Work Life Balance

Most of us in information technology industry, working out of India, having customer base all over the world do not certainly have the lifestyle what our

parents used to have when they were working (for local institutions / Govt. etc).

We do not have concept of timezone as world does not sleep and customers are all over the world. In other words we have ONE time zone called Gobal Time Zone.

As a result, we do not have a 9 to 5 job. Most of us.

So, last evening when bunch of us got together for a kids birthday in neighborhood, there are many key observations that jumped out.

- The only way of bonding and social get together happens through the kids now for the middle aged professionals.

- Although most of them were physically present in the birthday party, only kids were enjoying and doing their bits needed for the party.

All the working adults were either taking calls / listening in to with their mobile phones/bluetooth ear pieces. Some of them are in different corners checking out their BlackBerries frequently.

I tried to bring up the topic of Work Life balance as it seemed most appropriate to me at that point.

And one wise guy responds, "I ve perfect work life balance. I do the work and my wife does the life".

That was good for a laugh. But far from truth and far from political correctness.

I am not master of work-life balance. But that wont prevent me from looking at and discussing the obvious about how to strike one.

Over this week, I ll post a few items on how to achieve work-life balance and different schools of thought regarding this topic.

Of course most of them are going to be obvious and common sense. But so is everything :)