Achieving Work–Life Balance

Achieving Work–Life Balance

Thanks to the ever-increasing wireless connectivity, the boundary between work and personal life is constantly thinning. A new term "weisure" describes the increasing tendency to continue to work during leisure time (Patterson, 2009). Examples include reading work e-mail while spending time with the family and answering work-related cell phone calls during a leisure outing. This trend, according to Patterson, is partly due to the increasing enjoyment of work but also due to the difficulty faced in establishing clear boundaries between work and leisure time. This difficulty is magnified by the increase in the average number of hours in the workweek for many in the workforce and multiple roles. Many are parents, spouses, partners, employees, and caregivers to elderly parents and also engaged in continued education.

Whether you decide to enter the workforce directly upon graduation or attend graduate school, you will be faced with the challenge of juggling multiple roles and maintaining a balance. You will also be attempting to prove yourself as a new employee or as a new graduate student. The temptation to overwork will be great. However, it can have ethical implications, especially if you work in the psychology field. The stress you face may impair your effectiveness, leading to ethical ramifications (Barnett, Baker, Elman, & Schoener, 2007).

Using the Argosy University online library resources, research work–life balance. You may want to use some or all of the following search terms: work–life balance, job satisfaction, burnout, weisure, overworked, and self-care.

• Select at least one authoritative article from the library and provide a summary. Focus on the effects of work–life imbalance and the benefits of work–life balance.
• Describe your own experience with attempting to achieve a work–life balance.
• What have you done that has improved this balance?
• What have you done that has worsened it?
• How do you think your situation will change upon graduating from college?
• Will you experience more or less difficulty in achieving this balance? Why?
• Discuss any ethical ramifications of failure to take proper care of yourself while working in the field of psychology. Identify at least one ethical standard from the American Counseling Association (ACA) Code of Ethics and one standard from the APA Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct that apply, providing the specific standards' numbers and titles.
• Be sure to cite your sources.

References:

Barnett, J. E., Baker, E. K., Elman, N. S., & Schoener, G. R. (2007). In pursuit of
           wellness: The self-care imperative. Professional Psychology: Research and
           Practice, 38(6), 603–612.

Patterson, T. (2009). Having it all: Work–life balance: Welcome to the "weisure"
           lifestyle. Retrieved from http://edition.cnn.com/2009/LIVING/worklife/
           05/11/weisure/

Submission Details:

• Write your initial response in a minimum of 300–400 words. Apply APA standards to cite your sources.
• By Saturday, March 1, 2014, post your response to the appropriate Discussion Area. Through Wednesday, March 5, 2014, review and comment on at least two classmates' responses. Provide a statement of clarification or a point of view with a rationale, challenge a point of the discussion, or draw a relationship between two or more points of the discussion.

Discussion Grading Criteria and Rubric