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

Exercise

Task 2

Exercise

Discussion

How do you manage your work–life balance?

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Language level

B1 Intermediate

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hmm ..how i can manage my time ? actually as i work as programmer , so i can be work as freelancer so that's should i schedule my time alone ,however i have some restricted time from manager everyday like 5 hours each day, i should finished hours thats what should i do to make business work well.

I strike a balance.

I’m sometimes snowed under and feel stressed, but since I like my job which is enjoyable, I can’t help but control myself and try to strike the balance.

How do you manage your work–life balance? Oh.... it's a tough question for me at the momen! ੈ✩‧₊˚₍ᐢ⸝⸝› ̫ ‹⸝⸝ᐢ₎

I work nine hours per day, however my boss is flexible with my working hours. He allows me take time for other things like make personal paperwork, travel and other personal moments. I have my mail in my phone and forever I response the important mail of my job no matter the day of the week.

I have completed the following lessons of Work-life balance. The level that I chose was Intermediate B1 Listening

Unfortunately I do not manage my work life balance very well . I often stay in work till 8 pm and reach home late at 9 pm . just eat and sleep . At the weekend I just lies on the couch all the day .

i do believe that work-life balance is one of the most important things we should care about in order to be successful,so i always try to do every thing within an order.i think that work hours must be predefined and there must be a commitment to do the job things exactly as much as those hours in a day.not more and not less.and then we should have our free times to be ready to go on our work next day.in my free times i try to include different things that i think i need them in my life.although one important thing that can always help is flexibility, for example we can do part of our work in the evening or night and have our free time in the morning or afternoon , this needs a little of scheduling skills that one can achieve during life.

How do you manage your work–life balance? At Shipping and Logistics Industry, we have long working hours and it is more like mixed Traditional and Modern Working environments. For example, if our shipments are not very important or customers give us flexible timing and schedule then we can be flexible, can take works to our home with Laptops. But when the shipments are urgent and very important, or we have the meetings with our Top Level Management, then we have to do overtime working, even we need to work on the weekend and holidays, until the important shipments are done and problems solved. But we can also delegate some of our tasks to the team, so we can take the leave turn by turn basis. Normally, we have weekend off days and I try to take complete rest and off the grid myself, if things are not too important and urgent.