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In all my years of counselling those near death, I've yet to hear anyone say they wish they had spent more time at the office
Sep 17, 2025
The phrase "work-life balance" tells us that people think that work is the opposite of life. We should be talking about life-life balance.
So there's no such thing as work-life balance. There's work, and there's life, and there's no balance.
No one ever dies wishing they'd spent more time at the office.
Most weeks, I work 100-plus hours on TheMuse.com. There are definitions of 'work-life balance' that would say I have none.
When you're gone would you rather have your gravestone say, 'He never missed a meeting.' Or one that said, 'He was a great father.'
Tennis is all about mental toughness, and you have to keep your head in the game. I make time to relax away from competition pressures, travel and intense training schedules to make sure I'm looking after myself. Taking time out with family and friends helps to maintain the work-life balance everyone needs.
Failure of your company is not failure in life. Failure in your relationships is.
Imagine working 20% smarter instead of 20% longer...Work-life balance and startup success at any stage aren't mutually exclusive. There are enough hours in the day to be effective and present.
Don’t have work-life balance - at least in the sense of trying to escape from work so you can have a life. Work should be fun - so make work enjoyable and satisfying for everyone - among other reasons because it pays off.
If you're searching for "work/life balance" you'll always be disappointed because "balance" connotes a zero-sum equation.
I wish I had spent more time at the office.
There's no such thing as work-life balance. There are work-life choices, and you make them, and they have consequences.
The number of stressors has multiplied exponentially: traffic, money, success, work/life balance, the economy, the environment, parenting, family conflict, relationships, disease. As the nature of human life has become far more complicated, our ancient stress response hasn't been able to keep up.
I think it will help people have a better work-life balance, that's really important - that's the centre ground for me, it's the issues people care about in their lives.
In a broken marriage, it can be challenging and tough to get that work/life balance. I love performing but I also love being a mum, and I hate having to choose between them.
So every time you think about your work-life balance issue, remember what your boss is thinking about - and that's winning. Your needs may get heard - and even successfully resolved - but not if the boss's needs aren't met as well.
Don't settle, as with all matters of the heart you'll know when you find it
The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle.
If you haven't found it yet, keep looking.
I believe a balanced life is essential, and I try to make sure that all of our employees know that and live that way. It's crucial to me as a manager that I help ensure that our employees are as successful as our customers and partners.
Wrestling with work-life balance is a luxury when working to support a family is a necessity rather than a choice. I think that focus is only partially a result of these tough economic times. I think it also reflects a bit of "having it all fatigue": women are worn out from feeling the pressure to excel at work, and be the perfect mom at home.
The new buzz word in Silicon Valley is "integration". Work-life "balance" is very 2.0. All these women share ways in which they integrate their family life and work. Facebook's head of Global Solutions, Carolyn Everson, for example, takes her children along on her business trips once a quarter. They meet her clients, visit new places and get a better understanding of what mom does when she isn't at home with them.
I think taking vacations and turning off the phone and only doing emails or social media for a specific short amount of time helps with work/life balance. If I'm checking it all day I start to feel cuckoo-bird. So I just do it once or twice a day instead of a thousand. And then remembering that it doesn't matter. It just doesn't matter.
Startups are not the best choice for work-life balance, and that's sort of just the sad reality.
Invest in your work life balance. Time with friends and family is as important as times at work. Getting that out of balance is a path toward unhappiness.
I'm not really managing the work-life balance, I'm just accepting that the work increases and the ordinary life has to decrease when you're the prime minister.
No senior politician can expect to have work-life balance. I'm afraid there are some jobs for which work-life balance inevitably goes out the window. If you want work-life balance you just have to accept that you can't be a senior member of a government, or for that matter a senior member of an opposition.
To have someone who never makes a mistake, never finds her personal life in disarray, never worries about work-life balance? I think that would be unreal. What Im writing is real.
There's no life-work balance. I think you have to have the discipline to have the life you want to have. And if you are stealing from one part of your life in order to make the other part work, you are going to pay for it.
Women need real moments of solitude and self reflection to balance out how much of ourselves we give away.
There is no such thing as work-life balance. Everything worth fighting for unbalances your life.
Work, love and play are the great balance wheels of man's being.
You will never 'find' time for anything. If you want time, you must make it.
Happiness is not a matter of intensity but of balance and order and rhythm and harmony.
Nobody ever asks men about the work-life balance, and I just find that interesting, because clearly, I would imagine most men also want to be good fathers, and I'm sure they want to be good partners.
The only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work
Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.
We need to understand that we need to get the work-life balance better for both men and women - by men taking on more of those roles of homemaking and child rearing - it's an important area that we still haven't got right. I do worry; it's not just in the United States, it's also in parts of Latin America.
Women in particular need to keep an eye on their physical and mental health, because if we're scurrying to and from appointments and errands, we don't have a lot of time to take care of ourselves. We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own 'to do' list.
We need to do a better job of putting ourselves higher on our own 'to do' list.
It is not work that kills men; it is worry. Worry is rust upon the blade.
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.
Once a quarter, Amy and I go off the grid and totally disconnect. It's totally doable and it will change your life.
If you're worried about life-work balance, something is probably wrong with your life or your work. Instead of agonizing over balance, get excited and create change.
Take care of yourself: When you don't sleep, eat crap, don't exercise, and are living off adrenaline for too long, your performance suffers. Your decisions suffer. Your company suffers. Love those close to you: Failure of your company is not failure in life. Failure in your relationship is.
I have so much admiration for women who are mothers, who balance family and work.
A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.
You have to be prepared to give creative work 150%. I hear a lot of young people talking about life/work balance, which I think is great when you’re in your 30s. If you’re in your 20s and already talking about that, I don’t think you will achieve your goals. If you really want to build a powerful career, and make an impact, then you have to be prepared to put in blood, sweat, and tears.
When I think about work-life balance, I don't imagine it as a perfect day where I got to spend the exact right amount of time having an impact at work and snuggling with my kids at home. I never achieve that. But over the course of a month, or a quarter, or a year, I try to make time for the people and experiences I value.