Your efficiency key to work-life balance

Do people need more vacation time? Ask anyone who works nine to five and you they'll say "yes." The American and Canadian standard is two weeks to start, but European counterparts often get four weeks.

The Americans are working longer hours and investing much more time in careers than European professionals — who have a no-non­sense attitude toward the separation of work and home life. In the West, people generally work too hard and put off enjoying life until later, emphasizing on “making money."

Vacationing can lower overall stress levels, contributing to increased productivity and well-being. But is two weeks really enough time off? On the other hand, what about all the work we have to get done? Too many of us believe that time equates to productivity and results, but that’s not neces­sarily true. Employees who work fewer hours have less time to get things done, and the pressure of looming deadlines can spike an increase in productivity and overall quality of work. Employees with fewer working hours — like the Europeans — are also less likely to waste time socializing and procrastinating, focusing only on getting things done. So, why is there such a huge difference be­tween the continents? Europeans tend to treat their jobs like work, whereas North Americans think of the office as a way of life.

North Americans culture is built on the 24- hour working day, and they often work late or take work home to meet their objectives. But they are also more inclined toward daytime distractions, including Facebook and coffee breaks, which causes them to work longer hours to achieve results. Efficiency is the key to a positive work-life balance. If you get things done within your eight-hour workday, you’ll be less inclined to have to take work home with you evenings and weekends, when you should be relaxing and enjoying life. Even if it's only for a few hours or a couple days, "checking out" from work will help you decrease stress and ensure you keep productivity at peak levels.

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Read the text aboutfuel cell technology for cars

Beneath the skin of this ordinary looking prototype sits an electro-chemical reactor: a hand built, astronomically expensive power plant known as a fuel cell. It’s expected to be running ordinary family cars on California’s roads within three years.

Rocket scientists have been using fuel cells ever since the United States went to the moon more than 30 years ago. But they're generally too complicated and expensive for much other than a government-sponsored space program.

The California fuel cell partnership says it’s about to change that. Firoz Rasul of Ballard Power Systems says, "A fuel cell, very simply described, is a power generator. It makes electricity. It makes electricity on demand, and it makes it through the combination of hydrogen and oxygen."

In this Ballard power systems animation (see below), a hydrogen atom with its one electron, attempts to pass through a fuel cell membrane to unite with an oxygen atom. The membrane allows only the hydrogen proton to pass through, forcing its electron to scurry around the membrane to catch up with the proton on the other side. This creates electricity, water, and heat, but no exhaust emissions.

Eight of the world's biggest automobile makers, along with energy companies and fuel cell builders, will work side by side in this Sacramento, California center to learn how to build fuel cell vehicles that work as well as cars with gasoline engines.

John Wallace of Ford Motor Company says, "We still have technical challenges getting this extremely complex system to work properly, the way customers expect it to work. There are challenges in using new fuels, and providing the new fuel infrastructure.

And before fuel cell vehicles hit the road, there will have to be a network of hydrogen stations that will allow drivers to fill up with the flammable gas, under 36-hundred pounds of pressure.

Manufacturers are confident they can build fuel cell powered vehicles. The questions they hope to answer here are: how reliable can they make them, and can they make them cheap enough for people to buy them.