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Multitasking: the work-life balance understood through the metaphor of juggling


Governance as "juggling" -- Juggling as "governance" (Part #2)

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There are numerous references to the insights to be gained from juggling as a metaphor, as noted by Arthur Chandler (Life Juggling, Juggler's World, 42, 1996, 4):

I've seen the term "juggling" in a number of contexts... Newspaper articles are headed "Juggling Family and Career", and friends speak of "juggling too many commitments". The public at large seems to be adopting juggling as a figure of speech for trying to keep parts of life in sync with each other. Juggling, as a 1990s metaphor, comes to stand for the attempt to attain a state of dynamic equilibrium in which several ongoing commitments are kept in balance through constant effort.... "Juggling" in 1991 has become the metaphor for life's major hassles -- not just the little annoyances of waiting in line at the checkout stand, or even getting audited by the IRS. "Life Juggling" is a defensive activity.

An insightful comparison is made by Venkatesh Rao (Work-Life Balance: Juggling, Spinning or Surfing? Ribbonfarm experiments in refactored perception, 19 September 2007)

I have encountered three metaphors for what most people call the 'work-life balance' issue. These are: juggling, keeping multiple plates spinning on sticks, and surfing. Each has its strengths and flaws. All share in common the problems that arise from calling the whole thing a 'balance' problem in the first place, but the 'balance' point of view has some merits.

For Janet D. Stemwedel (Pushing the juggling metaphor a little further. Adventures in Ethics and Science, 31 July 2007):

The juggling act, for those of us with career and family balls in play, doesn't work if either crashes to the ground... But if we want to juggle different kinds of things in our lives, the awareness of how those slices of our experience are different from each other is part of the fun: the feel of the delicate crystal, the fresh firm apple, or the taped grip of the flaming club as we confidently catch it and then send it back up.

Other indications of the widespread use of the metaphor in describing the challenge of balancing career, home life, and other priorities, are illustrated by the following -- readily understood as a challenge of personal "self-governance":

It does not appear to be the case that any particular insights into the process of juggling in practice are used to clarify these challenges of personal governance. The metaphor is used loosely to frame the struggle to deal with conflicting demands -- possibly just by "muddling through" in an effort to avoid "dropping the ball". Although loosely used, when does use of the metaphor imply intuitive recognition of use of a distinctive set of juggling skills?

Clearly a quite different perspective is offered if there is a sense of "being juggled", whether by obligations, employers or other agencies. This is typically recognized through any sense of "manipulation", which would indeed be the perspective of the juggler -- possibly then to be recognized as a puppet master. The experience of structural violence could be usefully explored as the sense of "being juggled".

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