I live in a country that's known for having amazing work-life balance. The dream, right? But since I moved to Denmark with my family in 2020, I've done everything in my power to avoid it.
I built my career in New York and Los Angeles in the music industry. I was on-call 24/7, my work was all about hustle and relationships, and I was only as good as my last client. Now I create communication strategies for startups and Fortune 100 companies in the entertainment and tech space.
If you long to move abroad because you want a better relationship with work, I can tell you it won't make a career-is-life mentality magically disappear. I thought coming to Denmark would immediately cure me of my workaholism, but it only made me double down, to my detriment. To start, the work habits that I thought demonstrated my dedication in the U.S. did not help me instantly mesh well with my Danish colleagues.
I was accustomed to working through lunch, but my new teammates ate together in the canteen every day at 11:30 a.m. My office had phone booths that were always full, but I quickly realized that taking a call at my desk as a back-up plan was not an option. And that was before my struggle with taking literally any time off.
Getting established in a new country, all I wanted to do was prove myself. I realize now that I was so afraid that if I took time to relax, it would signal that I wasn't serious or ambitious. But even if it required six years of self-sabotage for me to figure it out, the most valuable lesson I've learned from the Danes is that you don't need to earn rest.
It's a lesson, I'm convinced most workaholic Americans should internalize, too. I thought working through the summer shutdown would make me 'some kind of hero'—my colleagues were not impressed When I first got here, I was so excited to experience Denmark's workplace culture. Everything from the emphasis on flexible hours — parents are able to pick up their kids in the middle of the workday — to traditions like fredagsbar , when many offices roll out bar carts with drinks and snacks on Friday afternoons, all sounded so appealing.
A typical fredagsbar (Friday bar) bar cart at a Danish office. Photo: Brooke Black So did shorter work weeks. In the U.S., I was working over 40 hours a week, and I was on call most nights and weekends.
I remember working one Thanksgiving while my family was eating in the other room. In Denmark, in most areas, the standard is 37 hours per week . These terms are often set by collective agreements or contracts.
Full-time employees are also entitled to five weeks, or 25 days of annual leave, and many get more. Under the Holiday Act , employers are required to let you take at least three consecutive weeks of accrued paid time off during the main holiday period, between May 1 and September 30. Hosting a branding and narrative workshop for Danish musicians.
Photo: Brooke Black This was where the trouble began for me. I wasn't used to having that many vacation days, so I started by hoarding them, only to lose ones that didn't carry over to the next year. There is a process to transfer them, but it's one that I've never been able to understand.
So I thought taking those days in the fourth quarter would be the better choice. But I've found that the few months of the year here are busier than in the US, because the summer break is so long and many parents with school-age kids take it at the same time. I ended up working through my time off anyway.
I thought working during the summer shutdown period would make me some kind of hero. But I couldn't get anything done because all the people I needed to talk to were on vacation. Then I felt guilty because of my self-perceived lack of productivity.
When I talked to my Danish husband and colleagues about it, no one else ever felt that way. Driving my car(go) bike around Copenhagen. Photo: Brooke Black About three years ago, I finally started taking my vacation days in the summer, although I could not shake my impulse to overschedule myself and my family.
I still had so many project-based side hustles, from music festivals to branding workshops to speaking gigs, that I was only spending one week together with my family of four. But as my husband observed and very kindly reminded me, many families here spend three or four uninterrupted holiday weeks together. One step forward, two steps back—but I'm working on it It might not be a surprise to hear that I've always had a hard time with one of Denmark's most beloved cultural exports: hygge.
I'd describe it as the Danish art of slowing down and enjoying the small things. I have amassed every hygge tool in existence. Candles, a knitting basket, a stack of unread novels, baking ingredients I've never used, you name it — but I can never quiet my mind.
A hallmark of Danish vacation time is a trip to a summer house. I never understood why you would drive only a couple hours from home just to "relax," especially when the weather was never guaranteed. I didn't get the appeal until this year, when we spent a week at my mother-in-law's summer place.
Sitting by the harbor in Nyhavn, one of the most recognizable places in Copenhagen. Photo: Brooke Black I was close to nature, read a book, went for walks and ate meals in the sun. This would've sounded boring to me as recently as a few months ago.
But my mind and body were truly refreshed. I had a creative burst after that week. I was smiling all the time and felt lighter.
Who was this person? I'm not entirely sure what led to my change of heart. Maybe I had finally burned myself out or maybe I finally let go of the guilt long enough to slow down and find joy in the small things.
After years of being my own worst enemy with this, I'm finally learning what Danes have known this whole time — prioritizing rest does not compromise my drive, energy or ambition. It's not a perfect work-life balance yet, and it might not ever be. But time, experience and an entire country's population are setting me on the path there.
Let's see where I'm at in another six years. Brooke Black was raised in Chicago and spent years in New York, London, and Los Angeles before relocating to Denmark. She and her family moved from Los Angeles in the middle of the pandemic, and what began as a two-week visit turned into a permanent stay.
A storyteller with a journalism degree and a long career in entertainment and tech PR, she first settled in a 1722 Danish farmhouse in the countryside and now lives in Copenhagen with her Danish husband and two young daughters. She co-hosts " What Are You Doing in Denmark? ," a podcast for internationals trying to make sense of Danish life, and documents her own everyday experiences living abroad through her writing and on Instagram at @BrookeBlackJust .
Source: cnbc.com
