Who decides what is a good work-life balance? You, the individual? Your employer? Your family? If you ask me, it should be up to the individual, because you cannot control anything else.

For most people, ‘work’ is defined by others, employers or customers, so that leaves ‘life’. What is your idea of ‘life’? Friends, family, hobbies? That is up to you to figure out. Then the question of time spend between work and life. The old way was to work hard in youth and enjoy life when older. Now that is changing and the time period has shortened, to weeks – work hard for 5 days and chill on the weekend – or even to 24-hours ie work during the day and chill in the evening. But there is a third kind, where work and life blend seamlessly into one and there is no boundary between work and life. These are what we might call the entrepreneurs. 

I chose to be an entrepreneur and to outside eyes it would have looked like all work and very little life. But not in my eyes – I thought I had a pretty good work-life balance always, even with a 60-hour work week or being on the road all the time. So I guess anything we choose ourselves even if it is actually very heavy will never be ‘hard’, and anything that is forced on us even if it is actually very light will seem unbearably heavy.

For example this month I’m participating in ADIPEC, one of the most prestigious events in the industry where I’ll be presenting a paper on “How to reduce project duration using workfront based planning with AI advisor” and a thought leadership presentation on “How AI can be used to prevent project delays even during unpredictable conditions”. Is this everyone’s  cup of tea? Of course not. And later on I’ll have a music show at my lake house with mumbai-based  band “Fusion Kappi” for people interested in Climate Change Adaption Partners (CAP). Will this appeal to all? Again no. But this is my idea of balancing work and life, I define it the way I choose, and I worked hard to have that choice.

So maybe the real question is not about work-life as a concept but about how you, the individual, want to balance job and money and friends and family and hobbies and everything else – and the rest is negotiation.