Work-Life Balance - Creating & Sustaining Connections in a

Complex World

Professor Linda J Kristjanson

Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Research & Development

What work-life balance is not:

• It is not about being perfect• It is not about being right• It is not about being clever or having

all the answers• It is not about being a superwoman

or superman

Work-Life Balance

• About staying connected – to my self,

to my values, to the relationships I

create along the way – and to work

and actions that are meaningful.

Balance

• About living authentically• Doing work that feels intrinsically

rewarding• What matters is that the person

undertakes his/her work with integrity• Balance also requires us to pay attention

to our connections to family, to friends, to our self

• Remembering to breath

Balance

• When I take time to take care of my own health, my needs for rest, exercise, giving my body good food – making time for the people I love

• Remembering that the work I do is important – but it is not my whole life –

• I keep my balance and my connections to others replenish and sustain me.

My Background and Work

• Canada

• Influence of parents

• Politics and social contribution

• Education and international work

Growing up in this family taught me:• it was pure luck that I grew up in the

family I did with the privileges of education and opportunity

• we don't get to choose our parents, • no one religion or culture or nation has the

corner on truth, • underneath our skin, we are more similar

than different and• that we are all part of an interconnected

web of co-existence.

Nursing

• Family influence• “Nurses who led the way”• Values match• “Witches, Midwives and Nurses” • Outlines struggles women have faced

in attempting to comfort, health and seek education to practice as health professionals

Women as Healers

• 1400s - source of healing was religious

• men messengers of God (priests)• women who were healers were

therefore witches• ergo - burn them• Science education and university –

male domain• Nurses were poorly educated,

underprivileged backgrounds

Nursing Development

• Florence Nightingale helped to elevate Nursing

• "No man, not even a doctor, ever gives any other definition of what a nurse should be than this - 'devoted and obedient.' This definition would do just as well for a porter. It might even do so for a horse. It will not do for a nurse“ (1859).

• Notes on Nursing – provided an understanding of hygiene, environmental health factors, healing, nutrition, and psychological well-being

• 1850 - noted for her contributions to nursing research through her diligent collection of data and statistical analysis

Nursing as a Profession

• Practice according to Nursing Act • Most often at the patient's bedside 24

hours/day • Make astute observations, triage patients

in emergency departments, provide care to individuals with increasing complex health problems, and employ more technically complex procedures than ever before

• Manage finite health care resources• Nurse in hospitals, community clinics,

people's homes, on oil rigs, in factories, in refugee camps, in prisons and in war zones

• Need to be well educated, well remunerated and recognised for the valuable work they do

Nurses leading the way

• International Society of Nurses in Cancer Care – palliative care service run by Jewish and Arab nurses in Israel

• Nurses in Brazil developed a serve to help women with breast cancer and their families – ‘Acolhimento’

Palliative Care

DVC Role

• fortunate to work with talented, passionate people who are undertaking research that matters and educating the next generation of researchers and science will contribute solutions to world problems.

• Professor Peter Newman, Svetha Venkatesh, Robert Amin, Moyez Jiwa, Vishnu Pareek, Tony Owen, Anna Heitz, and Dani Stehlik are examples.

Do I manage to achieve a work life balance?

• Constant conversation with myself

• Over function at home

• Over function at work

Lessons Learned (and relearned)• Put your health first - Taking care of you is

especially important when life gets hectic

• Let go of perfection – it is the enemy of good, will wear you out and make you inpatient with others

• Let go of your arrogance that you can do it all and ask for help

• Look for the joke

• Pay attention to the people in your lives