What does work-life balance mean to you?

I have been researching the concept of work-life balance, and am a bit surprised by what I am finding.  I have always thought of work-life balance as balancing work (job) with my life outside of work (the things I must do and the things I like to do outside of work: my passions, and family).  What I am finding in the literature is many discussions of work (job) and life (only family) … no mention of passions, or what people do to recharge their batteries.  Hmm.

Basically, it seems as if the concept of “work-life” balance is recognized as balancing the demands of work with the demands of family.  I guess this surprises me because, while it is very important to balance those two spheres, one could spend all their time working at their job and on family responsibilities yet have no true balance in their lives.

One way of looking at this discrepancy could be that work-life balance is being defined as time management and not true balance.  The majority of people are trying to manage the demands on their time.  Everyone has lots of demands on their time: partner/spouse, children, parents, extended families, friends, work (the need to make a living and the requirement to do one’s job effectively while doing more with less), and more.

For me, work-life balance means balancing my work life (which I both love and need) and my outside of work life (the things I must do and my passions)…. far more than only work and family.

So, my question is, what does work-life balance mean to you?

Roller derby librarian

While I know most of us have at least 2 lives (our “at work” lives and our “outside of work” lives), Yvette Ipsaralexi’s outside of work life is as a roller derby girl!  Pretty cool!  The Globe and Mail has a video-documentary up (dated Sept 15, 2008) at: Dewey by day, derby by night, and it is very interesting to watch. As most of us know, appearances can be deceiving.  Yvette may not look like a roller derby girl when she is at work, but she enjoys the sport of roller derby immensely … and enjoys the hitting of the sport.  Looks like a lot of fun to me, but I will stick with simple roller-skating, not roller derby.