From the Editor

I am constantly pondering how to live an intentional life with a good work life balance. I have realized that work-life balance is not about being perfect, right, smart, clever or having all the answers. It is definitely not being a superwoman or superman. Work balance is about finding a rhythm that enables you to more easily combine work with your other responsibilities and aspirations. For me, this is a work in progress, but some practical tips in finding this rhythm are thefollowing:

Improving your time management skills is one of the highest priorities because it will help you incorporate the other tips into your daily life. As an occupational therapist, one strategy to better understand time management is to keep a one-week work-life diary of all your activities. This will allow you to pinpoint the stress points, build downtime into your schedule, drop activities that sap your time or energy and focus on what’s really important. This time log will help you to craft out down time or “me” time where you are focused on yourself. Adding “me” time to an over committed schedule might mean actually adding this time to your calendar just as you would a meeting or a conference call. One of my “me” time activities is reading peer reviewed articles such as published in WORK.

This issue of WORK has two sections. The first is devoted to Employment and Community Living Issues for People with Multiple Sclerosis which has been co-guest edited by colleague and friend, Dr. Phil Rumrill and Dr. Malachy Bishop. My congratulations are extended to Phil and Malachy for their leadership in this area.

The second section of WORK contains 14 articles on an assortment of topics such as job burnout, job stress, life satisfaction, and supported employment. Some of these articles may provide more insight into work life balance, too.

The issue concludes with an interesting Sounding Board article titled, Job dictionaries can make a difference in early return to work (RTW) for workers by Amanda Chinnery.

As we conclude this year, I want to extend my gratitude to my assistant, Liz Auth for all her administrative activities. Liz is always dedicated to excellence in everything that she does. I am grateful to the Editorial Board and external reviewers for their commitment to reviewing manuscripts in a timely manner and with thoughtful and thorough feedback for authors. Please see the list of all the external reviewers who worked with us this year. Thank you to our authors for selecting WORK as their journal of choice to share their scholarly work. At IOS Press, the publisher of WORK, my sincere thanks are extended to Marion Lilley. We have worked together for many years and this collaboration is very meaningful to me.

As I concluded this From the Editor, I feel blessed that WORK is one of my meaningful occupations that fosters work life balance for me. I look forward to many more years of working with all of you and with future authors.

As always, I welcome hearing from you and hope that you will consider submitting your scholarly work to our journal.

Cheers,