4 Rules of Work-Life Balance, And Why You’ve Been Getting It Wrong

As a senior editor at The HR Digest, I’ve seen my share of buzzwords come and go, but “work-life balance” sticks around—mostly because we’re still figuring it out. Enter Patricia Grabarek, PhD, and Katina Sawyer, PhD, two organizational psychologists who’ve spent over a decade digging into what makes workplaces tick. Their new book, Leading for Wellness: How to Create a Team Culture Where Everyone Thrives (Wiley, March 25, 2025), isn’t just another self-help manual—it’s a wake-up call. They’ve got four rules that flip the script on balance, and trust me, they’re not what you’d expect. Forget the 50-50 split or the Instagram-worthy “harmony” myth. These two argue it’s messier, more personal, and way more interesting than that.

In their sit-down with The HR Digest, Grabarek and Sawyer don’t mince words. They’ve met entrepreneurs who burn the midnight oil and love it—no burnout in sight—because it’s their version of balance, at least for now. They’ve watched new moms wrestle with society’s “have it all” nonsense and come out wiser. What ties it all together? This idea that balance isn’t some universal checklist—it’s yours to define, and it shifts as life does. They dig into the psychology of it all: how self-reflection can save your sanity, why knowing if you’re an “integrator” or “segmenter” matters, and how leaders can stop screwing it up for everyone. Oh, and they’re not afraid to call out the elephant in the room: companies that ignore this stuff tank their own profits.

Katina Sawyer, PhD and Patricia Grabarek, PhD, are organizational/industrial psychologists and authors of Leading for Wellness: How to Create a Team Culture Where Everyone Thrives [Wiley; Marcy 25, 2025].

Here’s a taste of what’s ahead in the interview—raw insights, practical hacks, and a heads-up on why job insecurity might be the next big balance-killer. It’s smart, it’s real, and it might just change how you clock in tomorrow.

Interview Preview:

In the full chat, Grabarek and Sawyer dish on:

• Balance, redefined: Entrepreneurs who thrive on “imbalance” and what it taught them.
• Society’s baggage: How hustle hype and caregiving guilt trip us up—and how to fight back.
• Self-awareness FTW: Are you an integrator or segmenter? It’s a game-changer.
• What’s next: Job insecurity’s looming threat, and how to brace for it.

The HR Digest: Your rule that “balance is defined by you” challenges traditional notions of work-life harmony. What’s the most unconventional definition of balance you’ve encountered in your research or personal experience, and how did it influence your approach to studying workplace wellness?

Dr. Grabarek: The most unconventional definition of balance we’ve seen is probably what others would call a strategic lack of balance. We’ve encountered many entrepreneurs that work very long hours. Yet, they feel energized and excited and are not on the brink of burnout. This is because they genuinely love what they are doing and they have decided to prioritize work for a bit – kind of like a sprint. While everyone needs balance in the long-term, feeling in balance is the goal, instead of aligning with an external definition or set of expectations others have for you.

In other words, this type of balance is not sustainable forever and is likely something that will shift for those entrepreneurs at some point. But, often, early in the launch of a business, people are extremely engaged and motivated to work beyond more typical hours.

Transparently, this is rarer for folks who do not own their own business or are not in executive roles. But it does occur without the same negative consequences you would normally expect with high workload. This type of balance changed our thinking early on about what work-life balance means. Meeting people who feel in balance when externally they may be viewed as out of balance was eye-opening. We learned that it’s about meeting your personal balance needs to achieve true balance – and to avoid the negative outcomes of burnout and other wellness challenges.

The HR Digest: You emphasize that “balance is everchanging” as we move through life. How do you see societal expectations—like hustle culture or caregiving norms—complicating this evolution, and what’s one strategy you’ve found effective for staying adaptable in your own lives?

Dr. Sawyer: Societal expectations can often derail our own personal balance needs. Hustle culture, for example, may put pressure on us to avoid slowing down or taking time for our physical or mental health, even if that’s something we deeply need. With regard to caregiving, parents may shift their priorities to focus more on their home life while their children are younger. Often, mothers feel additional pressure during this phase to appear to “have it all” – even if it’s counter to their own balance needs. Maybe a new mom doesn’t care about “snapping back” to “pre-baby body” but she may feel external pressure to focus on physical fitness in addition to childcare and work. Instead of honoring her desire to read a book when her child is napping, she forces herself to workout. Giving into these pressures moves us out of the balance we are seeking.

The best strategy to achieve balance is to frequently spend time reflecting on how you are feeling- what is missing, what you have too much of- and intentionally shifting how you spend your time based on what you discover. Try to silence the external pressures as much as possible. If you need it, you can also seek external help in your journey toward letting those things go (therapy can help!). Shifting how you spend your time may require conversations and negotiating with a partner put or family member (or whoever is in your support system) to help you make the change as best as you can. Often perfect balance isn’t possible and you will sometimes fail – the important thing is to pick yourself back up and try again.

The HR Digest: Your third rule ties achieving balance to self-reflection. As psychologists, what’s the most surprising insight you’ve uncovered about how self-awareness impacts workplace well-being, and how can leaders foster this in teams without it feeling forced?

Dr. Grabarek: Self-awareness is crucial because it allows you to determine what’s right for you. If you aren’t in tune with yourself, no matter how hard you try to achieve balance, you will likely struggle to do so. Not only is it important to understand what type of balance you need but also how you prefer to work. One surprising thing we see often is that most people don’t really know if they are an Integrator or a Segmenter.

The most unconventional definition of balance we’ve seen is probably what others would call a strategic lack of balance. We’ve encountered many entrepreneurs that work very long hours. Yet, they feel energized and excited and are not on the brink of burnout. This is because they genuinely love what they are doing and they have decided to prioritize work for a bit – kind of like a sprint.

Dr. Patricia Grabarek 

People have different preferences in how they prefer to integrate work and life. Integrators are folks who like to shift between work and life fluidly throughout the day. They may take a couple of meetings in the morning, then go take the dog for a walk, followed by some work tasks, then do laundry, then come back to work, and so on. They enjoy shifting between both domains.

Segmenters, on the other hand, prefer to have a clean split between work and personal life. They want to work 9-5, log off, and not hear about work again until 9 am the next day. They also dislike and can be derailed by life interruptions in the middle of the day. Interestingly, many people think they are Integrators based on the way our society is currently structured. With our phones, we are always available for both work and life. However, when people spend a little time reflecting on this, some begin to realize that they actually feel better on days where they segment. Tailoring the way you work to match your integration or segmentation preference helps you be more productive, more engaged, and less exhausted at the end of the day. Thus, this little bit of self-awareness can have a real impact on your workplace wellness.

Leaders can help increase self-awareness around work-life balance and work preferences by asking pointed questions to employees. They can introduce the conversation about how they can support work-life balance and then start probing to help uncover how the employee prefers to work and disconnect. For example, they can ask them to consider what mornings feel the best for them. What happened the day and night before those productive, good-feeling mornings? They can ask whether they are a morning person or more effective in the afternoon. I once had a leader ask me when I felt like I was most productive in meetings vs. when I was best able to focus deeply on tasks vs. when my brain felt most tired or unable to process taxing tasks. We then scheduled our 1 on 1 meetings during the best meeting time and I was given permission to block my calendar for focus time when I’m most productive at completing work tasks. Helping employees think about how they work best and how they recover best can help them start to define balance more intentionally for themselves.

The HR Digest: You say “your balance isn’t someone else’s balance,” highlighting individual differences. Have you observed any patterns in how certain personality traits or career stages—like introversion or mid-career shifts—shape what balance looks like, and how can people lean into those differences?

Dr. Sawyer: One common pattern aligns with life-stages. When employees are new to the workforce, let’s say in their 20s, they are also less likely to have a lot of family responsibilities. During this stage, some people find balance leaning a little more toward work as they are learning and growing in their careers. Then, when employees hit mid-life with possible childcare and eldercare responsibilities, they tend to shift to lean toward more personal life than work. They’ve hit a stride where their careers are a bit more established, so they can put more focus at home.

Meeting people who feel in balance when externally they may be viewed as out of balance was eye-opening. We learned that it’s about meeting your personal balance needs to achieve true balance – and to avoid the negative outcomes of burnout and other wellness challenges.

Dr. Katina Sawyer

Feeling in balance in this stage often means placing more boundaries around work so it doesn’t bleed into employees’ home life. Then, as children get older and more independent, we often see employees either lean back into work, seeking more senior roles or looking to mentor and help develop the new generation, or lean into new hobbies, side projects, etc. Balance again looks different in this pre-retirement phase. Of course, these are broad generalizations but as these life stages shift, so does the definition of balance. Humans are constantly changing and our needs change along with us. It’s important for us to, again, self-reflect on what our current needs are and let go of any guilt associated with leaning toward or away from work during a specific phase. It’ll shift again. Honor where you are right now and do what you can to maintain a sense of balance.

The HR Digest: Drawing from over a decade of research, what’s the most overlooked consequence of neglecting work-life balance that you’ve seen in workplaces, and how do you hope Leading for Wellness shifts that narrative for both employees and organizations?

Dr. Grabarek: We often think about work-life balance and its impact on the individual employee. However, the impact on organizations is massive. When employees are struggling with balance, they struggle with exhaustion, sometimes reaching burnout, which makes them less productive, lower performing, and more likely to leave. Ultimately, organizations that, at a minimum, do not allow employees to achieve their own balance are likely to suffer in their financial results.

One surprising thing we see often is that most people don’t really know if they are an Integrator or a Segmenter… Tailoring the way you work to match your integration or segmentation preference helps you be more productive, more engaged, and less exhausted at the end of the day.

Dr. Patricia Grabarek

We hope that Leading for Wellness will give leaders a toolkit that they can use to avoid these negative outcomes for employees, while also boosting results. With a clear science-backed roadmap for becoming a leader who energizes and engages employees, we hope that we are making it easy for leaders to understand why leading this way is important and how to actually execute on achieving these goals.

The HR Digest: How do you think cultural or generational attitudes toward work—like the rise of remote work or Gen Z’s focus on mental health— are reshaping the conversation around balance, and what’s one piece of conventional wisdom about work-life balance you’d challenge based on your findings?

Dr. Sawyer: The conversations around work-life balance have been steadily increasing since Millennials entered the workforce, with Gen Z helping push these conversations even further. However, employees have always wanted balance. There’s a perception that these younger generations are more interested in it than others were. But, actually, it’s more likely that circumstances have changed – not people. For example, it’s far more common now that both partners in a relationship are working than it was even 30 or 40 years ago. Balance needs are very different when employees don’t have a partner at home taking care of all the responsibilities there. The cost of living has also changed with wages not keeping up. So many employees in younger generations feel defeated and may not see the same rewards for their time spent at work, causing them to focus a bit more on a personal life leaning definition of balance compared to previous generations that saw more reward for their efforts. Ultimately, the circumstances facing different generations at their varying lifestages can impact the way they define balance a bit differently than folks that were in that lifestage (with different circumstances) decades before. So, I think that we might say that – while people think that Gen Z is really pushing workplace wellness because of something inherent about them – it’s just that societal and organizational realities have changed. Anyone in these situations would likely respond similarly!

The HR Digest: Looking ahead, what do you predict will be the biggest challenge to achieving work-life balance in the next decade, and how are you preparing your listeners and readers to meet it through your podcast and book?

Dr. Grabarek: Feelings of job insecurity are on the rise as layoffs and restructuring seem to keep happening in cycles. Layoffs not only hurt those who lose their jobs but also those that “survive”. When large numbers of employees lose their jobs, it breeds disengagement, reduces productivity, and increases voluntary turnover. This is often costly to businesses and may create a cycle of layoffs in response to the heavy cost of the original layoff. As these cycles continue, employees will spiral into feeling less loyal and less confident in their roles. The constant and heavy cognitive load of job insecurity makes it hard for employees to really focus on their work-life balance. They may always feel they have to lean into work to prove themselves and save their jobs. Or they may be constantly looking for new job opportunities out of fear. Without the stability to focus on behaviors that will help them to sustain their productivity over time, employees will start to burn out. Our book and podcast show leaders how to create thriving work environments where employees can feel secure, stable, and happy as whole people. Organizations will benefit from increased productivity and employees will benefit from being able to achieve their goals, without sacrificing their own well-being and balance.

Loved this deep dive into work-life balance with Grabarek and Sawyer? There’s more where that came from—subscribe to The HR Digest for cutting-edge takes on leadership, wellness, and the future of work. Join our community and keep the conversation going!

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