A recent study of 1,364 new mothers found that, over the course of about a decade, the moms who worked at least part time were healthier and happier than those who decided to stay home with their kids — especially when their kids were very young.

It sounds like the latest battle in the ongoing Mommy Wars, but it doesn’t have to be. The health benefits, the happiness… I think it all boils down to whether you’re doing what you really want to be doing.
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The news of Herman Cain’s latest sexual scandal has caused the candidate to “reevaluate” his campaign and split the internet into three main groups: those who think he cheated on his wife with Ginger White for 13 years, those who think White is out for a little quick cash, and those who are so sick of politics that they’ve tuned out of the 2012 election race even before it’s really begun.

Personally, I’m… starting to wonder where the line is between a possible politician’s private life and his (or her) bid for public office.
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There are times when you’re juggling work and parenthood and housework and home work and you drop the ball. Or a few balls, or– as happened with me last week–pretty much all the balls.

Usually, I know that if work is taking up a lot of my time on any given day, I can tilt the scales in the other direction and pick up the parental slack. But other times, the dropped balls seem so… numerous. And I feel so… singular. And I need more motivation in order to start juggling it all again.

Here’s what I do:
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Chris Brogan recently featured a brilliant post written by online marketing strategist Tommy Walker about the 106 excuses that prevent you from ever becoming great. It’s an eye-opening read, because I’ve heard myself say some of them time and again, but hadn’t really thought of the way I was undermining myself with my own words. Words like these:
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My current job takes me away from home about once a month, sometimes twice. It’s always to one of the same two places—to meet with the rest of my team in New York, or to political events in Washington, D.C.—so my youngest kids can easily understand where I am when I’m away, and why.

That doesn’t mean that they like my absences, though. My husband holds down the fort without a hitch (though more pizzas are ordered when I’m gone than when I’m home, oddly enough), but he has his own career, complete with a long commute, to juggle. So I find myself trying to minimize my trip, squeezing two days worth of work into a single day in order to avoid being away overnight.
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It happens to most professionals, regardless of their line of work: People want you to weigh in with your opinion, but they don’t want to pay you for your time because it’s “just a little question” or “it’ll only take a second” or “we’re family, after all.” But when those request pile up, it goes from a minute or two here and there to actual, billable hours for which you’re not getting paid—a sure sign that it’s time to say no.

But saying no feels… wrong, sometimes. You don’t want to leave a friend in the lurch, and how do you tell a relative that you usually get a-certain-dollar-amount-per-fraction-of-an-hour when the “quick question” is coming from a client rather than a cousin? And what if the request is coming from someone with whom you want to build a bridge, not burn one?

I’ve written in the past about whether it’s ever OK to work for free (and whether it’s worth it to keep working when a job stops paying you), but the real tough part for me—and for many people—is saying no gracefully. Here are four tips on how to do it:

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Last month, Manhattan district court judge Loretta Preska threw out a class-action lawsuit by the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission against Bloomberg L.P., the financial and media services company founded by New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. The defendants insisted that the company ,had routinely discriminated against pregnant women and employees who were returning from maternity leave by reducing their pay and their work responsibilities. But the judge disagreed.

Though there was proof of “several isolated instances of individual discrimination,” she noted, there wasn’t enough evidence to show that the discrimination was “Bloomberg’s standard operating procedure.”

“The law does not mandate ‘work-life balance’,” she wrote. “In a company like Bloomberg, which explicitly makes all-out dedication its expectation, making a decision that preferences family over work comes with consequences.”

I want to say she’s wrong, but she’s absolutely right. The law does not mandate work-life balance, and employers are well within their rights to demand what they want from their employees.
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Most of the time, I work from my home office, a little yellow room filled with a cluttered desk and stacks of books and product samples. But this week, I was in New York City, where most of my team is based. I had a series of meetings to attend and people to meet, and most of my usual workload to finish.

It made for a long and hectic day, but what really struck me wasn’t just the 400-plus-mile round-trip commute or the working printers or the free coffee. It wasn’t just the face-to-face conversations with the actual people I work with, to whom I talk at least twice a day, every day, even when I’m in my home office. It wasn’t just the make-up and nail polish I put on or the fact that I was wearing a suit instead of looking like the insomniac workaholic that I am.

The oddest thing was the way that I packed up my computer, gathered up my stuff, and left the office at the end of the day.
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I saw these 5 office etiquette rules at CBS Moneywatch, and they got me thinking about what rules would be on my list if I was the one to wield supreme executive power at the office. Then I realized: Since I work from home now (except when I’m traveling), I guess I do have the power to issue my own etiquette laws, after all. And so here they are: 5 rules to remember—regardless of where your office is.
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This week, I had the opportunity to talk to some amazing women about the White House’s recent report, “Women in America: Indicators of Social and Economic Well-Being.”

It’s the first comprehensive federal report since 1963, when President Kennedy’s Commission on the Status of Women, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, was released, and pulls together data from a variety of sources and studies, offering a big-picture view of the issues women face today, and how women’s lives in the United States has changed over time.
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