9 Core Work Life Balance Core Categories

9 Core Work Life Balance Core Categories

The 9 Elelments Of A Balanced Life

By Tony Nudd BA MSc

The Work Life Balance Calculator and Monitor allows the user to manage their 9 Core Categories as detailed below. In our definition of Work Life Balance, we condiser "employment" to be just one of 9 Core Categories of concern in getting "Balance".

The 9 Core Work Life Balance Categories


"I believe a good Work Life Balance is where
your work, social and personal commitments take up
managable proporptions of your time, and provide
personal fulfillment." - Tony Nudd



Balance is probably a mis-understood concept within Work Life Balance.

Balance does not mean "equal amounts of something", but rather, "managable amounts of something".

Within the Work Life Balance concept, we identify 9-Core categories of activities which most people either need or desire in their own lives in order to feel fulfilled.

The mix and amounts and types of activities within each category with be uniquely different for each person.

Another important thing to remember is that the mix and amounts and types of activities in each category changes depending on where that person is in their life.

For example, Jane who has just taken time off work and has recently had her second baby is very family focussed and not interested in career development (at this stage in her life). however, in a few years time, that may change, and her focus may well start to be more focussed on wealth management and career development as her children get older.

The balance in Work Life Balance is different for everyone and changes depending on what is happening in a person's life.

Maslow Hierarchy Of Needs

An interesting topic associated with Work Life Balance is that of Maslow's hierarchy of needs - a theory in psychology proposed by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper "A Theory of Human Motivation" in Psychological Review.

Maslow studied what he called exemplary people such as Albert Einstein, Jane Addams, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Frederick Douglass rather than mentally ill or neurotic people, writing that "the study of crippled, stunted, immature, and unhealthy specimens can yield only a cripple psychology and a cripple philosophy."

Maslow studied the healthiest 1% of the college student population.

Maslow Hierarchy Of Needs - Image Copyright www.wikipedia.org



More about Maslow Hierarchy of Needs - www.wikipedia.org

The 9-Core categories of activities which we have determinied that most people either need or desire in their own lives in order to feel fulfilled are adapted from Maslow Hierarchy Of Needs and our own independent research.

While we disagree with the idea of a "hierachy" of needs, we do agree with the basic premise of Maslow's five key needs each human craves, being: Physiological, Safety, Love/Belonging, Esteem & Self-Actualisation. For more information on Abraham Maslow, and the Maslow Hierarchy Of Needs a good starting point is www.wikipedia.org

As you will see, the following 9-Core Categories fall within one or more of Maslow's key areas:

You decide what activities belong to each category and set a number of hours to spend each week on these categories in order to complete your activities. We discuss sone ideas of activities for each category in the sub-menus on the left of this web page.

We have developed a Work Life Balance Monitor which can help you to measure how you are performing and show what percentage you have completed of your goals.

The Work Life Balance Application allows you to enter on a daily basis the time you have spent on each category, while also showing the accumulated time for each category (see image below). For more detailed statistics, you can visit the Reports Tab.



Calculating Your Current Time Distribution



Work Life balance App - Calculate Current Work Life Balance Time Distribution



Set Up Your Desired Goals



Work Life balance App - Setting Desired Work Life Balance Goals



The 9 Core Work Life Balance Categories



Work Life balance App - Log your time against each of the 9 Core Categories



Monitor Your Improvement


Work Life Balance App - Setting Desired Work Life Balance Goals


Next Article: The 9-Core Categories