Work–life balance

Work–life balance

Listen to a radio interview about maintaining a good work–life balance to practise and improve your listening skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

Transcript

Presenter: Good morning, everyone. On today's show, we've got Chris Svensson with us, the author of No more nine to five, the new best-selling book about work–life balance in the current working world. Good morning, Chris. Thanks for coming.

Chris: Thanks for having me, Anna.

Presenter: So, Chris, tell us about your book and how the concept of a work–life balance has been changing?

Chris: Well, in the more traditional workplaces, people's working lives and their private lives are, or were, clearly divided. People often work from nine in the morning until five or six in the evening. People sometimes stay late in the office and work in the evenings. This is called working overtime.

Presenter: OK, and what else?

Chris: Well, in these environments it isn't common for people to work at the weekend or while they're on holiday. They can clearly separate their working lives and their private lives. And the evenings, weekends and holidays are free to focus on non-work areas of life, such as hobbies, interests, sports, spending time with the family and friends, and so on. It's important and healthy not to spend all your time just working, right?

Presenter: Right! So what has changed? How are things different now?

Chris: Well, for a start, most people can now access their work emails from their mobile phones. So they are more likely to quickly reply to an important mail in the evening or at the weekend. The same goes for laptops. It's easier to access your work in the evenings from home or even from your hotel when you're on holiday.

Presenter: That doesn't sound like much of a work–life balance. It sounds like all work.

Chris: Exactly, but this new mobility brings a lot of advantages with it. More people are now able to work flexibly, so if they need to leave the office early one afternoon to be with their family, they can catch up on work that evening from home or somewhere else.

Presenter: That sounds good. So, what you're saying is that although traditional divisions between work and life are fading, many employees now have more freedom to do their work from different locations and at different times.

Chris: Yes, that's it.

Task 1

Task 2

Discussion

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Average: 4.3 (51 votes)
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Submitted by vsanchez75 on Mon, 24/01/2022 - 21:28

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With the pandemic, del world has changed. The world has addapted to use a new technologies, to me this is good because for some people it helped to be more productive, has a balance, spare time with their families. But for the people who works with technolgies ir more exigent to keep all the devices working.

Submitted by Miguelitorico1996 on Sat, 15/01/2022 - 21:43

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I work from half past 7 a.m until 5 p.m during the week, so I have free time in the evenings for practising sports and going to the gym. On weekends I sometimes go to shopping or to the cinema to a mall with some relatives or friends.

Submitted by jmajo on Wed, 12/01/2022 - 17:22

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Well, I try to maintain a positive wok-life balance in which I could be able to get my day job done on time and get home after that without the need of keep worrying about my tasks or what it would need to be done the next day, it's important to me not to fade the limits of work and personal life because we all need some time to rest, study, meet with friends or do whatever we want in our spare time, the concept of work is to do a mental or physical activity effort in exchange for money and I wouldn't be able to do that all the day because I need the freedom to do other things. Despite sometimes I reckon I do some overtime to get some work done on time and to get more money, I prefer not to do that very often. In my line of work I consider the mobility an advantage because I don't spend time traveling to an office so I would have more free time before and after work.

Thanks for the lesson.
Great site!

Submitted by LinoshkaM on Wed, 12/01/2022 - 01:15

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I manage my work-life balance by doing charts and using calendars to have better management of my time and distribute well my things to do in my work and personal life.

Submitted by misty on Sun, 09/01/2022 - 04:18

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Time management is my key in balancing my work-life. I make sure that after work, I spend time with my family.

Submitted by vuhoap on Tue, 07/12/2021 - 13:18

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I manage my work-life balance by traditional type. My working lives and my private lives are clearly divided. Because of the Corona pandemic, so I am working from Home. I usually work from half past nine in the morning until half past six in the evening in the days of week. I prefer traditional type to modern type because I can focus on my work at the fixed time and don't need to worry about it in weekends or holidays. I think that's really balanced.

Submitted by assia on Tue, 02/11/2021 - 20:21

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althought i work from home as freelencer developer using my computer , i still using traditional way because it separate my private private live than work , i always start working from ten o'clock to afternoon then i take on hour for lunch and tacke a nap ,then i go back to work again until six o'clock, at this that time i stop my work until tomorro. i don't like modern way because it keep me thinking in work full day , also it didn't keep my day organised.

Submitted by Suraj paliwal on Sun, 10/10/2021 - 15:06

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I have no private life so questions of work life balance never arises. I'm not married and focus on one thing only my growth.

Submitted by Stela Stoycheva on Thu, 05/08/2021 - 12:58

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I`m happy of that I saw in my life even of 30 years both ways Traditional and Modern workplace. Traditional in Bulgaria and Modern in UK and in both of them have + and - But with modern I have more money and that`s mean less time for hobbies, but if I make good plan, I can do excellent combination. In traditional workplace, everything is ok... but Modern provide more flexibility... Now I`m new mummy and plans I can do when baby sleeping :D but still if I prioritise tasks, I have time for everything :)
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Submitted by iEdd on Thu, 15/07/2021 - 17:46

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I don't any work right now, but when I do, I could manage my time between work, family and hobbies. It was my routine that moment. Now, when I'm unemployed, I keep an routine that starts reading, then cooking and finally studying english just before loof my daughter after at the afternnons.