Work life balance

Last week I was teaching one of our group classes, CEE (Communicating Effectively in English). There were eight participants in my class who were all very chatty and enjoyed in depth discussions so I introduced a lesson in which we wrote a list with ten things that they believe contribute to the quality of life and then they compared their answers with a partner and gave reasons for their choices. The answers were really quite varied and even a little surprising at times!

The expression one man’s meat is another man’s poison certainly came to mind!  Of course everyone thought that having good physical and mental health is crucial, however other ideas were as different as chalk and cheese!  For example one person had owning a high performance car third on their list and in complete contrast someone else said that having good public transport was critical to their happiness!  What became clear was that everyone wanted time to do the things that they most valued, whether that was spending time with friends and family or having precious time alone to watch a soppy rom com!!!  I was also glad to see that I wasn’t the only person to have football on my list (thought that might make me shallow).  Those of you who follow our blog will know that we’re all big football fans so obviously I’m very happy at the moment as Chelsea have had a fantastic start to the season and are top of the premiership so it is certainly enhancing my quality of life! 

Anyway, our main conclusion was that quality of life means having the time to do all the things you enjoy doing and as a class we agreed that we definitely want to work to live and not just live to work, therefore getting the work-life balance right is vital.  I realise from my own life experience that it’s tricky to get it right so my in my next blog I’ll give you some tips on time-management so that you can hopefully get more leisure time.  Let me know what you would put on your list? 

By Heather

Glossary

Chatty (adj)                    -        talkative

Contribute (v)                 -        give

Critical (adj)                   -        very important

Soppy (adj)                     -       sentimental

Rom com (n. exp)           -        romantic comedy film

Shallow (adj)                  -        lacking depth; superficial

The season (n)                -       the period where football starts and finishes (August to May)

The premiership (n)        -       the top league in English football

Enhance (v)                     -       improve

Vital (adj)                        -       very important

Tricky (adj)                     -        difficult

Tip (n)                              -       suggestion

Come to mind (exp)        -        to think of, remember

As different as chalk and cheese (exp)    -    very different from each other

One man’s meat is another man’s poison (idiom)    -   what is enjoyed by one person is not necessarily enjoyed by another person