#work-life-balance

#work-life-balance

"This notion that somehow you can achieve greatness, you can build something extraordinary by working 38 hours a week and having work life balance, that is mind-boggling to me," Andrew Feldman, cofounder and CEO of $8.1 billion AI chip company Cerebras, stressed recently on the 20VC podcast. "It's not true in any part of life." As many U.S. workers push for shorter workweeks, America's founders are still sticking with "grindset" culture as the formula for trillion-dollar success.

The number of job ads offering work-from-home perks is on the decline, but there are some industries still holding onto the pandemic-era arrangement. The labour market is tough for job seekers across much of the country and employers in some sectors have realised they don't have to offer the same level of flexibility to attract the best talent. New SEEK data has revealed only 9 per cent of ads now mention WFH, which is down slightly from a 2023 peak of 10 per cent per cent.

Jeff Mateja doesn't think so. A former corporate auditor at IBM and current top listing agent at Keller Williams, Mateja works old-school banker's hours: Monday to Friday, 9:00 to 5:00. He goes to the beach on Sundays with everyone else. He doesn't mind the crowds. He also lists more houses than some large teams. His latest claim to fame: Listing 90 homes in 90 days. Well, technically 72 days. He only works five days a week.

Bad pay and bigger asks from parents are other factors driving young educators from our schools for careers with better work-life balance - at a time when over 1,800 teaching posts remain unfilled

Courtney El Refai may call Sweden home, but every six weeks the 32-year-old commutes some 5,300 miles away to work at a San Francisco hospital as a neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) nurse. While some may call it crazy, El Refai said it's all worth it for her dream job. Making over $100 an hour on a per diem schedule, she only has to work four, eight-hour shifts every four weeks.

After Los Angeles native Aaron Leshtz earned his degree in architecture from the University of Southern California, he accepted a position at Studio Sofield in New York City. It was more than a job, but a pivotal period that left a lasting impression. "Stylistically it was very different from what I had done before or even studied in school," says Leshtz. "The work was varied, thoughtful, and always emphasized craft and materiality over anything else."

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Dana Schoolsky, a 24-year-old working in monetization strategy and operations at TikTok in New York City. It's been edited for length and clarity. When I worked in investment banking as an analyst, everything felt urgent, as if a fire alarm was going off at all times. I felt on edge even after leaving the office, never knowing when I might be called to action to do more work, which took a toll on me.

Between teaching MBA students and speaking to a lot of business audiences, I'm often interacting with successful people who work extremely long hours. It's common for me to hear about 13-hour workdays and seven-day workweeks, with few or no vacations. What I see among many of those I encounter is workaholism, a pathology characterized by continuing to work during discretionary time, thinking about work all the time, and pursuing job tasks well beyond what's required to meet any need.

"I just used to completely sacrifice myself for whatever the thing was I was trying to achieve," Watson said on an Episode of "On Purpose" by Jay Shetty yesterday. "Making films, the hours on them are so demanding, that to have your own life alongside that, to have that balance is almost impossible," the star with an estimated $85 million net worth added.

For repetitive tasks or errands, it makes sense for some people to hire a helping hand for the price of $50 or $60 an hour-or even cheaper if you enlist the services of AI. And while there's only so much someone who isn't employed by your company can do for you when it comes to work matters, there's still plenty they can do otherwise that could help your work-life balance.

Millennials and Gen Z are poised to rise in the ranks, however much of the business canon and available literature offers advice from an irrelevant world-a world before hybrid offices, social media, and kiss cams at Coldplay concerts. Leaders are navigating digital and IRL (in real life) challenges where the older generations' leadership styles are incongruous with the current moment's needs.

"Oh, for sure," adding, "I'm exhausted. I'm completely wrung-out and tired."

In 2017, I gave birth to my son, and also a midlife crisis. Suddenly, my two-hour commute from our home in New York City to my job as an economist at the University of Pennsylvania went from inconvenient but sustainable to the bane of my existence. And my marriage, which had seemed flawed but in a cute, work-in-progress kind of way, suddenly seemed to be falling apart at the seams.

Not all careers come with tight deadlines, loud offices, or high-stakes decisions.

Now, Honig is bringing her innovation-first mindset to Samsung in the newly created role that puts her at the helm of the tech giant's customer experience and AI transformation. Her remit? Help customers understand how they can use AI more day-to-day. "I believe we are going through the most exciting phases of change in our history," she adds. "The AI revolution is one of the most important technological shifts we'll experience in our lifetime."

My wife works two days a week, one weekend day and one weekday, while I work full time making the large majority of our income. Her job is very important (medical field), and she is a great mom, does a ton of housework, and is all around a wonderful person. I'm fully taking all of that into account when I vent here,

These days, we hear much said on social media - sure­ly too much - in favor of the "hus­tle cul­ture" and the "grind mind­set" (or, abbre­vi­at­ed for max­i­mum effi­cien­cy, the "grind­set"). Ded­i­ca­tion to your work is to be admired, pro­vid­ed that the work itself is of val­ue, but the more of a day's hours you devote to it, the like­li­er returns are to dimin­ish.

I love work. I love working late nights, hacking on things. This week I didn't go to sleep before midnight once. And yet... I also love my wife and kids. I love long walks, contemplating life over good coffee, and deep, meaningful conversations. None of this would be possible if my life was defined by 12 hour days, six days a week. More importantly, a successful company is not a sprint, it's a marathon.

Severance is the first hospital in South Korea to trial a four-day workweek, aiming to improve the work-life balance of its staff. Under the program, introduced in 2023 following an agreement between labour and management, some hospital employees are allowed to take three days off per week in exchange for a 10 percent reduction in salary. Staff take turns participating in six-month rotations, after which they return to a five-day week.