Thriving In 24/7: Six Strategies for Taming the New World of Work

Sally Helgesen has done a remarkable job of illuminating the ways the workplace has infringed upon our lives. She uses the pop-speak phrase 24/7 to symbolize the transformation of our sense of time through technology and the blurring of boundaries between work and home. Helgesen details changes including the shift from an industrial economy to a "knowledge economy"; the technology that has spawned a sleepless business culture; the leaner organizations with longer job descriptions; and the domestic drama of overscheduled children and overmanaged health care and finances. The result, warns Helgesen, is not that time is getting away from us, or that work intrudes upon leisure, but that "We have forfeited ways of being that are fundamental to us as humans."

Yet Helgesen doesn't simply describe the challenges to our public and private lives. She also offers six smart strategies for pursuing what she calls "elegance and simplicity in all our decisions and taking advantage--or resisting--what technology has wrought." Her ideas include a new approach to networking through "building a web of inclusion," learning to "zigzag" by charting an individual path of development, and building a personal brand that expresses core values. Helgesen's artful balance of observations and suggestions creates a insightful and practical guide in a rock-around-the-clock world. --Barbara Mackoff