工作和生活中，难以决定优先事项？

Overload is exacerbatedby the blurred division between work and home life. Julie Morgenstern, productivity expert and author of Never Check E-mail in the Morning, says her clients find they have barely tackled their to-do list by the end of the working day, and end up doing them at home facilitated by technology.

工作和家庭生活之间的界线模糊，加剧了超负荷现象。生产率专家、《永远别在早上查邮件》(Never Check E-mail in the Morning)一书的作者朱丽•摩根斯坦(Julie Morgenstern)说，她的客户发现，他们在工作日结束时根本做不完待办事项，结果要在科技的协助下，在家里完成这些事项。

“They are so tired that their mornings are collapsed.” They might sneak in a few domestic tasks while in the office to make up for it, she adds.

“他们太累了，以至于早上什么都做不了。”她补充说，他们可能会在办公室偷偷做几件私事，以此作为弥补。

This “blurriness” between home and work life is “very depleting”, says Ms Morgenstern, putting people in a perpetual state of catch-up and reaction mode.

摩根斯坦说，家庭和工作之间的这种“界线模糊……非常耗人”，让人们永久处于追赶和反应状态。

Flat structures and organisations’ lack of attention to employees’ ability to manage their workload can add to the overload. A report by McKinsey said that “the myth of infinite time is most painfully experienced through the proliferation of big strategic initiatives and special projects . . . The result is initiative overload: projects get heaped on top of day jobs”.

扁平结构，以及组织对员工管理工作量的能力缺乏关注，可能会加剧超负荷现象。麦肯锡(McKinsey)的一份报告称，“大型战略举措和特别项目的激增，让人以最痛苦的方式体验到时间无穷尽的神话……结果是举措超负荷：项目被压到日常工作之上”。

In addition, many people are confused about their roles, says David Allen, author of Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. When there is ambiguity about roles or strategy, it is easy to get lost in the weeds of distraction. He describes it as the “stress of opportunity”, pointing out that if you “caught on fire you would not have any problems deciding on your priorities”.

此外，《搞定：无压力工作的艺术》(Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity)的作者戴维•艾伦(David Allen)说，很多人对自己的角色感到困惑。当人们对于角色或战略意识模糊时，很容易迷失在分心的杂草中。他将其描述为“机会的压力”，指出，如果你“身上着火了，你不会对决定自己的优先事项犹豫不决”。

People prefer to do things rather than think about why they are doing them, says Chris Bailey, author of Hyperfocus: How to Work Less to Achieve More. “Busyness makes us feel important.” In fact, he says, regardless of your position in the hierarchy or job, very few tasks are “important”.

《极度专注：如何工作更少而成就更高》(Hyperfocus: How to Work Less to Achieve More)的作者克里斯•贝利(Chris Bailey)说，人们更喜欢做事，而不是思考为什么要做它。“忙碌让我们感觉重要。”事实上，他说，无论你在组织等级或工作中的位置如何，没几件任务是“重要的”。

Like most other American companies with a rigid hierarchy, workers and managers had strictly defined duties.像大多数其他等级制度森严的美国公司一样，工人和管理人员都有严格界定的职责。

Research into emergency doctors’ workload found that “under conditions of increased workload individuals may choose to complete easier tasks in order to manage their load”. The researchers called this task completion bias. In the short-term (one hospital shift), doctors seemed to be more productive, by seeing more patients. Yet they were more likely to put off harder tasks. Doctors with a less demanding workload were likely to take on more complicated cases.

针对急诊医生工作量的研究发现，“在工作量增加的情况下，个人会选择完成比较轻松的任务，以管理自己的工作量”。研究者将此定义为任务完成偏见。在短期内(一个医院班次)，看更多病人让医生看起来更具成效。然而他们更有可能推迟比较艰巨的工作。工作量不那么严苛的医生，更有可能接手比较复杂的病例。

Bradley Staats, associate professor of operations at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of North Carolina, says it is important to identify patterns in the way employees organise their work. “There may be a time when it really is better to take on the easier task, as we do need the break, and that will give us the boost we need to then do the harder work.”

北卡罗来纳大学(University of North Carolina)凯南-弗拉格勒商学院(Kenan-Flagler Business School)的运营副教授布拉德利•斯塔茨(Bradley Staats)表示，重要的是要找到员工组织各自工作的规律。“可能在某个时候，先做较轻松的任务确实更好，因为我们确实需要休息，这将给我们必要的提振，让我们之后投入更艰巨的工作。”

In another study he found that radiologists reorder their queue of tasks in unproductive ways. “The broader point here is that we often make suboptimal choices in how we do our work without realising it. As well as looking at the complexity and volume of tasks, systems [including IT tools] may be useful in making recommendations.”

在另一项研究中，他发现放射科医师以不利于生产率的方式重新安排自己的任务顺序。“广义地说，我们经常在无意识的情况下，对自己如何完成工作做出次优的选择。除了看一看任务的复杂性和数量外，系统(包括IT工具)可能提供有用的建议。”