If Peter Krause & Lauren Graham can do it… why can’t I? Blending your Work/Personal Life with savvy

Topic: WorkingPoint News | Comments (2)

Posted on September 9, 2010 by admin

Today’s headlines revealed the onset romance between ex-Gilmore Girls actress Lauren Graham and her Parenthood costar Peter Krause which Graham discusses in her interview in this month’s Redbook magazine . In the article, Graham describes how the couple met and had a failed “board game” pseudo date together almost 15 years before but that timing and shyness kept the romance from blossoming until the two reconnected on the Parenthood set. Graham is best known for her role on popular TV show Gilmore Girls and her film roles in Bad Santa with Billy Bob Thornton, Evan Almighty opposite Jim Carrey and The Pacifier where she played Vin Deisel’s love interest. Krause is most famous for his roles on several short lived “cult favorite” TV series including Sports Night, Six Feet Under, and Dirty Sexy Money.

This kind of crossover between personal life and professional life is notoriously widespread in the world of celebrity (check out this gallery of successful onset romances). But those of us who work outside the entertainment industy still encounter a crossover between our personal lives and professional lives. In fact, a 2008 study found that 18 percent of the married or committed couples they surveyed met at work, while just 14 percent met in school or college. This represents a dramatic shift from data from 15 years earlier which showed that only 15 percent of the couples said they met in the office and 23 percent met in school.

More and more couples are meeting in the workforce.

And it’s not only romantic relationships that are blurring the line between work and personal life. Technology has made it increasingly easier, and therefore more common to work from home. People are developing social media strategies for their small businesses which often involving using their personal networks for business purposes. The economic downswing has people turning to family and friends for business fund-raising. Burgeoning professionals spend their after hours at networking events.

All of these cultural movements help to blur the definitive line between the personal and professional. So how do we navigate these blurring boundaries? With tact, awareness and as much conscious planning as possible! The following is a list of articles to help you navigate the blending of work and personal life with as much savvy as possible:

FAMILY BUSINESS

Video “5 Tips for Managing a Family Business” Based on an article in Entrepreneur.com, from OpenForum.com via MSNBC Business Watch

“When Friends and Family Finance, Pitfalls to Avoid” OpenForum.Com

ROMANCE AT WORK

“Tips about Dating, Sex & Romance at Work” Humanresources.About.Com

“Top 5 Keys to Mixing Work and Romance” Monster Career Centre

SOCIAL CAPITAL

“Raising your Social Capital” Technorati.com

“7 Lessons for Better Networking with Social Media” Mashable.com

VACATIONS

“How I managed to take a Vacation” New York Times Small Business Online Blog

“6 Things to think about on your Summer Vacation” OpenForum.com