilitation into plans, and quotes a recent comment from Beyoncé about working smarter, not harder.
The book blends prescriptive guidance with first-person anecdotes illustrating how constant availability and long hours can masquerade as accomplishment. Among the concrete recommendations Austen outlines are declining meetings without agendas, stopping after-hours Slack checks, and celebrating small wins to counter internalized silence or self-effacement.
Smarter is published by Little, Brown Spark and was scheduled for release on Sept. 2. Austen's account and the celebrity interest described in press coverage have drawn attention as part of a broader public conversation about workplace norms, mental health and the limits of productivity advice in the digital age.
Austen frames the argument as a career- and life-oriented intervention: she writes that cutting performative tasks and attending to personal rhythms produced a quieter mind and sharper work for her, and she presents the book as a guide for readers seeking a similar shift away from busyness as status toward a more intentional way of working and living.