full transcript
"From the Ted Talk by Nigel Marsh: How to make work-life balance work"

Unscramble the Blue Letters

So I went back to work, and I've spent these seven years since struggling with, siytndug and writing about work-life balance. And I have four observations I'd like to share with you today. The first is: if society's to make any progress on this issue, we need an honest daetbe. But the tbuolre is so many polpee talk so much rubbish about work-life balance. All the discussions about flexi-time or dress-down Fridays or pttnraiey leave only serve to mask the core issue, which is that certain job and creear choices are fundamentally ilcmaintobpe with being meaningfully engaged on a day-to-day basis with a ynoug falimy. Now the first step in solving any problem is acnnwkdegilog the reality of the situation you're in. And the reality of the society that we're in is there are thousands and thousands of people out there liendag lives of quiet, screaming desperation, where they work long, hard hours at jobs they hate to enable them to buy things they don't need to impress people they don't like. (Laughter) (Applause) It's my contention that going to work on Friday in jeans and [a] T-shirt isn't really getting to the nub of the issue.

Open Cloze

So I went back to work, and I've spent these seven years since struggling with, ________ and writing about work-life balance. And I have four observations I'd like to share with you today. The first is: if society's to make any progress on this issue, we need an honest ______. But the _______ is so many ______ talk so much rubbish about work-life balance. All the discussions about flexi-time or dress-down Fridays or _________ leave only serve to mask the core issue, which is that certain job and ______ choices are fundamentally ____________ with being meaningfully engaged on a day-to-day basis with a _____ ______. Now the first step in solving any problem is _____________ the reality of the situation you're in. And the reality of the society that we're in is there are thousands and thousands of people out there _______ lives of quiet, screaming desperation, where they work long, hard hours at jobs they hate to enable them to buy things they don't need to impress people they don't like. (Laughter) (Applause) It's my contention that going to work on Friday in jeans and [a] T-shirt isn't really getting to the nub of the issue.

Solution

  1. debate
  2. trouble
  3. young
  4. incompatible
  5. studying
  6. career
  7. people
  8. family
  9. acknowledging
  10. paternity
  11. leading

Original Text

So I went back to work, and I've spent these seven years since struggling with, studying and writing about work-life balance. And I have four observations I'd like to share with you today. The first is: if society's to make any progress on this issue, we need an honest debate. But the trouble is so many people talk so much rubbish about work-life balance. All the discussions about flexi-time or dress-down Fridays or paternity leave only serve to mask the core issue, which is that certain job and career choices are fundamentally incompatible with being meaningfully engaged on a day-to-day basis with a young family. Now the first step in solving any problem is acknowledging the reality of the situation you're in. And the reality of the society that we're in is there are thousands and thousands of people out there leading lives of quiet, screaming desperation, where they work long, hard hours at jobs they hate to enable them to buy things they don't need to impress people they don't like. (Laughter) (Applause) It's my contention that going to work on Friday in jeans and [a] T-shirt isn't really getting to the nub of the issue.

ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
life balance 4
work life 4

ngrams of length 3

collocation frequency
work life balance 4

Important Words

  1. acknowledging
  2. applause
  3. balance
  4. basis
  5. buy
  6. career
  7. choices
  8. contention
  9. core
  10. debate
  11. desperation
  12. discussions
  13. enable
  14. engaged
  15. family
  16. friday
  17. fridays
  18. fundamentally
  19. hard
  20. hate
  21. honest
  22. hours
  23. impress
  24. incompatible
  25. issue
  26. jeans
  27. job
  28. jobs
  29. laughter
  30. leading
  31. leave
  32. lives
  33. long
  34. mask
  35. meaningfully
  36. nub
  37. observations
  38. paternity
  39. people
  40. problem
  41. progress
  42. quiet
  43. reality
  44. rubbish
  45. screaming
  46. serve
  47. share
  48. situation
  49. society
  50. solving
  51. spent
  52. step
  53. struggling
  54. studying
  55. talk
  56. thousands
  57. today
  58. trouble
  59. work
  60. writing
  61. years
  62. young