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Managing work-life creep
Why are we still talking about work and life balance?
Fun fact. The notion of ‘work life balance’ was first proposed by a renegade called Robert Owen. Can you guess when?
1817.
Owen’s famous phrase was “8 hours labour, 8 hours recreation, 8 hours rest” neatly dividing the day into work time, play time and rest time.
While the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) says we are pretty much on par with this sage suggestion across most industries (summary here, thanks ‘lifehacker’), there are some jobs such as school principals, crop farmers, surgeons and miners that are clocking up more than the average.
While the Lifehacker article also indicates middle and upper managers are also pretty busy too I’d say at a pinch (judging from my personal survey of myself and everyone I speak with every week) that other people have big work days too.
The moral of this part of the story is that we’ve been trying to get work/life balance right for OVER TWO HUNDRED YEARS and it is still a rod for our backs.
The work/life balance nugget flogs us (particularly working mums — sorry dads) at every angle.
Don’t spend enough time with the kids and you feel like the worst parent in the world. Spend too much time with them and your work starts to…
