Work Life Balance

Most people view life's goal is to be happy. I believe that's misguided. If the goal is happiness, one could, for example, spend all your time gardening, watching comedies, having sex, etc. Yet if everyone did that, the planet would be far worse: Patients would die, homes wouldn't get built and products ...

Everybody seems to have an opinion on the best ways to combine work and family without being consumed by stress and misery and doubt. But AOL Jobs contributor Laura Vanderkam has made it her business to figure out exactly how people manage their lives successfully, by the minute. She's investigated the daily ...

By Chrissy Scivicque Does it seem like people are always slamming you with impossibly urgent requests? Do you ever feel like you'll only meet your deadlines if you work extra hours or take work home on weekends? Are the demands placed on you so intense that you find yourself wondering how anyone does it ...

Most experts preach the importance of taking a vacation. And there are plenty of studies showing it's good for your health, productivity and creativity. But in America, most of us are limited to two weeks paid vacation. And most of us don't take even that in large part because we fear for our jobs, according ...

By Jim Edwards Linds Redding, a New Zealand-based art director who worked at BBDO and Saatchi & Saatchi, died last month at aged 52 from an inoperable esophageal cancer. Redding also kept a blog, and after his passing an essay he wrote about the ad business, titled "A Short Lesson In Perspective," ...

By Lindsay Olson If family ranks high on your list of priorities, your life will run much smoother if you work for a company that is family friendly. But definitions vary: Some companies just provide the bare-minimum requirements (like unpaid time off for having a baby), while others go above and beyond ...

By Heather Legg Job interviews are frustrating enough. Trying to pick out the perfect look, getting there on time (but not too early), doing research on the position ... you have plenty to worry about. Then there's the actual interview: answering the questions thoroughly (but not rambling), seeming ...

Hang around in certain circles long enough, and you hear a lot about 70-hour work weeks. Then, after that complaint, you start hearing about 80-hour workweeks, and so forth in the arms race. People claim they fantasize about 60-hour workweeks, billed by some as the new "part-time." We may feel we're ...

Back during the whole Marissa-Mayer-is-pregnant dust-up this summer, I mentioned that being the CEO is actually a great job for the mom of small kids. If you're late to a 9 a.m. meeting, people will wait for you. If you don't want to work from 5:30-8 p.m., people will take your calls at 8:30. They fly to ...

Question: I need to do a better job of avoiding "insecurity work" (constantly checking social media updates, email, etc.). What strategies do you use to ensure that technology does not get the best of you during the day? ...

If you're like most Americans, you probably feel like Labor Day snuck up on you. That's because you spent most of the summer working -- or looking for work. The majority of American workers don't use up all their vacation time, most of them leaving an average of 11 days on the table, according to one survey (via ...

By Gadi Ben-Yehuda What makes today's young professionals different than previous generations? For the past decade at least, Americans have been subject to variations of "40 is the new 30." A mantra that is supposed to allow older people to do the things that had previously been relegated to younger ...

Employers need to stop blaming Facebook. At least if you believe the results of a new nationwide survey commissioned by TrackVia, the maker of a cloud-based application platform. The survey asked 300 workers to name their biggest time wasters. Only 5 percent respondents cited Facebook, Twitter or another ...

By Cindy Perman Stressed out at work? Take a number. Nearly three-fourths (73 percent) of American workers are stressed out by at least one thing at work, according to Everest College's 2012 Work Stress Survey conducted by Harris Interactive. ...

Many workers are eager to work from home, and more employers are accommodating them. But what do these workers actually do all day? Are they as productive as the rest of us toiling away in our cubicles? Well, maybe not. A recent survey asked work-from-home employees if they do non-work activities. Many ...

By Elaheh Nozari, LearnVest Working from home today? It could have a serious effect on your career. The Wall Street Journal recently reported the results of a new study that suggests employees who work from home or remotely may end up getting lower performance evaluations, smaller raises and fewer ...

Maybe you've heard the news: Marissa Mayer, an executive who has been climbing the corporate ladder at Google was just named as Yahoo's new chief executive. What seems to be even bigger news: She is pregnant (it's a boy) and due Oct. 7. Reports indicate that she let Yahoo's board know about her pregnancy at ...

By Jocelyn Noveck NEW YORK -- "Another piece of good news today," tweeted the expectant mom, announcing to her online followers that she and her husband are awaiting a baby boy. But this wasn't just any excited mom-to-be. This was 37-year-old Marissa Mayer, the newly named CEO of Yahoo -- obviously a ...

There was a time, not so long ago, when I was busy, busy, busy. At least I thought I was. I told people I worked 60 hours a week. I claimed to sleep six hours a night. As I lamented to anyone stuck next to me at parties, I was basically too busy to breathe. Me time? Ha! ...

Long-time readers of my articles know that I have a favorite data set: The American Time Use Survey. This annual study from the Bureau of Labor Statistics asks thousands of Americans to keep track of their time. Because it is broad, and based on actual days, as opposed to how people recollect "typical" days, ...