is work life balance a myth essay

Spirituality

Why work-life balance is a myth, try the seven slice approach.

Posted March 4, 2022 | Reviewed by Hara Estroff Marano

• Complaining about lack of work-life balance is common.
• Framing the issue as lack of balance creates an unwinnable zero-sum situation.
• Framing life as multiple slices you can combine and rearrange has greater value.

The conventional way of thinking about work-life balance in binary terms presents a zero-sum game. Increasing time to spend with family means less time for managing one’s career . But if you don’t take care of your career, you will not be able to provide for your family. It is a circular way of framing the problem.

David J. McNeff takes a different approach, In his book, The Work-Life Balance Myth . (2021), he contends there is no such thing as work-life balance. McNeff’s alternative is called the seven-slice approach. Instead of viewing the problem as work OR family, McNeff describes seven domains where people spend their time: family, professional, personal, physical, intellectual, emotional, and spiritual . People need all seven.

The Spiritual Slice may mean time spent in organized religion or time spent thinking about the meaning of life. The Emotional Slice refers to time spent with friends and not family or work associates. The Intellectual Slice refers to time spent learning something new.

Try This Exercise:

Allocate your time in terms of the average percentage of time you spend on the seven activities during your waking hours. For example, a client given the name Gwen came up with this profile:

Family Slice: 15 percent.

Professional Slice: 75 percent.

Personal Slice: 5 percent

Physical Slice: 0 percent

Intellectual Slice: 3 percent

Emotional Slice: 1 percent

Spiritual Slice: 1 percent

What would your allocation look like?

Gwen’s first insight was the realization that she had been living her life as though it consisted only of her family and professional slices. There were areas of her life that she has been neglecting. This neglect was creating stress in her life. How can she spend more time in her underserved slices?

Work-life balance is a binary way of framing the problem. You can only add time to one side of the balance by taking time away from the other side.

But if you frame the problem from an ordinal perspective, on the other hand,it's no longer an either/or situation. You are looking at shifting positions and combining categories. Ordinal thinking refers to conceptualizing something within a list of things that can be shifted or combined.

Gwen’s Solution

Thinking in an ordinal fashion, Gwen began playing tennis every Saturday morning with a friend. This allowed her to increase both her physical slice and her personal slice at the same time.

During her 40-minute drive to work in the morning, Gwen would turn off the mobile phone and began her day listening to books on tape. This allowed her to add to her intellectual slice without reducing time from her professional slice.

Below is another example of removing the zero-sum framework of work-life balance by transforming the framework of managing life as an ordinal issue where activities can be combined:

One of our clients was Managing Partner of a law firm. The family attended church on Sundays. The daughter also attended religious education at the church. The managing partner examined the church committees and saw that the Religious Education Committee contained two bank CEOs. He joined that committee. Eventually one of the banks became a law firm client, thanks to the relationships made on the committee. While this activity supported his professional slice it also assisted his family slice.

Summary and Conclusions:

Defining a life problem as work-life balance frames the issue as zero-sum. Adding time to one side of the ledger requires reducing time on the other. Framing the issue as a seven-slice ordinal problem allows for creative slicing and dicing between and within categories.

McNeff’s book does not include sleep as a critical Slice. Sleep deprivation, however, is a common business issue seldom discussed openly. People like to brag about how little sleep they need, but deprivation is associated with poor decision-making . (Stybel Peabody, 2019).

Whether you think your life contains seven or eight slices, framing the issue in this manner is more helpful than talking about your lack of work-life balance.

D.J. McNeff. The Work-Life Balance Myth: rethinking your optimal balance for success. New York: McGraw Hill, February 2021tps:// www.psychologytoday .

L. Stybel & M. Peabody. “How Sleep Can Help Your Team Make Better Decisions.” Psychologytoday.com, February 2019. https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/platform-success/201902/how-sle…

Dr. Laurence J. Stybel and Maryanne Peabody are co-founders of the Boston-based B:B firm, Stybel Peabody Associates, Inc. They provide corporations with retained search for Board members, CEOs, COOs, and CFOs; 1:1 leadership coaching; and executive outplacement.

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Work Life Balance Essay

Introduction, importance of work-life balance, strategies for attaining work-life balance, reference list.

Choosing what kind of job to take is perhaps the most challenging task that everyone faces. Numerous college students have found themselves being victims of wrong decision-making as far as this choice is concerned. Specialists are usually attracted to monetary benefits, failing to consider other important aspects of jobs like non-monetary advantages.

These benefits include the number of hours that a person is expected to commit to the job. However, only the employee themselves determines their work-life balance. This essay explores this issue in particular.

The more time passes, the harder it becomes to consider options regarding the hours spent at the workplace. So, the sooner people realize the importance of work-life balance, the easier it will get to deal with any problem.

In this essay on work-life balance, the author examines its importance and provides tips on how the balance can be achieved.

Work-life balance can be defined as arrangements employers make to enable their employees to live full lives. This implies that as much as they give their best to the job, the employees will have a chance to do other things in their lives. Work-life balance is a very important aspect of any working environment. Among its advantages is that employees are more motivated to perform their duties since they do not get overworked. This is advantageous to both employers and employees.

The employees benefit in that they develop healthy relationships with their employers, and at the same time, they get time to build non-professional aspects of their lives. This way, they can develop their careers positively and engage in productive activities as they build their careers. On the other hand, employers are able to achieve greater productivity in their firms since employees are greatly motivated to work.

Employees give their best to the job due to motivation; thus, quality and greater production volume are guaranteed (Clayton, 2005, p. 27). The employers also benefit in other ways since the benefits they give their employees enable them to gain good publicity that attracts more productive workers and customers if the firm is in the hospitality industry.

From the above discussion, it is apparent that work-life balance is of utmost importance in organizations. Firms should therefore know how to appropriately establish appropriate measures to enable their employees to live a full life. On the other hand, employees should strive to live a balanced life even in conditions that are seemingly unfavorable. The following paragraphs explore how employees and employers can achieve work-life balance.

Even though the relationship between a person’s professional life and his/her personal life is indubitably rich, it may prove to be tricky to attain and keep a healthy work-life balance. The following are some of the strategies that employees can use to live a full life. First of all, it is of utmost importance for an employee or employer to keep calm in challenging situations.

For instance, if a person is experiencing personal problems like problems of marriage, he/she should ensure that the same does not affect his/her professional life. If the person is an employer, he/she should not, for instance, fire an employee due to his/her personal problems. On the other hand, an employee should ensure that he/she does not let his/her personal life affect his/her professional performance.

For instance, if the employee is experiencing family problems, he/she should maintain the same level of performance as when he/she does not have such problems (Gordon, 2003, p. 1). Likewise, stress in the workplace should not affect the personal lives of the employees. Employees should ensure they live their personal lives to the fullest while ignoring any problems that may have occurred in the working environment.

An employee should also ensure that he/she engages in important bodily activities to live a well-balanced life. He/she should thus engage in physical activities and ensure that he/she sleeps and eats well.

It is thus apparent that any job that gives an employee time to engage in the aforementioned activities can be considered to be offering work-life balance. It is also important for the employee to set boundaries for both professional and personal activities. This will ensure that both lives do not clash (Clutterbuck, 2003, p. 112). This way, the employee will be able to achieve enviably in both realms of life.

As evidenced in the discussion above, work-life balance is a very important determinant of professional performance. It is thus of essence for employers to ensure that they give their employees adequate time to engage in personal activities. On the other hand, employees should ensure that they use the free time they are given by their employers wisely.

They should ensure that they engage in productive personal activities and, at the same time, avoid taking their professional problems home. It is thus of essence that people evaluate prospective employers keenly to make wise choices as they choose between jobs. This will ensure that they do not take jobs and regret them later.

Clayton, D. (2005). The Work-life Balance Program . University of California.

Clutterbuck, D. (2003). Managing the Work-Life Balance . Journal of Management, pp. 101-120.

Gordon, M. (2003). 9 Strategies For Regaining Your Work Life Balance. Web.

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Work-Life Balance: Myth or Reality? All You Need to Know!

Is work life balance a myth? All you need to know about work life balance!

Is work life balance a myth or reality.

For many employees, working from home has made it difficult to balance between their personal and work life.Maintaining a healthy work-life balance is important to improving our physical, emotional, mental well being and overall work satisfaction.

A work-life balance indicates work and life as two different and separate things : that work isn’t part of life. But it is a huge part of our life. This is the reality one must understand before getting to the crux of work life balance.

Work gives us a sense of purpose. It can be filled with passion if you are in the right place. Your peers can become friends and the work can become a challenging fun ride with your remote team . Studies say that what you do at work impacts every other part of your life and it is inevitable.

Thinking about work life balance as one versus another is the wrong way of looking at it.

Work-life balance is important and needs to be addressed by employers immediately

A study by the Mental Health Foundation says that an increase in work hours increases feelings of unhappiness. Conversely, employees with severe workloads and a lack of work-life balance are underperforming, tired and stressed out.

With small initiatives like online team building activities , employers can help the remote teams bond stronger and trust each other better and the organization better.

A Future of Work survey by Mavenlink says 62% of respondents said work-life balance was the most important aspect of a company's culture. The benefits of employee work-life balance are enormous to organizations and employers. But ignoring it comes with severe costs.

Here are some of the important benefits of a healthy work-life balance,

• Higher levels of efficiency and productivity.
• Lower levels of absenteeism.
• Lower levels of stress.
• Greater motivation across the teams.
• Improved customer service.
• Increased levels of trust in the employer as well as the organization.
• Higher employee retention levels.
• Sustaining employee engagement and improved employee satisfaction.

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Myths about work-life balance and why you need to ignore them.

Working more hours increases productivity..

This is a most common false assumption that damages work-life harmony. According to Parkinson's Law, "Work expands to fill the time available for its completion." That is why when you are given more time to finish a particular task; you start working on it only when the deadlines approach.

Instead, you can focus on productivity with smart work. The science behind it: When you're given a longer time to do something, the brain sees it as a too big task, which results in overthinking and procrastination. When there's less time, the brain knows it has to focus on finishing that task on time. So, working fewer, not more, hours in a smarter way is the key to productivity.

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Good employee always responds fast

In this remote workplace, the time we give to our devices has gone high. The boundaries between work and life have almost blurred. Studies say that most employees think and worry about work even when they are away from work. This is a major cause of stress and lack of productivity in remote employees.

Instead, you can set boundaries. Sometimes when you plan for quality family time, and an email comes in, you see the notification. It creates a sense of urgency to read the email. Set boundaries for yourself. It could be as simple as not checking emails after dinner or no work calls before breakfast, so you can create space to enjoy your personal life while setting your priorities right based on the weight of the situation. It's you who has to make intentional choices for your wellbeing.

Dividing life into compartments

It is very difficult to divide time into blocks while competing against each other. This will only increase stress rather than helping your well-being. You must understand the reality, there will be times when work bleeds into your personal life and vice versa. There will be days when you put in a lot of hours of work and also days when you only work for a couple of hours.

Employers must take the initiative to make remote workspace more fun with the help of online team-building activities. This will reduce burnout and associate work with happy times.

Jeff Bezoz says: If you're happy outside of work, then you'll be more productive and energized in your workplace too. And, if you're fulfilled with your work, then you're more content and energized at home.

Striving for perfect schedules

Don't strive for the perfect schedule; be realistic with yourself. Some days, you might have to focus more on work, while other days, you might have more time to pursue your favorite hobbies or spend more time with your loved ones. Work-life harmony can be achieved by being self-aware of your current priorities.

"It is important to remain fluid and constantly keep assessing yourself about where you are and what your current goals and priorities are. But don't be afraid of unplugging yourself or taking long breaks from work when you burn out or when you need it.

It gives you time to recharge and bring in fresh perspectives. As a result, you will see your productivity improving at work. You will be able to focus better and become more efficient.

Pro-tip to achieve your work-life harmony 

Take breaks  : Research says that the best schedule of work is every 52 minutes work for 17 minutes of break. This works because performing tasks in short intervals knowing that a break is coming up helps you stay focused, and enjoying the breaks between work improves your mood. In addition, you can use these breaks to reward yourself with little things you love. It could be playing with your child or sipping hot coffee, or taking a walk in your garden.

To sum it up :

Not everyone has the same dreams and goals, so the definition of work-life balance can differ from person to person. But with few initiatives of team bonding and reducing burnout, employers can support the wellbeing of their remote teams and reap the benefits while nurturing work-life balance.

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The Myth of Work-Life Balance

• John Beeson

Many companies extol the value of work-life balance for their employees, but the reality for senior executives? There isn’t any. Frequently, stressed and harried managers look up the organization hierarchy and assume that they’ll have greater control of their time when they advance to the C-suite. What they don’t understand is that modern-day telecommunications, the […]

Many companies extol the value of work-life balance for their employees, but the reality for senior executives? There isn’t any. Frequently, stressed and harried managers look up the organization hierarchy and assume that they’ll have greater control of their time when they advance to the C-suite. What they don’t understand is that modern-day telecommunications, the hair-trigger requirements of financial markets, and the pace of global organizations create 24 x 7 work lives for most executives. So, forget work-life balance and think personal organization and finding ways to relax.

• JB John Beeson is Principal of Beeson Consulting , a management consulting firm specializing in succession planning, executive assessment and coaching, and organization design. He is also the author of The Unwritten Rules: The Six Skills You Need to Get Promoted to the Executive Level (Jossey-Bass.). Follow him on twitter @johnrbeeson .

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Work-Life Balance in Psychology: 12 Examples and Theories

We might be a professional, a parent, a partner, a sports person, a community member, a friend, a child.

Our roles and responsibilities differ for each role, and the challenge is to meaningfully satisfy these requirements with as little conflict as possible. This is known as work–life balance.

In this post, we explore the concept of work–life balance: what it is, why it’s important, and if it’s possible to achieve.

Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Happiness & Subjective Wellbeing Exercises for free . These detailed, science-based exercises will help you or your clients identify sources of authentic happiness and strategies to boost wellbeing.

This Article Contains:

What is work–life balance, 4 real-life examples, is balance important 3 benefits according to research, 8 psychology theories & models, is it possible to achieve work–life balance, work–life balance vs work–life integration, positivepsychology.com’s relevant resources, a take-home message.

Work–life balance (WLB) is a somewhat recent phenomenon, arising from employees’ concerns about the demands expected by their work (Guest, 2002). The perceived increase in these demands can be traced to three factors (Guest, 2002):

• Changes in the work environment
• Changes in life
• Changes in individual attitudes

History surrounding the concept of ‘work–life balance’

In the 1970s, the concept of WLB was initially framed as one concerning work–family balance (Lockwood, 2003). This was partly due to concerns surrounding women joining the workforce (Fleetwood, 2007). The workforce primarily comprised men, whereas women were often employed informally. However, when women could engage in formal employment, the result was that they had to juggle both work and family-life responsibilities.

However, the concept of WLB doesn’t affect women only.

For example:

• Men also play an essential role in child rearing.
• Men are not always the primary breadwinner in heterosexual couples.
• Gay couples also have to juggle both work and family-life responsibilities.

Furthermore, couples who do not have children and individuals who are not in relationships should not be excluded from issues around WLB.

Thus, societal pressures for equal labor opportunities and conditions, coupled with general shifts in industries and attitudes toward gender roles, resulted in more attention on WLB.

This is why the concept changed from work– family life balance to work– life balance, since our personal lives are not limited only to familial needs (Lockwood, 2003).

Other changes in the work environment have contributed to concerns about WLB.

• Technological advancements have increased work pressure.
• Deadlines have become increasingly tight.
• The expected response times for communication have become shorter.
• Expectations of superb customer service have become higher.

These changing work demands lead to inevitable changes in personal lives. For example, working overtime and on weekends leads to less time available to spend on personal life interests.

WLB has also been driven by changes in individual attitudes and values. One such example is how societal attitudes toward work and life have changed from one generation to the next (Thijssen, Van der Heijden, & Rocco, 2008; Wey Smola & Sutton, 2002). Specifically, the likelihood of remaining employed at one company has declined since the 1990s (Eby, Butts, & Lockwood, 2003). As a result, some workers may consider work as a separate, dynamic aspect of life that doesn’t require absolute commitment.

Definitions of WLB

There’s no cohesive, agreed-upon definition of work–life balance in the literature (Kalliath & Brough, 2008). However, the common understanding is that there are (at least) two domains in life: work and personal. Both domains require attention and investment, but not at the sacrifice of each other.

Kalliath and Brough (2008) provide the following set of statements that synthesize the various definitions of WLB provided in the literature:

• People perform different roles in their life, including a work role and a personal life role, and the demands of one role can carry over to the demands of another.
• People should be able to commit equal amounts of time and energy to all roles.
• People should feel satisfied with their own performance in various life domains and should function optimally in these domains. Their performance and function across life domains should not clash.
• The roles that people perform in their life and the importance they assign to these roles change. Therefore, satisfaction with WLB depends on which roles people have prioritized now and whether their expectations are met.
• WLB is achieved when there is little conflict between individuals’ work and personal roles.
• WLB is considered to be the degree of autonomy that people have over the demands of various roles and their ability to meet these demands.

Before becoming a professor at the University of Arkansas, Ryoichi Fujiwara was an academic in Japan. She shares the harmful physical symptoms that she experienced from overworking. She lost 22 pounds, was never hungry, couldn’t sleep, and was working every weekend.

At the advice of her doctor, she decided to start keeping regular work hours and avoiding overtime. She also started exercising regularly. After a few months, her appetite returned, and she has maintained a healthier work–life balance (Fujiwara, 2021).

Mohadeseh Ganji was the recipient of the Women Leading Tech Award for Data Science in 2020. She is aware that the nature of the job is to spend most of her working time in front of her computer.

To counter this, she makes an effort to be outdoors, even if only for a short period, and she tries to set boundaries around her working hours. Admittedly, sometimes she cannot maintain these boundaries, but she is aware of this and is always actively working to reinforce them (Fleetwood, 2021).

Monash University interviewed five women researchers at their university and asked them about the challenges that they experience in their jobs.

Most of the researchers touched on the idea of work–life balance, specifically juggling a heavy workload with family responsibilities. For example, Professor Andrea Reupert, Professor Jane Wilkinson, and Associate Professor Ruth Jeanes emphasized that:

• Sharing caregiving roles and responsibilities helps to ease stress experienced by working moms.
• Clear work–life boundaries with time dedicated to specific tasks helps achieve work–life balance (Allen, 2021).

Nigel Marsh worked in a corporate industry and experienced a common challenge: working too much with little time for his family. In his TEDx Talk , he gives his suggestions for what contributes to successful work–life balance.

In his often humorous talk, he argues that it’s difficult to achieve work–life balance, because core issues are not addressed.

These issues are:

• There is a societal emphasis on materialism.
• Individuals must be responsible for their own lives and must be allowed to set their own boundaries.
• Work–life balance isn’t achieved in a single day but could be achieved across a longer period of time.
• Balance means that multiple domains need to be attended to, and micro changes can have macro effects.

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Before heralding WLB as an optimal way of living, let’s first explore some assumptions about WLB within the extant literature.

Assumptions about work–life balance

The first two assumptions about WLB are that there are multiple domains in our lives, including work and personal, and that these domains can be separated (Eikhof, Warhurst, & Haunschild, 2007). However, the degree of separation differs among people and industries. For example, someone who runs a home business may find it more difficult to separate their work life from their personal life.

Another assumption is that we typically dedicate too much time and energy to the work domain. These resources are finite and can include time, energy, and motivation. The result of this imbalance is that we have too few resources to dedicate to other domains, specifically the personal domain (Eikhof et al., 2007).

Studies on WLB do not investigate an imbalance where too few resources are available for work.

Another assumption is that work is a negative domain that results in unhappiness, stress, and other negative states (Eikhof et al., 2007). Presumably, if a balance is struck between these two domains, then the negative effects of work are negated by the positive benefits of personal life. However, the WLB argument ignores how fulfilling and satisfying work can be (Eikhof et al., 2007).

Benefits of work–life balance

Achieving WLB benefits both work and personal lives (Chimote & Srivastava, 2013; Lockwood, 2003).

These benefits include:

• People have more time available to run personal errands, such as servicing cars, and address personal issues, such as going to the doctor. As a result, people are less likely to use work hours on non-work-related issues, use fewer sick days for personal errands, and can also look after themselves through regular medical checkups.
• People who have more time for their personal life report high job satisfaction and, as a result, are less likely to resign. They are also more motivated at work and more productive.
• Happier people who have high job satisfaction and more time for their personal life are less likely to develop illnesses and stress-related conditions.

One limitation of these theories is that the two domains are purposely considered to be separate constructs, and the people in the two domains are different. Therefore, these theories do not extend to situations where work is a family-run business (i.e., when your sibling is also your coworker).

The models are described below.

• Segmentation : The two domains – work and life – exist separately from each other, and there is no relationship between these two domains. Experiences in one domain do not affect experiences in the other.
• Spillover : Work and life domains are separate, but factors in one domain can affect the other. These effects can be negative or positive. Edwards and Rothbard (2000) provide the following definition: the behaviors, feelings, and values of the two domains become more similar.
• Compensation : Experiences and feelings in one domain can be used to make up or compensate for the gaps in another. A typical example is where dissatisfaction in one domain is negated by satisfaction in another. The process of compensation is an active and conscious decision (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000).
• Resource drain : Optimal functioning requires the availability of resources such as time, energy, and motivation. These resources, however, are finite. Sometimes, optimal functioning in one domain might require more resources from another. The transfer of resources is not considered an autonomous process, like in the compensation model (Edwards & Rothbard, 2000).
• Instrumental : The choices in one domain allow for maximum success in another.
• Congruence : Due to the presence of a third variable, the experiences across domains are similar. Examples of these third variables are individual qualities, such as personality or coping styles, or external factors, such as social influences.
• Conflict : The choices and needs of all domains compete for our limited resources, causing stress and/or unhappiness. As a result, our roles across various domains conflict with each other. Conflict may include reduced functioning in personal life due to work pressures (known as work–family conflict); it can also be the other way around, where family pressures impair occupational functioning and performance (known as family–work conflict; Bakker & Demerouti, 2013).
• An eighth theory, the spillover-crossover model , was posited by Bakker and Demerouti (2013). They argue that positive or negative experiences in one domain can spill over to another, but their effects can cross over and impact the wellbeing of other people.

Admittedly, the jury is still out on this question.

Some researchers and professionals have reservations about whether it is possible to achieve WLB (McCormack & Niehoff, 2019).

Although the definition of WLB has its shortcomings, there is enough research to suggest the following:

• It is possible to increase employee job and life satisfaction by improving workplace conditions.
• Stress can affect life satisfaction.
• Healthy WLB can positively affect health (Jones, Burke, & Westman, 2013).

The aim is not to treat WLB as a single goal, which, once achieved, is ignored and never addressed again. Instead, consider WLB to be a kinetic balancing toy.

Sometimes the balance will shift toward work; sometimes it will shift toward personal life. The point is to be aware of feelings about work and personal life and to engage in behaviors that will buttress against the negative effects of stress and of the scale shifting too much toward one particular life domain.

Another consideration is that WLB is not a universal, absolute value. In other words, two people can achieve balance in different ways and at different points along the work–life spectrum.

Reiter (2007) makes a convincing argument that ‘balance’ is subjective; instead of striving toward an absolute value of WLB, it is better to strive toward optimal functioning within different life domains with as little conflict as possible between them.

Work–life integration challenges some assumptions of the typical argument of WLB, specifically that work and personal life are separate domains.

Work–life integration is considered the midpoint between zero and complete segmentation of work and personal life (Morris & Madsen, 2007).

One unique contribution that work–life integration brings to the debate surrounding WLB is the function that the community can play. Researchers who promote work–life integration argue that people in the work, personal life, and community domains can work together to help one another achieve their goals in each domain.

Unfortunately, these same people can also impair success in various life domains. As a result, work–life integration can be considered as an ecosystem containing different people with different roles, and their actions with one another in multiple domains can help or hinder successful work–life integration.

Morris and Madsen (2007) argue that for successful work–life integration, people should consider the following points that can contribute to success and happiness across domains:

• Identifying, addressing, and supporting role demands in various life domains
• Identifying, addressing, and supporting relationship demands in various life domains
• Identifying, addressing, and supporting different responsibilities in various life domains
• Outlining a set of rules about behavior in various life domains but also identifying different responses to these rules and clarifying whether these rules are malleable or concrete
• Identifying the rituals (i.e., structured behaviors that are expected) in different domains and addressing whether these rituals hinder or help domain success
• Identifying the resources that are needed to achieve domain success but also assessing the availability of resources in each domain

Consider this example: Bjorn is newly wed and a new parent. He often works long hours at the local pharmacy. By coming home late, he has less time to spend with his wife and their new baby, and consequently he cannot offer as much emotional support to his wife as he would like. Bjorn is unhappy, and there is some tension between him and his wife; as a result, Bjorn feels angry toward his boss.

Work–life integration theory argues that people are not limited to their roles within only one particular domain; their actions in one domain can affect others.

Therefore, Bjorn’s employers and colleagues must recognize their role in his performance in other domains and put into place certain systems that can lead to optimal functioning in other domains.

Examples would include:

• Recognizing that the long hours are causing tension between Bjorn and his wife
• Recognizing that having a newborn is a stressful experience in general
• Allowing Bjorn to take parental leave
• Allowing Bjorn to work flexible hours so that he can help at home and make up the lost time in other ways
• Allowing Bjorn to take leave in order to take his baby to the doctor or run errands
• Organizing social events so that Bjorn and his wife can meet his colleagues and get advice from other experienced parents
• Communicating clear deadlines and tasks so that Bjorn knows that he is still on track at work and contributing meaningfully
• Communicating clearly with Bjorn if superiors/colleagues feel Bjorn is struggling to meet his deadlines

17 Exercises To Increase Happiness and Wellbeing

Add these 17 Happiness & Subjective Well-Being Exercises [PDF] to your toolkit and help others experience greater purpose, meaning, and positive emotions.

Created by Experts. 100% Science-based.

We have several tools that can help your client achieve WLB, and a great start is this coaching article – Coaching on Work–Life Balance: 11 Strategies & Questions with practical strategies.

A highly recommended worksheet is Meeting Needs With Reality Therapy . This worksheet helps clients understand their needs and what actions they could take to meet them.

This tool can be used repeatedly with the same client at various stages of their life because their needs and life circumstances will change with time. The tool takes 20 minutes and could be completed in-session or at home.

If your client approaches you after a negative experience, then you could consider using the Vicious Versus Virtuous Stress Thinking worksheet. In this worksheet, clients can use a table to consider unhelpful versus helpful thinking regarding an event.

This tool is very helpful for clients who may struggle with stress that is perpetuated by negative (vicious) cycles of thinking. Clients learn a useful technique to reframe unhelpful beliefs and thinking and adopt a virtuous cycle of thinking to make the best of what is outside and inside their control.

If you’re looking for more science-based ways to help others develop strategies to boost their wellbeing, this collection contains 17 validated happiness and wellbeing exercises . Use them to help others pursue authentic happiness and work toward a  life filled with purpose and meaning.

Maintaining work–life balance is a continuous lifelong process, and the balance will tilt toward different domains. This tilting is normal; sometimes we need to give more to work, other times to family.

The goal is not to ‘achieve’ work–life balance, because this implies that there is some type of finality to the journey. Balance achieved? Check. Move on.

Instead, the journey toward WLB is dynamic, requires regular reflection, and is different for each person. Therefore, the goal is to be aware of the different roles that we are balancing and to evaluate whether we are meeting those responsibilities in a way that we are satisfied with. Through self-evaluation and self-awareness, we learn more about what balance means to us.

We hope you enjoyed reading this article. Don’t forget to download our three Happiness Exercises for free .

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• Bakker, A. B., & Demerouti, E. (2013). The spillover-crossover model. In J. G. Grzywacz & E. Demerouti (Eds.), Current issues in work and organizational psychology. New frontiers in work and family research (pp. 54–70). Psychology Press.
• Chimote, N. K., & Srivastava, V. N. (2013). Work-life balance benefits: From the perspective of organizations and employees. IUP Journal of Management Research , 12 (1), 62–73.
• Eby, L. T., Butts, M., & Lockwood, A. (2003). Predictors of success in the era of the boundaryless career.  Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior ,  24 (6), 689–708.
• Edwards, J. R., & Rothbard, N. P. (2000). Mechanisms linking work and family: Clarifying the relationship between work and family constructs. Academy of Management Review , 25 (1), 178–199.
• Eikhof, D. R. , Warhurst, C., & Haunschild, A. (2007). Introduction: What work? What life? What balance? Critical reflections on the work-life balance debate. Employee Relations ,  29 (4), 325–333.
• Fleetwood, C. (2021, March 3). Mohadeseh Ganji reveals how she balances screen time with everyday life. B&T Magazine. Retrieved March 3, 2021, from https://www.bandt.com.au/mohadeseh-ganji-phd-reveals-how-she-balances-screen-time-with-everyday-life-more/
• Fleetwood, S. (2007). Why work–life balance now? The International Journal of Human Resource Management , 18 (3), 387–400.
• Fujiwara, R. (2021, February 11). Overworking tanked my health—until I began to prioritize work-life balance. Science. Retrieved March 3, 2021, from https://www.sciencemag.org/careers/2021/02/overworking-tanked-my-health-until-i-began-prioritize-work-life-balance
• Jones, F., Burke, R. J., & Westman, M. (Eds.). (2013). Work-life balance: A psychological perspective . Psychology Press.
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• McCormack, B. M., & Niehoff, L. (2019, October 17). There is no work-life balance. Litigation Journal. Retrieved from https://www.americanbar.org/groups/litigation/publications/litigation_journal/2019-20/fall/there-no-worklife-balance/
• Morris, M. L., & Madsen, S. R. (2007). Advancing work—life integration in individuals, organizations, and communities. Advances in Developing Human Resources , 9 (4), 439–454.
• Reiter, N. (2007). Work life balance: What do you mean? The ethical ideology underpinning appropriate application. The Journal of Applied Behavioral Science , 43 (2), 273–294.
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This article is helpful as I am running 3 services – helpline, counselling and mentoring. These exercises is going to be helpful any of these clients in our services. Thank you

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