How do you balance work and pleasure for yourself, and for those that you lead?

My weekly leadership question comes on Thursday this week, thanks to the last two busy days at the GovSec conference in Washington, DC. Bill Annibell asked us on GovLoop earlier this week, “Are you a Workaholic?” He seems to have gotten, shall we say, a plentiful response (please have a look and share your thoughts with him).

I was speaking with someone several days ago about the concept of “work.” As someone who tends to love most of what I do, I tend to use the word “work” quite liberally. Particularly insofar as my service in the Coast Guard Auxiliary is concerned, where many might see a tiresome job, I see only something that I choose, something that I love to do. I, dangerously one might argue, see a weekend assigned as an instructor at Yorktown, Virginia (as I did last weekend) as an enjoyable weekend quite well spent. I am in the presence of good friends and doing something that I really enjoy; perhaps not an afternoon playing out on the water (such as the summer day in 2008 pictured here), but something I hardly consider to be loathsome work.

So I largely discount the phrase “workaholic,” and ask a different question:

How do you balance work and pleasure for yourself, and for those that you lead – particularly in an era where smart phones at home and social networks at the office have shattered the “nine to five” paradigm where “work” and “pleasure” occur in distinctly different venues?