Eric Walker

I stumbled upon this older TED talk (was recorded back in 2010) and felt it worth sharing. I think it is a topic is still very relevant today as most employers always talk about how they are giving employees great work-life balance. However, one point that Nigel Marsh points out is the following:

Certain job, and career choices are fundamentally incompatible with being meaningful engaged on a daily basis with a young family. - Nigel Marsh

Seeing how I have a young family at home I can relate how each employees definition of what Work-Life balance should be and should look like can differ drastically. As I have only worked at a couple companies through out my career, I know each has had their own version of work-life balance and I would say each had good and bad parts to it.

If you don’t design your life someone else WILL design it for you and you may not like their idea of balance. - Nigel Marsh

For me, I work for a company that is fairly flexible in my opinion. I won’t say everything is exactly how I would imagine my perfect day but they value family and that helps for where I am at in my life. I think for my personal situation it is trying to balance my own definition of how I want work/life to balance out on a daily, weekly, monthly basis given my situation, job, priorities. It is a constant balancing act between all of those points which is why there isn’t a one size fits all solution and you just need to make the most of it.

What is your definition of work-life balance?