#work-life-balance

#work-life-balance

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Dorenne Simonson, 66, who is her granddaughter's kinship care provider in New Jersey. Simonson has parented her since she was two months old. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. I've always been in a situation where I had to spend whatever I made. There's no retirement account when you're single and raise five kids by yourself.

The overwhelming truth is that modern parenting support often falls short of addressing this never-ending cycle of mental responsibility. What many don't realize is that AI technology and smart home devices offer real relief for family life, not by replacing the love and care parents provide, but by streamlining the administrative chaos that steals quality time with your family.

Ever notice how the biggest sacrifices we make for our families are often the ones that go completely unnoticed? I've been thinking about this lately, especially as I watch friends navigate their forties and fifties. These are the years when we're supposed to have it all figured out, right? Yet they're also when we quietly give up pieces of ourselves that nobody ever really talks about.

But some people dare to imagine something bigger and find ways to get a substantial breather from stress or their day-to-day routines. Mini-sabbaticals. Adult gap years. Micro-retirement. Extended career breaks go by many names and take many forms, from using the time between jobs to explore or taking an employer-approved leave to becoming a digital nomad or saving up for a monthslong adventure.

Last week, I sat on the couch in our apartment in Itaim Bibi after cleaning the kitchen, prepping Emilia's snacks, and texting my husband about a grocery list. It was past midnight. I wasn't even doing anything special. Just scrolling. I knew the alarm would go off at 7 a.m. and I'd regret it. Yet I stayed up anyway, savoring the quiet like it was contraband.

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If you're like most people, you'd probably pick the first guy. But here's what you can't see: The Tesla driver is drowning in debt, works 80-hour weeks at a job he hates, and hasn't had a genuine conversation with his kids in months. Meanwhile, the cyclist runs his own business, spends afternoons with his family, and sleeps peacefully every night.

Looking for work to do. Not like a job, but my parents and older family all complain constantly they have no free time. But all they do is make themselves work. Cut down some trees, rearrange the entire house, dig up the yard. Just always making themselves work.

Students entering the workforce have ranked a good salary as their highest priority when looking for a job, according to new research. Leading fintech firm CompareNI.com carried out a survey of 100 students to find out their expectations of the workplace and what they value most when job hunting. Over a third (39%) placed money as the primary factor when looking at a prospective employer, with career progression ranking a close second (35%).

Around one in four employees at Goldman are engineers, and Cohen held various engineering leadership roles before becoming a partner in 2024. Her current team now automates the asset management business' operations to help it scale.Goldman's asset and wealth management division holds a record $3.6 trillion in assets and has grown under CEO David Solomon's leadership.Cohen's approach to delegation plays out both at work and at home. Some responsibilities, Cohen said, are "truly non-discretionary," but others can be passed on either to colleagues at work or family members at home.

Resume Builder reported last October that 30% of companies will eliminate remote work in 2026. According to a survey of business leaders by Vena Solutions , a private financial software company, 83% of CEOs globally anticipate a return to full-time office work in 2027. But what if there's a better way to frame this conversation? What if the focus shifts away from where employees are working to when employees are working?

I studied abroad in Spain, and really loved it there. It opened my world and gave me more perspective, so I knew I wanted to go abroad after I graduated. I was interested in bioenergy, and that industry isn't very developed in the US. After doing some research, I landed on Finland, which has a huge forestry and bioenergy industry. The Nordics, in general, also have a lot of English-language master's degree programs. Through a Fulbright scholarship, I moved to Finland to pursue my master's degree.

I wish this was a one-off blip in my regimented friendship schedule, but all through 2025 I played the world's slowest game of message tennis. I'd invite a pal for dinner, only for the world to turn, the seasons pass, grey hairs gather at my temples, before a date was finally locked in. This sentiment seems to be common among my circle.

Germany's part-time workforce has indeed increased significantly over the decades, but that is due in large part to families no longer being able to survive on a single income, as well as technological changes that have left many people choosing part-time work over no work at all. Citing data from Germany's federal statistics agency, DeStatis, MIT has pointed out that in 2022, 27% of part-time workers in Germany reported their reasons for not working full-time as simply "a desire to work part-time."

They may be spending a lot of combined time at the office and commuting, or just putting in a lot of hours both at work and at home. Fixing that problem can't be done abstractly, though. If you're going to address the balance of work and life activities, you have to start getting specific about where your time is going and where you really want it to go.

The effort comes as competition for AI talent intensifies worldwide and tech workers in the US grapple with layoffs, burnout, and visa complications. According to BCG's 2024 talent tracker report, the US remained dominant in attracting AI talent worldwide. Already known for its tech scene, Finland, with a population of around 5.6 million, is positioning itself as a place where American tech workers can find a better work-life balance without sacrificing their careers - a notable contrast to the famous grindset of Silicon Valley.

In reality, the job of my dreams consisted of overnight flights where I'd get little to no rest, then hit the ground running as soon as I arrived at my destinations. After I'd fly back home from some trips, it would take me nearly a week to recover from jet lag. My stress levels were often cranked up, dealing with flight delays, deadlines, and navigation across different states and countries.

Denise and I met at our new faculty orientation, which seems like a lifetime ago, and grew up together as academics. She chose administration early on, and I taught for decades before giving up faculty status to become a full-time fellowship director. As she advanced from dean to provost to president, my role as the administrative "trailing" spouse altered in both subtle and overt ways at each new institution, but the core was always rooted in our dedication to the universities we served and to each other.

Somewhere along the way, I started wearing burnout like a badge of honour. In weekly lab check-ins, I make sure to mention I was in the lab over the weekend - slipping in a quiet signal that I was going above and beyond. I've made sure to send e-mails early in the morning or late at night to demonstrate I was working long hours.

"I married somebody who is the opposite of me. He is so organized," Lawrence said during an appearance on Tuesday's episode of the "Smartless" podcast. "He's an anchor. Everything is ordered, like on the sink. Like I have to, you know, like keep the closet doors closed, and I have like my little jobs that I work really hard to do," she said.

Michael Bloomberg may be worth more than $100 billion, but he doesn't think that salary is everything when it comes to early jobs. "People make the mistake of going to work for a place where they get paid the most. Particularly when you're young, that's not what life is about," Bloomberg said in an interview with Nicolai Tangen, the CEO of Norges Bank Investment Management, that aired on January 7.

That title's not a typo. The 5-to-9 is the time period before and after the 9-to-5 workday. Social media influencers have racked up millions of views showing off their outside-of-work schedules-#5to9routine has more than 35 million views on TikTok. During these videos, quick cuts of clips show off aspirational mornings and evenings packed with journaling, working out, meditating, cleaning, side hustling, and more. The trend's an offshoot of the " 5am club," which counts Mark Zuckerberg and Michelle Obama as early-rising members.

I was off work for a few weeks, but without paid leave I had to return sooner than doctors advised. I worked from home for a few months since I still couldn't drive. I loved the challenge of the work, the way no day was ever the same, and I had thrived on that pace. But I was still recovering. Winded by the smallest physical activity, I struggled with memory, and words sometimes came out scrambled or not at all.