开展深度工作，降低注意残渣

You’ve got a presentation at 2 p.m. But there are also a few emails you have to get to before the end of the week, and you’ve also got to really start prepping for a Monday meeting. But it’s almost lunch and, well, you can eat at your desk, read up on whatever new thing Donald Trump said, and still bust out a few memos, right?

今天下午两点，你要为客户进行展示。然而，你还有几封邮件需要在今天之内查看并回复;此外，你还需要开始为后天的一个会议进行准备工作。不过，现在差不多是午饭时间了，所以你选择了在办公桌旁一边吃饭、一边刷朋友圈、一边进行工作。

Wrong, argues Georgetown University computer-science professor Cal Newport’s new book, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World. In the book, excerpted recently on Wharton’s website, Newport attempts to understand how workers can rise above their infomania. His trick: deep work to conquer attention residue.

Cal Newport是乔治城大学的计算机科学教授，他最近出版了一本新书《深度工作：干扰世界里的专注成功法则》。Newport希望理解员工如何才能克服自身的资讯癖，而他提出的窍门就是：用深度工作来征服“注意残渣”。

Which means … what, exactly? Newport explains it using a 2009 paper titled “Why Is It So Hard to Do My Work?” from Sophie Leroy, a business-school professor at the University of Minnesota. She studied a modern, daily workplace conundrum: switching between tasks and getting things done. In two experiments, Leroy finds that people are less productive when they are constantly moving from one task to another instead of focusing on one thing at a time. As Leroy’s abstract details:

这到底是什么意思?Newport用2009年的一篇论文《为何做自己的工作如此困难?》对此进行解释。该论文的作者是明尼苏达大学商学院教授Sophie Leroy，她探究了一种现代日常工作难题，即任务转换和任务完成。她进行了两个实验，结果发现相较于一次只专注于一个任务而言，不断地在任务之间转移会降低人们的效率。

[P]eople need to stop thinking about one task in order to fully transition their attention and perform well on another. Yet, results indicate it is difficult for people to transition their attention away from an unfinished task and their subsequent task performance suffers.

为了完全转移注意力、好好处理当前任务，人们需要停止对另一项任务的思考。但是结果表明，人们很难将注意力从未完成的任务上转移走，而这会损害下一个任务的表现。

Leroy calls this carryover from one task to another “attention residue,” where you’re still thinking of a previous task as you start another one. Even if you finish your task completely, you still have some attention residue swirling around your head as you embark on your next task, meaning that bullet point on your to-do list doesn’t start off on the right foot. In other words, as much as multitasking gets nods for being an asset in today’s time-crunched world, it’s not really a good thing when it comes to your productivity, and it’s actually a time-waster.

Leroy将这种任务遗留现象称为“注意残渣”，即当你开启另一项任务时，心里仍旧在想着前一个任务。即便彻底完成了前一项任务，你的大脑还是会在开始下一个任务时盘旋着部分“注意残渣”。换句话说，在如今这个时间紧迫的世界里，多任务处理为人所称道;但它其实并不那么利于你的生产率，它会浪费你的时间。

Here’s where what Newport calls “deep work” comes in: He suggests focusing on a single, intense task for a long period of time to reach peak productivity. You don’t get attention-residue issues, which means your output is stronger, cleaner, and just plain better from a lack of distractions. So if you’ve got ten emails to write, block off some time to just focus on those emails. If you’ve got a presentation due tomorrow, put your away message on, sequester yourself, and focus on banging out that presentation. Most important: Don’t stop — or begin something else — until you’re completely done.

因此，Newport提出“深度工作”：他建议人们长时间专注于一项高强度的任务里，以达到最高生产力。当你不再有“注意残渣”的问题时，你的产出将更高效、更畅通;在没有干扰项的情况下，你的工作质量将更高。因此，如果你还有一些邮件需要回复，那么可以隔出一些时间专门用于邮件处理。如果你明天有一个展示，那么便不要去理会各种信息，让自己专注于展示的准备。最重要的是：在任务完成之前，不要停止——或开启一项新任务。