The Power of Concurrent Careers by Matt Villano at Jugglezine.

This is possibly something one or two bloggers could identify with: concurrent, or multiple, careers.

According to the U.S. Labor Department, 5.4 percent of the workforce, or 7.9 million people, hold multiple jobs - the highest number since 1999. Many of these people juggle multiple jobs because they need the money. In special cases, however, people do it to feed passions in two (or more) different areas.

Such people are sometimes referred to as Slash Careerists, a term coined by Marci Alboher in her book One Person/Multiple Careers: A New Model for Work/Life Success.

Throughout the book, Alboher refers to these people as “slashes,” largely because of the way they can use the slash to indicate they take both careers seriously. Under this convention, she describes herself as a speaker/coach/author. She notes that anyone can use a slash to separate any number of careers.

Needless to say life as a “slash careerist” is certainly not all beer and skittles, (can anyone say 16 hour work day?) and developing focus can be problematic according to strategy consultant Cali Yost.

“If you want to be an Academy Award-winning actor, I don’t know if you can be CEO of a Fortune 500 company, as well,” says Yost. “Some of these jobs require a lot of time and energy, so you need to be smart about what you are going to try and achieve.”

Definitely food for thought.