In the information age, modern technology eases the physical tasks that we require to produce food and shelter but introduces a new form of labour that places its own burdens on our society.

It is an interesting thing that has happened in the western world in the past century and is continuing to occur in Asia and the developing world. In the past century the majority of people have moved from the country to large metropolitan centres. The number of people and the amount of labour required to produce a given amount of food has continued to fall and so people are inventing new ways of working. With the introduction of computers into our society increasingly tasks are becoming knowledge based, there are of course two sides to this trend. People are able to access more information and learn more skills than previous generations, however at the same time we are starting to lose track of where to place value.

As society progresses into a truly knowledge based economy we will increasingly find that the lines between home and work will blur. The problem lies in human nature and the growing complexity of our employment networks. With mobile phones providing constant communication lines (often including emails now) it becomes more challenging to actually switch off and disconnect from your daily tasks. This is especially true for those that work on large scale projects with multiple challenging components within them. We like to solve our problems and finding the balance between thinking about the problem at hand or contemplating the larger challenges in our work lives is often difficult to do.

I am lucky enough to do something that I love, I have the opportunity to study the way the world is put together, to develop new devices and techniques to grow our understanding of the world and of ourselves. The centre in which I work has some big goals, we are striving to develop new ways to identify and image the structure of proteins, viruses, cells, material stress and strain. It is a challenging goal with many projects contributing together to build towards the long term goals. It is a great opportunity for me to be a part of such a talented team of people from all over Australia and to collaborate with world leaders on a project which could possibly have such broad implications.

However it has its down side, my work is in my head and I carry it with me wherever I go. Often in the quite moments of everyday life my mind turns back to the challenges of my job. The project that we are working on occupies my thoughts with no regard to the time of day or the situation I am in.  Sometimes it keeps me awake at night and often it intrudes on my weekends, the lines between work and life for me are quite ill defined. The exceptions to this would be the time I spend with my wife and in nature, few things can distract a person from their work more than appreciating the wonders of the world or the company of the person they love.

I don’t think that I am alone in this, it seems to me that as we move to mental work it becomes more difficult to leave the job in the office. I recognise that there needs to be a balance, often we talk about a work/life balance, it is often sought but seldom found. In reality though this is a necessity in order to be effective in your job, especially in a knowledge based job. Finding this balance will give you strength, space to think and creativity.

If you have some tips for how to get it right I would love to hear them, for now I continue to strive for a way to separate my mind from my work when I am not there and to immerse myself fully when I am.

Cheers,
Daniel