Work significantly affects human life and health. Overworking may decrease the quality of life and cause direct economic losses. Technological innovations promote the modernization of firms' capital and lead to the improvement of labor productivity in the workplace. This paper investigates the optimal individual choice of work intensity under improving technology embodied in a new equipment. The balanced growth trajectories are obtained and analyzed to find their impact on the work-leisure balance problem and links between the optimal choice of work intensity and the rate of embodied technological change. © 2014 World Scientific Publishing Company.