Afternoon:
14°c
Walk home from work even if it is miles away. Pause for breath and pause for thought instead of mindlessly rushing around. Be firm when someone tries to overload you with work. These are just three tips from Julia Hobsbawm's new book called The See-Saw: 100 ideas for Work-Life Balance, "a compendium for the generation dedicated to having it all". It is an admirable book, full of common-sense tips but it already seems to belong to a different era.
Never mind balance. Most people these days are lucky to have a job at all. I am the only one currently in full-time employment out of my family of six (if you include all the inlaws, I am one out of 15). Work has become a luxury and life is a chore. In 1930 John Maynard Keynes wrote an essay, Economic Possibilities for Our Grandchildren, and predicted that in 100 years we would have solved mankind's economic problem - the necessity of constant labour to meet our basic human needs. A bit premature, eh?
One person lucky enough to have achieved an enviable work-life balance is literary agent Caroline Michel, wife of Lord Evans. She stayed at Hobsbawm's book launch for five minutes before dashing home to cook dinner for friends. How did she do it, I asked? Simple, she replied, salmon in pastry only took two minutes to prepare. I asked her to send me the menu, which she duly did. "It may sound complicated," began the instructions ominously, "but you can do everything in advance." If only life were so simple.
