There is no work-life balance - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog

There is no work-life balance - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog LiNE Zine has an interview with Lotte Bailyn of MIT, who is: working with organizations of various kinds to look at the way they do their work. We look at things like their work practices, their work structure, the cultural assumptions surrounding whos a good worker, and how they evaluate performance. With them we work to rethink those aspects in such a way that employees are able to live up to their highest potential in their work, and are also able to integrate their work with their personal lives. That is what we call the dual agenda. Thats interesting work, and one of the most interesting things is that they specifically DO NOT talk about work-life balance, a term I find misleading. We specifically do not use the term balance because it connotes that these two domains in peoples lives have to be equal; that its a balance scale hence if one goes up, the other goes down. The underlying premise of our work is that this need not necessarily be so. We talk about the integration of work and personal life to show that work is also part of life. The term work-life implies that somehow the two are different, and of course they are not. Work is obviously an important part of life but shouldnt be the only part. Thats a very good point. Actually, Id take it one step further. Looking at my own life, I certainly dont see a work life and a private life. I just see one life, mine, being expressed in different aspects. And these aspects are so mixed and so mutually dependent, that it makes no sense to attempt to separate them. They are already as integrated as they can be, and there seems to be no time where I am 100% at work or 100% off work. Im always just me, living my life. And it feels good. Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related There is no work-life balance - The Chief Happiness Officer Blog One of the few moments in my life where Im almost guaranteed not to be thinking about work. And thats exactly how I like it. The Work-Life Balance theme continues all week on the blog in honor of the Danish National Work-Life Balance Week. Previous posts on the topic here. I previously reported on an an interview with Lotte Bailyn of MIT, who works to: rethink aspects of work in such a way that employees are able to live up to their highest potential in their work, and are also able to integrate their work with their personal lives. That is what we call the dual agenda. Thats interesting work, and one of the most interesting things is that they specifically DO NOT talk about work-life balance: We specifically do not use the term balance because it connotes that these two domains in peoples lives have to be equal; that its a balance scale hence if one goes up, the other goes down. The underlying premise of our work is that this need not necessarily be so. We talk about the integration of work and personal life to show that work is also part of life. The term work-life implies that somehow the two are different, and of course they are not. Work is obviously an important part of life but shouldnt be the only part. Thats a very good point. Actually, Id take it one step further. Looking at my own life, I certainly dont see a work life and a private life. I just see one life, mine, being expressed in different aspects. And these aspects are so mixed and so mutually dependent, that it makes no sense to attempt to separate them. They are already as integrated as they can be, and there seems to be no time where I am 100% at work or 100% off work. Im always just me, living my life. If I could only work from 9 to 5 on weekdays and only live the rest of the time I would be much less happy than I am today. But then again, Im an entrepreneur and self-employed. I have no demands on me, except for my own. If I had a boss (shudder) to report to, it might be a very different story. That may be why some people who live like this find that work takes over and leaves little or no room for their private life. But thats not integration, thats more like disintegration :o) What do you think? Do you prefer a clear separation between work and non-work? Do you want balance or integration? Thanks for visiting my blog. If you're new here, you should check out this list of my 10 most popular articles. And if you want more great tips and ideas you should check out our newsletter about happiness at work. It's great and it's free :-)Share this:LinkedInFacebookTwitterRedditPinterest Related