Total Prayer vs Total Work

Reading through Awakening to — And Escaping From — Total Work Through Non-Doing and starting on Chop Wood, Carry Water has me thinking about the concept of Total Work for the first time in a long long time.

I was chatting with a friend about it the other day, and he mentioned the Benedictine's motto of Ora et Labora (Pray and Work).

The time I've spent on spiritual retreats with the Trappist monks at Mepkin Abbey, has given me a bit of a glimpse into that monastic way of living. And though I don't know from lived experience, from the outside it seems as if you could describe their life as centered on Total Prayer. Even the work they do is done with the aim of improving their prayer life.

And it made me wonder--is there any other real viable alternative to Total Work other than prayer?

What would it look like as a lay person (with a family and wild kids and a job) to adopt a Total Prayer lifestyle? That would be an interesting experiment.