How to make life work

Michele A’Court

It’s four weeks since my holiday, and I’m a bit knackered. I can tell you exactly why I’m pooped. It’s because I am terrible at work/life balance. The imminent arrival of my first two days off makes me fairly want to weep with joy. And I probably will cry a bit, under a duvet, with a book. So this is a little shout-out to all the people who can’t find quite enough space just to ‘‘be’’. I’m looking especially at the self-employed and at freelancers – people who don’t eat if they don’t work, and are terrified of turning down a gig in case it’s the last one, ever. Feast or famine – you pitch for five jobs, and sometimes you get none (bugger) or three (whoop) or all five (bloody hell, that’s a bit intense, mate). It’s also a high-five to people who work the hours normal people sleep: doctors and nurses, hospo workers and entertainers, cleaners, first responders, and parents – especially the solo ones who can’t tag-team – of small or sick children. I once heard a motivational speaker who insisted we should all meditate outside for 30 minutes in the blue light of dawn to avoid desynchronising our circadian clock. He said the only thing that prevented us doing this was ‘‘discipline’’. On behalf of all the people listed above, I wanted to punch him in the mouth. Even if my clock wasn’t out of whack, I reckon I’d still want to. He advised we should all be in bed by 10pm, no excuses. Tricky for me, given many nights I’m standing on stage till 10.30pm. I’ve wondered since if he brings up this theory when he visits A&E in the wee small hours, or pays the bill after a delicious dinner, staff waiting to tidy up after him. I suspect the people who can best adhere to that kind of ‘‘discipline’’ are people who make a living championing it. More promising is Perpetual Guardian’s experiment of the four-day week, which showed more work was done in fewer hours because employees were happier and more focused, and 78 per cent of them felt they could happily balance their professional and personal lives. What a remarkable thing to give people and businesses – not just more time at home, but a better quality time in both places. Generally, I don’t sell my time – I’m paid for what I produce rather than for the hours it takes to produce it – but a guarantee of three days off a week sounds wildly motivating to me. Meanwhile, I’m having a crack at scheduling time out, writing appointments in my diary that say ‘‘see friends’’ and ‘‘R&R’’. Tomorrow’s calendar has ‘‘duvet, cat, book’’ written on it. Not early, though. Well after the blue light of dawn.

Jeremy Elwood

I’ve always been mildly obsessed with the concept of time travel. The idea of going back a year, or a day, or an hour to undo or redo something I’ve done and regretted is incredibly appealing, Butterfly Effect be damned. So here’s the good news: time travel is possible. Just turn your phone off. Last weekend I was working in a place with no mobile data or internet access, and it was like travelling back in time to the early 1990s. I knew where I had to be, and when, and I had no option but to be there. I couldn’t tell the people who were expecting me if I was running late, or make up excuses. Rather than being restrictive, it was utterly liberating. The phrase ‘‘work/life balance’’ has risen in popularity as rapidly as it has become almost impossible to implement. In an age when you are contactable 24/7, work has become all-consuming. You can put on as many ‘‘out of office’’ replies as you like, and ignore your work email, but one text or ‘‘social’’ media post and you’re right back at your desk as if you’ve never been away. The very concept of ‘‘work/life balance’’ would have been totally unimaginable to our grandparents. Coming out of a depression or a world war, the idea of trying not to work was laughable – you did what you had to do, in whatever field you could find a job in, and if you were very, very lucky you got an occasional weekend or annual holiday where you could indulge yourself. We think we have it better today, but in all honesty, we don’t. We fool ourselves into thinking that technology, geopolitics and modernity have created a world in which we can reasonably assume that we work less than our forebears, but do we really? In a time where it seems inevitable that the retirement age will rise, but also just as inevitable that the majority of us will never be able to afford to retire at all, how far have we really come? A few decades ago, at least you could finish work knowing that if your boss needed to contact you it was such a hassle to do so that it would need to be vitally important for them to even try. Now you risk a five-page email thread at 2am because someone can’t find the stapler. The one upside of all of this is that we’re all in the same boat. So, next time you really need some time off, here’s my advice. Tell people your internet has stopped working, and your phone battery has died. They’ll understand. It’s the 21st century version of taking a sickie.

Double take Husband and wife comedians give their views on a shared subject