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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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.

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 :)

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.

Actually I don't have a job. However, I have University classes, and I study English on my own. I have a strict schedule and actually I'm not really good at following it because sometimes time flows, and I get stressful, so my schedule is something like this: 1) I wake at 6:30 or 7:00 am to read the material of my classes (I read the material in English because I use an app to translate it from Spanish into English) 3) At 8:00 am my classes start, sometimes they are from 8 to 11:00 am or from 8 to 12:00 pm 4) I try to do the homework during the class time 5) When my classes finish I eat my breakfast. Well, this is not common. I usually eat my breakfast during the classes. 6) Then I get ready to practice my English until lunch time 7) When I finish my lunch I get back to study English again until dinner time 8) Finally, when I finish my dinner I talk to my parents about their day, and also I relax a little bit 9) After done that at night, I study English for a little bit longer 10) Finally, I go to sleep

i try to do my works in the office but i don't manage balance life- work successfully .

Yes, it's a good idea to make a plan before action. "An hour of planning can save you 10 hours of doing". :)

i sometimes make plan for private and my works.

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