I am writing a piece about Work-Life balance for my workplace newsletter and am asking for some input

This is what I have written thus far

In my previous job working at a Hay exporting business, the owner built his own large scale hay baler.
One day it was decided to increase the output and the appropriate adjustments were made.
Output was increased by 20% but no allowances were made for extra workers to deal with this increase. Already working 12 hour shifts, the extra workload had an extremely detrimental effect on me. Both mentally and physically.
So much so that driving home after 6 days of 12 hour night shifts I fell asleep and hit a tree at over 100kpm.
I survived with minor injuries but came incredibly close to being a road statistic.

For many of us our life seems to revolve around work, work and more work.
The proverb - All work and no play makes Jack and Jill dull people has health implications for all of us.
In 1990, Mars got us thinking that there might be more to life than the constant grind.
A Mars a day helps you work, rest and Play.
Alvin Tofler, in his book - Future Shock, talked about how all of us are forced to participate in the rat race of life or be left behind.
Are you having dreams of your work? Do you wake up fretting about your workload for the coming day?
We need to take time out, away from our place of employment, away from our colleagues, away from the constant grind of deadlines and increased productivity.
Taking time for ourselves is imperative if we want a harmonious life.
Work/Life balance relates to our responsibilities on the job and our personal life. Personal life includes family, social and leisure pursuits.
8 hours work, 8 hours recreation, 8 hours play was first coined over 200 years ago and adopted in Victoria in 1856.
A holiday was declared, known as May Day, now known as Labour Day.
It was recognised that workers deserved fairness from their employers and as a result all employees receive gazetted holidays as part of their work contract.

Many workers are on the job for 50 hours a week and this is considered excessive.
Rising before dawn and returning home for dinner then going to bed, repeating the process every day.
This is very unhealthy as it can lead to fretful sleep, not being able to disengage the mind from work related matters.
Changing the way we approach work can have many benefits.
Better mental and physical well being, reducing stress and allowing us to reaffirm our personal relationships.
How do we improve our work/life balance?
Taking at least 3 or 4 holidays of one week duration is a very positive thing to do. Even looking forward to holidays lifts our spirits and reduces work related stress.
Ask your supervisor to not contact you while you are on holiday.
Interact with work colleagues in a positive way. This allows you to want to go to work and not dread the day ahead.
Personally, my free time is going to the John Forrest National Park, or Mt Observation in the Wandoo National Park.
Sitting on the banks of the Serpentine River watching nature go about it's business.
Photographing Bearded Dragons or a mob of Kangaroos. Watching a pair of Galahs feeding their chicks or being in awe of the Avon River in full flood.
These are some of the things I do to unwind from work.
Knowing and engaging with your passions allows you to achieve a work-life balance which will see you refreshed and eager for the coming work week.

What I am asking for are your suggestions about how you manage work/life balance?
How do you disengage from work ensuring you have ample meaningful time away from work and spreading yourself around family and friends?
Thank you for reading this and I will consider any of your thoughts and ideas.

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

I worked the last thirty years of my working life in Norway where working more than 50 hours a week for more than a month requires that the employer get permission from the Arbeidstilsynet (Norwegian Labour Inspection Authority),

Employers have a legally defined duty to ensure that employees take time off. Salaried workers can mostly set their own working times and are merely expected to work about 37.5 hours a week. I read an article many years ago that claimed that about a hundred thousand people (total population five million) adjust their hours so as to have Friday completely free and thus have a long weekend every week. If I was in the middle of a task that was going well one day then i might work longer than usual but if I was feeling tired or bored then I might just go home early. Occasionally my boss would send an email to us saying that he had tented a cabin in the mountains and was going there to work with a bit of cross country skiing thrown in. He was online, had his mobile phone, etc. so he was just as available as usual.

Of course it's not so simple for hourly paid service workers such as shop assistants, mechanics, etc. But still it's better than most countries I think.

Gusman · 61-69, M

@ninalanyon a flexible workplace must be great to work at.
The employees would be very relaxed and suffer much less stress.
I wish Australia would adopt a less stringent work regime.
But here, all we hear about is raising productivity or fall behind world standards.

ninalanyon · 61-69, T

@Gusman Yes, it was much less stressful in many ways. Slightly more in one way: one is expected to show initiative and get on with things, be self directed, get things done. But you are expected to work smarter and be flexible not to simply work more hours of drudgery.

But as I said it's not all roses for everyone. One of my sons gave up his job in a shop because the hours he had to work were so irregular that it was causing him serious stress. The irregularity was a by product of the employer optimising their wage bill with part time workers and working on the edge of what is legal here.

Productivity per hour is quite high in Norway. According to Wikipedia it is the highest in thee world in GNI terms and number two in GDP per hour (GDP = gross domestic product, GNI = gross national income). I have no idea where the statistics come from o how they were determined but they do seem reasonable to me.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_labour_productivity

Of course it helps that most of the countries at the top of this list are exporting high value goods rather than low value bulk commodities.

Australia really should be more like Sweden. A lot of Sweden's wealth comes from mining but it doesn't just ship the raw materials abroad and buy back finished goods, it does a lot of its own refining and manufacturing whereas Australia sells the low value ore to China and buys back high value manufactured goods.

Take Wikipedia's statistics with a grain of salt though. If you read further down the page you'll see some more tables from different organizations that sort countries in different orders.