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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Nature helps me being resilient. ;)

My work life and private life is very flexible. I think most of the people in this world have modern work life where flexibility exist. I manage very my work life very efficiently. I go to watch movies or do swimming. And spend precious time with family. In this time my country official announced lockdown due to very dangerous variant of covid. I'm doing Work from home. I have much spend time with family and friends.

I try to manage the work-life balance doing a schedule weekly where I plan the things that I have to do and I have a work time and respect it

sometimes its difficult .to manage your time between working and your private life .especially if you want to go out with your friends or your family

I think it's more relaxed when you can split up the work. So you have no stress and you can still live your family life. In addition, you don't have to be stressful to get to work quickly; you can relax and do your work on the couch. I think the Corona pandemic is exactly the same for many people as in the Situation described above. They have to organize their life or even work from home. I think that a lot of people can do a good job of balancing their professional and private lives.

I believe that so far the working flexibility is practised little in my country, , because the employers have a very close mentality, both in public bodies and in the companies. I hope that the smart working - made necessary by Covid - can convince them of the advantages of this new work-life balance.

Work life balance is very important in everyone's life period . I have managed my work with suitable fix hours. I do not work on the weekend . During this time I spend my time with my family . I enjoy indoor sports, walking ,shopping and watching movies on television with my loving family.

I think everything depends on how someone wants to spend his to her time. Traditional and Modern work places have their own pros and cons. Work life balance depends on the priorities you set for yourself. It also involves your physical and mental abilities. If someone is too lazy and cannot handle multi tasking it will be difficult to bring Work-life balance.

I try to mix my work and free time, however sometimes i just take time to relax, because the work routine becames very stressful.

I'm happy because I'm the boss in my work and in these environments, I can manage my work-life balance. I usually work a couple of hours per day, often in the evenings, at the weekends and holidays, so my work is flexible. These give me the ability to do different stuff per day without work.