亲爱的安妮：我快30岁了，是谢丽尔•桑德伯格《向前一步》（Lean In）的忠实粉丝。我的确有像这本书的副标题所列的“领导意愿”，但我也有两个小孩，而一天只有24个小时。桑德伯格很会激励人，但对于她在成长过程中（在她变得富有，有能力聘请全能的保姆和获得其他居家帮助之前），她如何打理所有的事情，她从未深入探讨那些细节问题。

    我和其他可能还有数百万的工作父母，真正能应用的是一些实用的时间管理技巧，平衡我们手头的所有事情。你知道一些什么技巧？

--俄亥俄州的不堪重负

    亲爱的不堪重负：如果可以的话，我想向你再推荐一本书。特瑞萨•泰勒也曾经面临与你相同的状况，现在她已经就此写了一本书。她在事业巅峰期曾担任总部位于丹佛的电信公司Qwest（2011年被CenturyLink收购）的首席运营官，还曾经入围《财富》杂志最具影响力女性的高薪排行榜。

    《平衡的奥妙：反思工作与生活之平衡》（The Balance Myth: Rethinking Work-Life Success）一书提供了大量你希望看到的那些“细枝末节”。这本书开宗明义地写道，“工作与生活平衡”的整个理念是一个不现实的目标，只会让人们感到他们事事都做不好。“像‘多任务处理’和‘平衡’这样的字眼，等于是说要比同事跑得更快，或者要像最优秀的中国杂耍演员一样让盘子持续在空中旋转，”泰勒写到。“这类理念的问题是，人总是会有失误，旋转的盘子也终究会因重力作用而掉下来。”

    全球广告公司Zeno Group对于1,000位拥有本科以上学历的千禧女性（出生于1980年至1992年）进行的最新调查显示，这个前景看起来对于你这个年龄段的女性尤为突出，只有15%的人表示，她们想在大机构获得高职位工作。这项调查发现，超过四分之三（80%）的人“担心她们是否有能力在个人目标与职业目标间取得平衡”。10人中有9人认为，女性必须比男性“作出更多的牺牲”，而且有近一半的人（49%）表示，这些牺牲意味着高强度工作“并不值得”。

    因此，泰勒此书的出版可谓正当其时，至少可以激励一些年轻的奋斗者不要过早放弃。下面简要概括一下泰勒及其丈夫抚养两个儿子时使用的6大技巧：

    1.停止一心二用。不要尝试同时做几件事，每天做规划，让你有整块的时间 （即使只是10分钟或15分钟）专门做一件事。泰勒写道：“因为我能够对我专注做的事情给予百分百的投入——不用多任务来管理整块时间，我比以往任何时候都更加高效。”

    2.做任何事都要设定时间期限。 泰勒把这条规定应用到工作和家庭中，无论是包装假日礼物，还是准备客户演示都是如此。“一旦到了规定的时间期限，就停下来，”她说。“不要不停地调整，也不要再改变细枝末节。”

    这一点需要一些练习，以及愿意放弃完美。“这也是一个学习机会，”泰勒指出。比方说，要将所有礼物都包好的时间不够用，这意味着“我需要计划更大块的时间，或者找到其他方法来完成这项工作——比方说下次使用礼品袋或者棉纸。

    Dear Annie: I am in my late 20s and a big fan of Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In, and I do have what the book's subtitle calls "the will to lead," but I also have two little kids and only 24 hours in the day. Inspiring as she is, Sandberg never quite gets around to filling in the nitty-gritty details about how she managed to do everything on her way up (before she got rich and could hire hot-and-cold-running nannies and other household help).

    What I, and probably several million other working parents, could really use is some down-to-earth time-management techniques for balancing everything we've got going on. Do you know of any?

-- Overloaded in Ohio

    Dear Overloaded: I'd like to recommend another addition to your bookshelf, if I may. Teresa Taylor -- who, at the pinnacle of her career, was chief operating officer of Denver-based telecom Qwest (acquired by CenturyLink (CTL) in 2011) and among the highest paid on Fortune's Most Powerful Women list -- has been in your shoes, and now she's written a book about it.

    The Balance Myth: Rethinking Work-Life Success is packed with the kind of "nitty-gritty details" you're looking for, starting with the premise that the whole idea of "work-life balance" is an unrealistic goal that just makes people feel as if they're failing at everything. "Words like 'multitasking' and 'balance' are code words for the ability to run faster than an officemate or the ability to keep plates spinning in the air like the best Chinese juggler," Taylor writes. "The problem with these concepts is that eventually one trips, or gravity wins."

    That prospect seems to be so daunting to women in your age group that only 15% say they would want a top job at a big organization, says a new survey of 1,000 college-educated female millennials (born between 1980 and 1992) by global ad agency Zeno Group. The poll found that more than three-quarters (80%) are "concerned about their ability to achieve a balance between personal and professional goals." Nine in 10 agree that women "have to make more sacrifices" than their male peers, and about half (49%) say those sacrifices mean that high-powered jobs "aren't worth it."

    So Taylor's book seems well-timed to encourage at least some young strivers not to give up too soon. Here's a brief synopsis of six techniques that worked for Taylor, while she and her husband were raising two sons:

    1. Stop multitasking. Instead of trying to do several things at once, plan your day so that you have blocks of time (even if they're only 10 or 15 minutes long) where you are working exclusively on one thing. "Because I was able to give 100 percent to whatever I was focused on -- managing my blocks of time without multitasking -- I was more effective at my job than I had ever been before," Taylor writes.

    2. Assign a time limit to everything you do. Taylor applied this rule to both work and home, whether wrapping holiday presents or readying a client presentation. "Once you reach the time limit for a given task, stop," she says. "Don't keep modifying it or changing small details."

    This takes some practice and a willingness to let go of perfectionism. "It's also a learning opportunity," Taylor notes. Running out of time before all the gifts are wrapped, for example, means "I need to schedule a larger block of time, or find another solution to get the job done -- like using gift bags and tissue paper next time."