Work-Life Balance Resources
Work-Life Balance Resources
- Baucells, Manel, and Rakesh Sarin Engineering Happiness: A New Approach for Building a Joyful Life (U of California P, 2012)
- “Manel Baucells and Rakesh Sarin have been conducting ground-breaking research on happiness for more than a decade, and in this book they distill their provocative findings into a lively, accessible guide for a wide audience of readers. Integrating their own research with the latest thinking in the behavioral and social sciences—including management science, psychology, and economics—they offer a new approach to the puzzle of happiness. Woven throughout with wisdom from the world's religions and literatures, Engineering Happiness has something to offer everyone-regardless of background.”
- Belliotti, Raymond Angelo, Happiness is Overrated (Rowman & Littlefield, 2003)
- “Happiness Is Overrated highlights the greatest thinking on the concept of happiness from classical philosophers such as Plato, to contemporary sociologists and psychologists. It includes practical advice on how to attain happiness, but argues that happiness is not the greatest personal good. Ultimately, the greatest personal good is realized in leading a robustly meaningful, valuable life.”
- Berg, Maggie, and Barbra K. Seeber, The Slow Professor: Challenging the Culture of Speed in the Academy (U of Toronto P, 2017)
- “The corporatisation of the contemporary university has sped up the clock, demanding increased speed and efficiency from faculty regardless of the consequences for education and scholarship. [The authors] discuss how adopting the principles of the Slow movement in academic life can counter this erosion of humanistic education.”
- Bryant, Fred B. and Joseph Veroff, Savoring: A New Model of Positive Experience (Psychology Press, 2006)
- Quantitative research uncovering the essence of savoring and its importance in attaining maximum enjoyment of life
- Cimoroni, Sandy, 10 Lessons: Women @ Work: Managing Career, Family, and Legacy, Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
- https://www.td.com/document/PDF/corporateresponsibility/Women_At_Work.pdf
- Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly, ed., A Life Worth Living: Contributions to Positive Psychology (Oxford UP, 2006)
- Edited collection of essays. “Brings together thoughts on positive psychology. This work includes historical, philosophical, and empirical views of what matter for personal happiness and well-being.”
- Dalgleish, Melissa, “How the Science of Well-Being Can Enhance Your Career,” Inside Higher Ed, 13 Aug 2018, https://www.insidehighered.com/advice/2018/08/13/using-science-well-being-transform-your-career-exploration-opinion.
- Dalgleish enrolls in Yale’s “Psychology and the Good Life” and finds benefit for both faculty and students in taking the Virtues in Action character strengths test.
- Davidson, Richard J. and Sharon Begley, The Emotional Life of Your Brain: How Its Unique Patterns Affect the Way You Think, Feel, and Live—and How You Can Change Them (Avery, 2012)
- “Pioneering neuroscientist Richard J. Davidson discovered that each of us has an Emotional Side, composed of Resilience, Outlook, Social Intuition, Self-Awareness, Sensitivity to Context, and Attention. Where we fall on these six continuums determines our own ‘emotional fingerprint.’”
- Elwick, Alex and Sara Cannizzaro, “Happiness in Higher Education,” Higher Education Quarterly, April 2017, Vol. 21(2), pp.204-219.
- “This paper investigates the higher education literature surrounding happiness and related notions: satisfaction, despair, flourishing and well‐being. It finds that there is a real dearth of literature relating to profound happiness in higher education: much of the literature using the terms happiness and satisfaction interchangeably as if one were tantamount to the other, such conflation being due to the move towards consumerism within higher education and the marketisation of the sector.” Focuses on the United Kingdom.
- Essential Skills for Wellness, A Routledge Freebook
- https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/FreeBooks+Opened+Up/Essential_Skills_for_Wellness_-_final.pdf
- Exercises, Tips, and Strategies for Self-Improvement, A Routledge Freebook
- https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/tandfbis/rt-files/docs/FreeBooks+Opened+Up/New%2BYear%2BNew%2BYou%2BFB_PsychToday.pdf
- Friedman, Stewart, Leading the Life You Want: Skills for Integrating Work and Life (Harvard Business Review, 2014)
- Based on the notion that “work-life balance” is a “misguided metaphor,” this book offers strategies to integrate work, home, community, and the private self.
- Gooblar, David, “4 Ideas for Avoiding Faculty Burnout,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 03 Apr 2018, https://www.chronicle.com/article/4-Ideas-for-Avoiding-Faculty/243010.
- The author discusses emotional burnout from teaching and mentoring as well as the stress of publishing and overcommitment to service.
- “The Habits of Happiness” (Matthieu Ricard, TED talk, 2004)
- Haidt, Jonathan, The Happiness Hypothesis: Finding Modern Truth in Ancient Wisdom (Basic, 2006)
- “Each chapter is an attempt to savor one idea that has been discovered by several of the world’s civilizations—to question it in light of what we now know from scientific research, and to extract from it the lessons that still apply to our modern lives and illuminate the causes of human flourishing.”
- Hanson, Rick, Buddha’s Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, & Wisdom (New Harbinger, 2009)
- “In Buddha's Brain, a clinical psychologist and a senior neurologist explain how the brain benefits from contemplative practice and show readers how to develop greater happiness, love, and wisdom by drawing from breakthroughs in modern neuroscience.”
- Herget, Alison, “Avoiding Job Burnout in Academia,” Higher Ed Jobs, 23 Nov 2015, https://www.higheredjobs.com/articles/articleDisplay.cfm?ID=766
- Herget passes along the advice of Mary McKinney, who has been advising faculty on work-life balance for 20 years: manage expectations of students, examine what drives you in your profession, and increase positive emotions with daily reflection.
- “How to Stay Motivated and Manage Your Workload,” Routledge Taylor & Francis Group, 20 Sept 2019
- https://youtu.be/5VZI476idA8
- Irvine, William B., A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy (Oxford UP, 2004)
- “One of the great fears many of us face is that despite all our effort and striving, we will discover at the end that we have wasted our life. […] Using the psychological insight and the practical techniques of the Stoics, Irvine offers a roadmap for anyone seeking to avoid the feelings of chronic dissatisfaction that plague so many of us.”
- Kaufman, Scott Barry, “Why Your Passion for Work Could Ruin Your Career,” Harvard Business Review, 02 Aug 2011, https://hbr.org/2011/08/why-your-passion-for-work-coul.
- Kaufman explains Robert J. Vallerand’s Dualistic Model of Passion---harmonious and obsessive---and how the differences between the two can lead to burnout. Those with obsessive work passion cannot turn it off at the end of the workday, and their work forms a very large part of their self-concept. Work, for this group, does not come from a place of intrinsic joy, but from obsessive drive.
- Kelly, Matthew, Off Balance: Getting Beyond the Work-Life Balance Myth to Personal and Professional Satisfaction (Avery, 2011)
- “Matthew Kelly believes that work- life balance was a mistake from the start. Because we don't really want balance. We want satisfaction. […] He introduces us to the three philosophies of our age that are dragging us down. He shows us how to cultivate the energy that will give us enough battery power for everything we need and want to do.”
- Kern, Leslie, Roberta Hawkins, Karen Falconer Al-Hindi, and Pamela Moss, “A Collective Biography of Joy in Academic Practice,” Social & Cultural Geography, 03 July 2014, pp.1-18
- “Changing working conditions at many universities over the past decade have meant longer hours, intensified record-keeping, and more precarious employment. Despite these changes, many academics still insist that we enjoy our jobs. Our inquiry is oriented toward spaces and practices that bring us joy in our daily work and help us withstand the negative effects of working in academia.”
- Kim, Joshua. “‘The Happiness Curve’ Explains Why Academics in Their 40s Are So Miserable,” Inside Higher Ed, 28 May 2018, https://www.insidehighered.com/blogs/technology-and-learning/happiness-curve-explains-why-academics-their-40s-are-so-miserable
- A discussion of Jonathan Ranch’s book The Happiness Curve, which theorizes that the brain reorganizes itself during the 40s to focus less on individual achievement and more on the future of the community…but we can feel miserable during the process.
- “Lessons from the Longest Study on Happiness” (Robert Waldinger, 2016)
- https://youtu.be/8KkKuTCFvzI
- Loizza, Joe, et. al., Sustainable Happiness: The Mind Science of Well-Being, Altruism, and Inspiration (Routledge, 2012)
- “Today’s greatest health challenges, the so-called diseases of civilization—depression, trauma, obesity, cancer—are now know in large part to reflect our inability to tame stress reflexes gone wild.” This book make the Tibetan way of contemplative living “accessible to help us all on our shared journey towards sustainable well-being, altruism, inspiration and happiness.”
- Lyubomirsky, Sonja, The How to Happiness: A New Approach to Getting the Life You Want (Penguin, 2008)
- “A comprehensive guide to understanding the elements of happiness based on years of scientific research. It is also a practical, empowering, and easy-to-follow workbook incorporating happiness strategies, exercises in new ways of thinking, and quizzes for understanding our individuality, all in an effort to help us realize our innate potential for joy and ways to sustain it in our lives.”
- Matusky, Randolph, “Finding a Work-Life Balance During a Pandemic,” Association for Talent Development, 14 Apr 2020
- “Work-Life Balance: Tips to Reclaim Control, Mayo Clinic
- McNae, Rachel, et. al., Women Leading Education Across the Continents: Finding and Harnessing the Joy in Leadership (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018)
- “Collectively considered, the book investigates and critiques problems related to women and leadership while also celebrating successes and offering positive change in people, policies, and practices.”
- Ruiz, Don Miguel, The Four Agreements A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (Amber-Allen, 1997)
- “Based on ancient Toltec wisdom, The Four Agreements offer a powerful code of conduct that can rapidly transform our lives to a new experience of freedom, true happiness, and love.”
- “The Surprising Science of Happiness” (Dan Gilbert, TED Talk, 2004)
- Sword, Helen, Air & Light & Time & Space: How Successful Academics Write (Harvard UP, 2017)
- “An essential new guide for writers aspiring to become more productive and take greater pleasure in their craft.” “Sword identified four cornerstones that anchor any successful writing practice: Behavioral habits of discipline and persistence; Artisanal habits of craftsmanship and care; Social habits of collegiality and collaboration; and Emotional habits of positivity and pleasure.”
- Szetela, Adam, “Feeling Anxious? You’re Not the Only One,” The Chronicle of Higher Education, 13 Apr 2018, https://www.chronicle.com/article/Feeling-Anxious-You-re-Not/243117.
- Describes “productivity anxiety” that can lead both faculty and students to isolate themselves. The author suggests meditation programs on campus as well as structured commitment to leisure time.
- Valey, Vicky, “Working from Home During the Coronavirus Pandemic: What You Need to Know,” Forbes, 12 Mar 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/vickyvalet/2020/03/12/working-from-home-during-the-coronavirus-pandemic-what-you-need-to-know/#53c92f361421
- “Work Life Balance,” Mental Health America, 2020
- “7 Ways to Maximize Misery” (CGP Grey, 2017)
