The following Mark's Daily Apple article was written by Mark Sisson, and is narrated by Tina

Lehman.

Why GROC didn't have work-life balance, and neither will you?

Research published last year revealed that one quarter of American workers feel it's

increasingly harder to maintain a work-life balance.

Among global respondents, that number rose to one-third.

According to the survey, parents are among those who struggle the most. Among the difficulties

cited by participants, finding time for me, getting enough sleep, and managing personal and

professional life were the most commonly mentioned challenges. Even those who managed to leave on time

from work may then face an increasing overlap between

work and home life, with another survey finding that 20% of participants worked more than

20 hours from home in addition to regular office hours.

For all our social and technological advancements, it seems we're increasingly stuck in an unfortunate

cul-de-sac of our own making. Shouldn't we be beyond this by now? How is it that we can't seem

to innovate, design, reason, or hack our way into a better collective work-life balance?

There are, of course, legitimate and wise ways to combine tasks and increase productivity,

issues I've written about before. Biking to work to make your commute time work for you,

and free up time after work for family, or working from home to wholly eliminate a commute most

days can be a smart option for some people. But not all of us have that

choice immediately available to us. Staggering schedules with a partner to cover child care or

working flex hours to optimize efficiency can be helpful at times. But they're not a panacea and can

impose their own stresses. Making matters even more complicated,

...